How Much Does a Hotel Cost? The Average Hotel Price in 50 U.S. Cities

The average hotel price across 50 major U.S. markets is $148 a night, the median of the 50 city averages, drawn from 128,536,941 prices business travelers saw while searching on Engine between May 2024 and April 2026.

The dataset contains markets averaging $97 a night and markets averaging $336, and cities whose cheapest and priciest months differ by more than half.

Based on the par rate: the cheapest publicly available price a hotel showed during a live search. These are not negotiated corporate rates, Engine's contracted pricing, or the price booked. Negotiated rates typically sit below these numbers.

Cheapest to priciest across 50 markets

• $148 a night is the median of the 50 city averages.
• Oklahoma City is the cheapest market at $97.
• New York is the priciest at $336, roughly 3.5 times Oklahoma City.
• 12 of the 50 markets average under $130.
• 7 average $200 or more.

The gap between the cheapest and priciest markets is wider than any single city's gap between its own cheapest and priciest month.

• Cheapest five: Oklahoma City ($97), San Antonio ($114), Omaha ($115), Memphis ($116), Jacksonville ($122).
• Priciest five: New York ($336), Boston ($311), Washington, D.C. ($252), Chicago ($233), Palm Springs ($229).
• The middle is crowded: 39 of the 50 average between $120 and $200.

The mean sits at $160, above the median, because a few expensive coastal markets drag it up while most cities cluster low.

An average alone does not show how a market moves through the year, so each per-city page shows the full monthly numbers. All 50 markets are listed here, sorted by average rate.

Within a city, the month is worth more than most travel budgets assume.

• 40 of the 50 markets are cheapest between November and February.
• The other 10, mostly Sun Belt, are cheapest in summer.
• 22 of the 50 peak in June or July.
• The typical market swings 32% between its cheapest and priciest month.
• The most seasonal ones swing 40% to 64%.

Pick any market to see its curve:

Three markets mark the extremes:

• Boston runs $166 in January and $458 in October, a 64% spread.
• Phoenix runs the opposite pattern, peaking at $246 in February and falling to $96 by August.
• El Paso barely moves: 10% between its cheapest and priciest month, the flattest curve in the dataset.

New York does both at once. Its cheapest month, $196, is the highest in the dataset, and it still swings 64%, topping out at $541 in December.

In dollars, over five nights:

• Boston in January instead of October: $1,460 less.
• New York in January instead of December: $1,725 less.
• Chicago in January instead of June: $960 less.
• El Paso, cheapest month instead of priciest: $65 less. There is nothing to optimize.

The full month-by-month breakdown for all 50 markets is in Every City Has a Season, the study this data comes from.

Four kinds of market

Grouped by how prices move through the year instead of by price level, the markets fall into four patterns. These are the same groups the full study uses, split by each city's cheapest season rather than its peak.

• Winter-low markets, 17 of 50: all 17 are cheapest in December or January, with peaks scattered from May to October. Boston, Chicago, Seattle, Denver.
• Summer-low markets, 7 of 50: all 7 are cheapest in summer, with peaks scattered from February to October. Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Palm Springs, Las Vegas, and Washington, D.C.
• One-week markets, 10 of 50: flat except for one expensive month. Omaha, Albuquerque, San Diego, New Orleans, Indianapolis, and Houston are the clearest cases.
• Flat markets, 14 of 50: no season worth planning around. El Paso, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Memphis, Oklahoma City, Atlanta.

New York and San Francisco fit none of the four groups. New York swings 64% with the highest cheapest-month rate in the dataset, and San Francisco moves with the conference calendar instead of the seasons.

The whole dataset in one view

The same 50 markets, laid out by month:

Two patterns stand out.

Summer is the common peak: 22 of the 50 markets top out in June or July. But the eight that peak in October are the pricier ones. Their cheapest months average $140 against the summer group's $120, and they average $180 a night against $149. Fall is a smaller peak in more expensive places.

The Sun Belt runs the opposite calendar: ten markets are cheapest in summer, and seven of those, including Phoenix, Miami, Tampa, and Orlando, peak between February and April instead.

Why the number moves this much

Treat the figures above as measurements and this section as informed opinion.

Supply meeting stacked demand

The priciest markets are almost certainly the ones where compressed hotel supply meets corporate, convention, and leisure demand on the same calendar. Boston is the clearest example, with academic, medical, and conference schedules competing for the same small inventory.

Weather, running in two directions

Cold-winter cities likely discount hardest in January and February because demand collapses. Sun Belt markets do the reverse. Phoenix, falling from $246 in February to $96 in August, is the extreme case.

One event can move a whole month

Omaha sits near $100 most of the year, then jumps to $182 in June, which we attribute to the College World Series. Albuquerque does it in October, Indianapolis in May.

