Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Plano's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Plano?
Your $100,000 in Plano has the same purchasing power as $92,894 in the average US city. You'd need $7,106 more here to maintain that standard of living.
Demographics and workforce data from the US Census ACS 5-Year.
bachelor's or higher
Climate, safety, and walkability indicators.
See a side-by-side breakdown of cost of living, housing, and salaries.
Popular comparisons
Sorted by affordability — most affordable first.
Within 10 points of Plano's cost index of 108, sorted by closest match.
Plano has a handful of real selling points, and they're not the kind of thing you find in a brochure. Texas doesn't tax your paycheck and solidly above-average earnings are the headliners, plus 2 more things worth knowing. The rest is below.
Living in Plano means no state income tax on your salary — Texas is one of nine states that simply doesn't have one. On a $100k income that's typically thousands of dollars a year that stay in your account instead of going to a state revenue department.
The typical household in Plano pulls in $105,679 — comfortably above the US median. Combined with the cost of living here, the income-to-expense ratio works out better than a quick look at either number in isolation would suggest.
Reported crime in Plano comes in around 2,041 per 100,000 — under the national baseline of about 3,500. Worth digging into specific neighborhoods before settling on one, but the city-level picture is on the safer side.
Plano has a college-educated share of about 58% among adults 25+, which is higher than the national norm. It shows up in the local job mix, in the school district's reputation, and in the kind of conversations you have at the coffee shop.
Reasons are pulled from Plano's actual data — Census ACS, BLS, BEA, NOAA, EPA AQS, FBI, and Walk Score. We don't list positives that aren't supported by the numbers, which is why different cities show different sections.
Not really a snow town. With winters averaging 40°F, Plano sits in the mild-cold band where snowflakes appear occasionally and everything melts within a day. Most years see one storm worth talking about.
Cool, not cold. Winters in Plano sit around 40°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Properly hot. Plano's summer averages around 96°F with daily highs that routinely break 100°F. The trick to summer here is starting the day at sunrise and staying inside through the worst of it.
Plano falls in roughly USDA Zone 9. The zone classification is based on average annual minimum temperatures, so it's the right lookup for whether perennials and trees will overwinter here. Note that this is approximate from our winter-temperature data — check the USDA map for the exact zone before betting an expensive plant on it.
Roughly 719 feet (219 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Hurricane season covers June through November, with peak activity in late summer and early fall. For Plano, the practical advice is: have a few days of water and supplies on hand from August onward, know your evacuation route, and don't wait for the news to tell you a storm is "probably nothing" — track the cone yourself.
Middle of the pack. Plano comes in around 2,041 per 100,000, basically the national average. The interesting question is usually which neighborhood, not which city — that's where the real variation lives.
It's a middle-of-the-road US city on cost. Plano's index of 108 sits within a few points of the national average — your money buys roughly what it would in a typical American metro.
Plano scores 37 out of 100 on Walk Score, which translates to "car-dependent but not aggressively so". Transit Score is 21 out of 100. Some neighborhoods buck the citywide average; the dense inner cores are usually noticeably more walkable than the city number suggests.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $75,355 to live in Plano the way a $70,000 earner lives in a typical US city. The math gets less forgiving the lower you go below that. Median rent in Plano runs about $1,699/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.