Amarillo vs Waco
Metro-area medians — Amarillo, TX Metro Area vs Waco, TX Metro Area — not the cities proper.
Amarillo comes out ahead, winning 6 of the 8 clearly-decided measures.
Amarillo and Waco are closely matched on both cost of living and household income. Adjusted for local prices, a typical paycheck stretches further in Amarillo.
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, Amarillo leaves you about $527/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 Amarillo for
- + Livability (CityLedger)
- + Cost-adjusted income (pay's real value)
- + Median rent
- + Median home value
- + Bachelor's degree or higher
- + Air quality (median AQI)
Amarillo vs Waco — frequently asked
- Is Amarillo cheaper than Waco?
- They are about even — the overall cost of living in the Amarillo and Waco metros is within 3% of each other (BEA Regional Price Parities), so neither is meaningfully cheaper.
- Which has higher household income, Amarillo or Waco?
- Amarillo has the higher median household income — $69,595 versus $67,792 (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS), about 3% more.
- Does a paycheck go further in Amarillo or Waco?
- A paycheck stretches further in Amarillo. Adjusted for local prices, the median income is worth $75,795 there versus $73,249 in Waco.
- Which has cheaper rent, Amarillo or Waco?
- Amarillo has cheaper rent — a median of $1,097/mo versus $1,238/mo (U.S. Census Bureau, ACS).