When a single month sits far above the rest of the year, check the event calendar before assuming the market is expensive.

Some curves we cannot explain

Detroit peaks in October and we do not have a clear explanation. Fall meeting timing is plausible, but the data does not confirm it.

What about booking further ahead?

This dataset does not answer that. Every observation comes from searches made 10 to 180 days before check-in, pooled, so lead time is held roughly constant rather than measured.

What it does measure is the month you stay, and that is the one you can act on if your dates are flexible.

Using this when you plan

The practical version is short:

• In a flat market, book whenever the work requires. The study tags 14 of the 50 that way.
• In a seasonal market, check the peak month before committing dates. A 40% to 64% spread beats most negotiated discounts.
• If the city has a famous event, check the calendar first. The months on either side of a spike usually sit near the city's baseline.
• If dates are fixed and the city is expensive, picking a cheaper month is not an option, and rate negotiation or direct billing is what is left.

Engine is free to use, with no contracts and no minimums, and it shows the same public rates this analysis is built from alongside member pricing on hotel bookings. If your team books work travel regularly, see what your markets cost.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much does a hotel cost per night in the U.S.?

The median average nightly rate across 50 major U.S. markets is $148, based on 128,536,941 publicly available rates observed in business-travel searches on Engine between May 2024 and April 2026. These are par rates, meaning the cheapest public price offered at the time of each search, not negotiated or booked rates. Individual market averages range from $97 in Oklahoma City to $336 in New York.

What is the average hotel price in the most expensive U.S. cities?

New York averages $336 a night, Boston $311, Washington, D.C. $252, Chicago $233, and Palm Springs $229. Seven of the 50 markets in the dataset average $200 or more. All figures are par rates from business-travel searches on Engine, May 2024 to April 2026, not negotiated corporate rates.

Which U.S. cities have the cheapest hotels?

Oklahoma City is the cheapest market at $97 a night, followed by San Antonio at $114, Omaha at $115, Memphis at $116, and Jacksonville at $122. Twelve of the 50 markets average under $130. These are par rates observed in business-travel searches on Engine between May 2024 and April 2026.

What is the cheapest month to book a hotel?

It depends on the city. Forty of the 50 markets are cheapest sometime between November and February, while the other 10, mostly in the Sun Belt, are cheapest in summer instead. The typical market swings 32% between its cheapest and priciest month, so the city's own pattern matters more than any national rule.

How much can changing the month of a trip save?

In seasonal markets, a great deal. Five nights in Boston cost about $1,460 less in January than in October, and five nights in New York about $1,725 less in January than in December, based on par rates observed on Engine between May 2024 and April 2026. In flat markets the same move is worth almost nothing: five nights in El Paso differ by about $65 between its cheapest and priciest month.

Why do hotel prices vary so much between cities?

Measured spreads are large: the priciest market in this dataset costs about 3.5 times the cheapest. Our best explanation is a combination of hotel supply density, the mix of corporate versus leisure demand a city runs on, and how concentrated its event calendar is. Markets with steady year-round business demand, like El Paso, stay flat, while markets where several calendars overlap on limited inventory swing hardest.

Which cities have hotel prices that stay the same all year?

Nine of the 50 markets swing 20% or less between their cheapest and priciest month: El Paso, Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth, Charlotte, Memphis, San Antonio, Raleigh-Durham, Sacramento, and Honolulu. El Paso is the flattest at 10%. Honolulu is the exception worth noting, because it is flat at a high price rather than a low one.

Does booking earlier get you a cheaper hotel rate?

This analysis does not measure that. All observations come from searches made 10 to 180 days before check-in and are pooled together, so the figures describe which month you stay rather than how far ahead you book.

About this data

The figures on this page come from 128,536,941 hotel prices that business travelers saw when searching on Engine, a platform companies use to book work trips, across 50 U.S. markets between May 2024 and April 2026.

Every data point is a par rate, meaning the cheapest publicly available nightly rate a hotel offered at the moment of a live search. These are the prices companies see while planning a trip, not Engine's negotiated rates and not the prices ultimately booked. Negotiated rates typically sit below what is shown here.

We included only searches made 10 to 180 days before check-in, limited to business accounts, with internal, test, and promotional activity excluded. Monthly figures pool multiple years to smooth year-to-year noise, so an unusually large one-off event can occasionally push a single city-month higher than a typical year.

Data analysis by Jack Swiatoschik. Written by Alec Hollingsworth. Reviewed by Engine's data team.

Cite these findings: Based on 128,536,941 publicly available hotel rate observations across 50 U.S. markets, Engine, May 2024 to April 2026. Reference this analysis at engine.com/blog/average-hotel-price, or the full seasonality study at engine.com/data/every-city-has-a-season.