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Farmington vs St. Cloud

Cost of living comparison based on BEA Regional Price Parities. St. Cloud is 0.1% less expensive than Farmington.

0.1% less expensive

St. Cloud, MN is 0.1% less expensive than Farmington, NM on BEA Regional Price Parities (overall RPP 87.6 vs 87.7). A $100,000 salary in Farmington buys about the same as $99,914 in St. Cloud; the largest component gap is services.

  • Overall RPP 87.7 (Farmington) vs 87.6 (St. Cloud)
  • $100k in Farmington ≈ $99,914 purchasing power in St. Cloud
  • Services drives the gap (+10.8 RPP points)

RPP parity plate

Pair NM:MN 87.7→87.6

PHOTO-FINISH · CROSS-STATE · SPLIT-BUDGET · BOTH-BELOW · PP-PAR

  • PHOTO-FINISH Photo finish
  • CROSS-STATE NM × MN
  • SPLIT-BUDGET Split budget
  • BOTH-BELOW Both below 100
  • PP-PAR PP near-par

Instrument codes from this pair's BEA Regional Price Parities (overall · goods · services · rents · national benchmark 100 · purchasing-power conversion), not a ranking or recommendation.

Farmington
87.7
Cost Index
St. Cloud
87.6
Cost Index

What This Comparison Actually Tells You

Farmington, NM and St. Cloud, MN are a photo finish on overall price level, only 0.1 RPP points apart. A salary conversion is therefore a fine adjustment, not evidence of a fundamentally different cost regime.

Services creates the largest separation: St. Cloud is 10.8 points higher. But services and rents move against the overall direction, so this is a split budget rather than a clean across-the-board winner.

Comparable population context is incomplete for this pair, so no market-scale explanation is inferred from the price indexes.

Both metros remain below the U.S. benchmark of 100. This comparison chooses between two below-average price levels; “more expensive” here does not mean nationally expensive.

For a service-heavy household, test childcare, health, and other locally supplied costs before relying on rent alone. The BEA ratio converts $100,000 in Farmington to $99,914 in St. Cloud, but it is not a personal spending weight.

Category Breakdown

Visual Comparison

Overall
Farmington
87.7
St. Cloud
87.6
Goods
Farmington
96.1
St. Cloud
95.4
Services
Farmington
77.9
St. Cloud
88.7
Rents
Farmington
56.6
St. Cloud
65.1

Vertical line = national average (100)

Salary Equivalents

What a salary in Farmington would need to be in St. Cloud for the same purchasing power:

In Farmington In St. Cloud Difference
$50,000 $49,957 $-43
$75,000 $74,936 $-64
$100,000 $99,914 $-86
$150,000 $149,872 $-128
$ in Farmington = – in St. Cloud

Same BEA Regional Price Parity ratio as the table above (87.7 → 87.6), computed live from your number, nothing is sent anywhere.

Reverse: St. Cloud → Farmington Farmington Details St. Cloud Details

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is St. Cloud more expensive than Farmington?

St. Cloud is 0.1% less expensive than Farmington. The overall cost index is 87.6 vs 87.7 (national average = 100).

What salary in St. Cloud equals $100K in Farmington?

A $100,000 salary in Farmington has the same purchasing power as $99,914 in St. Cloud. This is based on the BEA Regional Price Parity indexes.

How do rents compare between Farmington and St. Cloud?

Rents in Farmington are indexed at 56.6 while St. Cloud is at 65.1 (national average = 100). St. Cloud has higher rents.

Data sources

Data sourced from official public datasets, Regional Price Parities (2024), index where national average = 100. Retrieved and formatted by PlainCost. See our methodology for details.

Every figure on PlainCost is rendered directly from BEA Regional Price Parity source data, no number is typed in by an editor. See our editorial standards & corrections policy, the methodology behind these numbers, our changelog, or report a data error. Data current as of 2026-08-11. Rankings measure the published cost-of-living index only; we don't recommend where to live or rate any metro's quality of life.