Cost of Living
per year
per month
How Winston-Salem's prices compare to the US city average across major spending categories.
How far does your salary go in Winston-Salem?
Your $100,000 in Winston-Salem has the same purchasing power as $115,942 in the average US city. You'd need $15,942 less 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 Winston-Salem's cost index of 86, sorted by closest match.
These are the reasons people actually move to Winston-Salem, ordered roughly by what shows up loudest in the data. Living costs come in under the US baseline and daily errands don't require a car lead, plus 2 more things worth knowing — the rest unpacked below.
The composite cost-of-living index lands at 86, a comfortable 14% under the US norm. It shows up most clearly in housing, which is where the gap to coastal metros usually opens up. Median rent in town runs about $956/mo against a typical household income of $54,416, which is the kind of ratio that leaves room to save.
With a citywide Walk Score of 71/100, Winston-Salem sits firmly in the walkable-by-US-standards camp. Pick a central neighborhood and most daily errands happen without keys in your hand.
Average AQI in Winston-Salem comes in around 42, 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.
Average commute time in Winston-Salem runs around 22 minutes one-way — short enough that it doesn't restructure your day. Compared to the 45-plus-minute commutes that are normal in major metros, the difference adds up to a real lifestyle gap.
Reasons are pulled from Winston-Salem'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.
Snow is a regular feature, not a surprise. With winter temperatures hovering near 32°F, Winston-Salem sees enough snowfall that locals don't think twice about it but also enough mild stretches that nobody owns three pairs of boots.
A real winter, but not a punishing one. Winston-Salem averages roughly 32°F in winter, with the coldest mornings dipping into the single digits a few times a year and most days landing somewhere between "chilly" and "actually cold".
Reliably warm. Winston-Salem's summer averages around 87°F, the kind of heat where you remember to leave the house before noon for outdoor things and accept that the back of your shirt will be wet by lunchtime.
Zone 8, give or take a half-zone. Winston-Salem's typical winter low puts it in that band on the USDA Hardiness map, which is what nurseries label plants against. Use Zone 8 as your starting filter; the USDA's interactive map is more precise for borderline cases.
Roughly 823 feet (251 m). That's modest elevation — comparable to most inland-Midwest and Southern cities.
Atlantic basin storms can form from June 1 to November 30, but the serious ones cluster in August, September, and the first half of October. Residents of Winston-Salem learn the season's rhythm fast: watch the cone, board up when it's the call, and don't shrug off the slow-mover storms — those are usually the ones that flood.
Worse than the national norm, but it depends where. Winston-Salem's ~5,102 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.
Winston-Salem is a genuinely affordable city by US standards. The composite index sits at 86 versus the 100 national baseline — about 14% cheaper overall, with housing doing most of the heavy lifting.
Winston-Salem scores 71/100 on Walk Score, putting it in the "very walkable" tier. It's the kind of city where you don't think of going to the grocery store as "going" to the grocery store.
As a rule of thumb, plan on about $60,375 to live in Winston-Salem 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 Winston-Salem runs about $956/mo — keeping housing under 30% of gross income points to a similar floor on what you'd want to earn.