Kansas City vs St. Louis
Metro-area medians — Kansas City, MO-KS Metro Area vs St. Louis, MO-IL Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Kansas City comes out ahead, winning 6 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
Kansas City and St. Louis are closely matched on both cost of living and household income. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Kansas City.
For your salary & household
Enter your pay and household size to see what it's really worth here — the numbers update live and the link stays shareable.
On $75,000 for just you, Kansas City leaves you about $1,698/yr better off after tax and local prices.
Take-home estimates a single filer taking the standard deduction (2025 federal brackets, FICA, and state income tax) and isn't tax advice. “Real value” rebases take-home to average U.S. prices using the BEA cost-of-living index; the per-person figure uses the OECD square-root equivalence scale.
Choose Kansas City for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Unemployment
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Average commute
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Kansas City vs St. Louis — frequently asked
- Is Kansas City cheaper than St. Louis?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Kansas City and St. Louis metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Kansas City or St. Louis?
- Kansas City has the higher median household income — $83,785 versus $81,679 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 3% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Kansas City or St. Louis?
- A paycheck stretches further in Kansas City. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $90,536 there versus $85,898 in St. Louis.
- Which has cheaper rent, Kansas City or St. Louis?
- St. Louis has cheaper rent — a median of $1,154/mo versus $1,315/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).