Cost of Living
per year
per month
How San Leandro's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in San Leandro?
Your $100,000 in San Leandro has the same purchasing power as $67,536 in the average US city. You'd need $32,464 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 San Leandro's cost index of 148, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to San Leandro, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. A higher-income labor market than the national norm and daily errands don't require a car lead, plus 2 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The typical household in San Leandro pulls in $97,141 — 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.
With a citywide Walk Score of 55/100, San Leandro sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Bike Score of 70/100 in San Leandro. That puts it in the small group of US cities where you can do groceries, commute, and run errands on a bike without it being a feat of urban survival.
Average AQI in San Leandro comes in around 44, well into the "good" band. Clean air isn't a thing you appreciate until you've lived somewhere it wasn't — and this is the side of that line you want to be on.
Reasons are pulled from San Leandro'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 43°F, San Leandro 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 San Leandro sit around 43°F — sweater-and-jacket weather most days, with the occasional cold front that reminds you it's still winter.
Warm without being brutal. Summer in San Leandro sits about 72°F on average. Afternoons can push into the high 80s, but mornings and evenings are usually genuinely pleasant.
Zone 9, give or take a half-zone. San Leandro's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 9 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Around 23 feet (7 m) above sea level — flat enough that nothing about San Leandro's altitude shows up in daily life.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. San Leandro's ~5,525 per 100,000 reflects a citywide aggregate. Some neighborhoods here are notably safer than the average; others are notably worse. Worth looking at the specific area, not the city-level number.
Significantly. San Leandro's index of 148 puts it in the top tier of US cities for cost of living — roughly 48% above the national baseline. The pattern is familiar: housing eats a large share of incomes, and people earning median-equivalent jobs from cheaper metros feel the difference fast.
In parts, yes. With a citywide Walk Score of 55/100, San Leandro has genuinely walkable neighborhoods alongside more sprawled stretches. Transit Score is 32 out of 100. If walkability matters to you, the neighborhood choice will matter more than the city-level number.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $103,649 to live in San Leandro 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 San Leandro runs about $1,997/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.