Average Cost of Living

What Average Cost of Living does

AverageCostOfLiving is a privately-held cost-of-living data aggregation platform published at averagecostof.living. It tracks 1,003 cities across 174 countries and 18 regions, normalizing prices from public price databases to USD with daily exchange-rate refreshes and a scheduled price-update cadence. The platform anchors all comparisons to a proprietary index in which New York City = 100 and presents results across 11 categories (housing, food and groceries, transportation, utilities, childcare, education, clothing, sports and leisure, restaurants, salaries and mortgages, and healthcare) for a single person, a family of four, and a student.

The product surface consists of an interactive city explorer (one page per city), a salary calculator that translates income between cities with lifestyle adjustments (frugal, comfortable, generous, premium) and household composition, a side-by-side city comparison tool, region and country browse pages, and curated rankings such as the 2026 Best Cities for Expats (ranked by net salary to monthly cost ratio, filtered to local net salaries above $1,200/month and complete category coverage). A daily-updated FX layer enables a built-in currency switcher, and the site serves static city and region pages optimized for organic search traffic. The platform includes no native mobile app and exposes no API or SDK.

Commercially the business is product-led and self-serve: end users access all features without an account, traffic is acquired primarily through SEO on city-specific queries, and retention is driven by a monthly email digest. Monetization is described solely as a CC BY-NC 4.0 license for derived metrics, which is a non-commercial clause and therefore structurally limits direct revenue. Customers identified in the input are horizontally segmented into three personas: relocating individuals, expats and remote workers, and researchers and analysts. The company is bootstrapped, with no disclosed funding, no headcount, no management team bios, and no named enterprise or consumer customers.

Name

Average Cost of Living

Website

https://averagecostof.living

Company type

Private

Founded year

2026

Operating status

Operating

Short description

AverageCostOfLiving is a cost-of-living data aggregation platform covering 1,003 cities across 174 countries, normalizing prices to USD on a proprietary NYC=100 index. It serves relocating individuals, expats, remote workers, and researchers through self-serve city explorers, a salary calculator, and comparison tools.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Cost-of-Living Data and Analytics

NAICS

Computing Infrastructure Providers, Data Processing, Web Hosting, and Related Services (5182)

akta.pro primary industry

Economic & Consumer Market Literacy (Inflation, Interest Rates, Cost of Living) (EDAAAJAO)

akta.pro secondary industry

Digital Nomad & Remote-Work Monthly Stays (THAMAFAI)

Keywords

• Cost-of-living data
• City comparison tool
• Salary calculator
• Expat rankings
• Relocation data

GTM type

B2C

Offering type

Digital Commerce or Content

Cost components

Technology or R&D, Operations, Marketing or Sales, Personnel, Infrastructure

Revenue model

1. Data Licensing: The company licenses derived metrics including cost-of-living index, monthly cost estimates, and salary calculator outputs under CC BY-NC 4.0 license for use in third-party projects.

Go-to-market motion1 record

Distribution channels1 record

Marketing channels3 records

Core offering

Average Cost of Living is a free web platform that aggregates and normalizes cost-of-living data from public price databases into USD for 1,003 cities across 174 countries. It sells derived metrics (Cost-of-Living Index, monthly cost estimates, salary calculator outputs) under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license for third-party use. The site provides per-city explorer pages, a salary translation calculator, a city comparison tool, and curated rankings (e.g., Best Cities for Expats) for individuals comparing affordability across locations.

Product overview

AverageCostOfLiving is a single unified web platform providing cost-of-living data for 1,003 cities across 174 countries. The core product is the city cost-of-living explorer, which offers detailed breakdowns across 11 categories per city: housing, food & groceries, transportation, utilities, childcare, education, clothing, sports & leisure, restaurants, salaries & mortgages, and healthcare. Supporting features include a salary calculator (for translating salaries between cities), a city comparison tool, region and country browse pages, and curated rankings such as 'Best Cities for Expats' (2026 Ranking). All data is aggregated from public price databases, normalized to USD, and refreshed on a scheduled cadence with daily exchange rate updates. Derived metrics are available under CC BY-NC 4.0 license.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Products and services

• City Cost-of-Living Explorer

Segments3 records

Ideal customer profiles3 records

Technology focussed Yes

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature3 records

Scale indicators3 records

Recent moves4 records

Expansion highlights4 records

Direct peers

• Expatistan: Expatistan provides a cost-of-living comparison tool for expats and relocating individuals, with city-to-city comparisons and a free index similar to AverageCostOfLiving's salary calculator. It targets the same primary persona (relocators and expats) with a near-identical value proposition.
• Numbeo: Numbeo is the largest crowdsourced cost-of-living database in the world. It is the closest direct competitor to AverageCostOfLiving, offering city-by-city price indices, comparisons, and quality-of-life data on a self-serve web platform — essentially the same product category and audience.

Emerging players

• Nomad List: Nomad List is a community-driven ranking of cities for digital nomads that incorporates cost of living alongside internet speed, safety, and weather. It targets the same digital-nomad and remote-worker persona that AverageCostOfLiving's "Best Cities for Expats" ranking addresses.
• Teleport Cities: Teleport provides quality-of-life scores and rankings for 300+ cities, with cost of living as a major input. It overlaps with AverageCostOfLiving in audience (people considering relocation) and in underlying methodology (normalized cross-city comparisons).
• Movehub: Movehub provides city guides, cost-of-living data, and relocation services to people moving internationally. It addresses the same use case (cost-of-living research before relocation) and monetizes through moving services rather than advertising alone.
• PayScale Cost of Living Calculator: PayScale offers a salary-to-cost-of-living calculator that translates compensation across US metros. It directly overlaps with AverageCostOfLiving's salary calculator feature but is narrower in geographic scope.

Regional players

• BestPlaces: BestPlaces offers cost-of-living comparisons focused on the US market. It overlaps in product (city-level cost comparison) but lacks the global coverage that distinguishes AverageCostOfLiving. Comparable as a regional/US peer for the North America portion of the dataset.
• Sperling's Best Places: Sperling's Best Places aggregates cost-of-living and quality-of-life data for US cities. It is a US-centric peer in the same category — comparable in product surface area but lacking global city coverage.

Broad incumbents

• Mercer Cost of Living Survey: Mercer's Cost of Living Survey is the enterprise standard for global mobility and expatriate compensation benchmarking, covering 200+ cities. While focused on B2B HR/relocation use cases, it competes for the same underlying cost-of-living data layer and overlaps in expat audience.
• EIU (Economist Intelligence Unit) Cost of Living: The EIU publishes a widely cited global cost-of-living index across 170+ cities. It is a broader incumbent in the same data category, serving corporate and institutional clients but also shaping the consumer reference set that AverageCostOfLiving operates within.

Market position

Strengths5 records

Weaknesses5 records

Competitive moat2 records

Key risks6 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Average Cost of Living