Ohio households are paying significantly less than most of the country for their monthly bills, with a typical household spending about 17% less than the national median once rent, mortgages, utilities, and car costs are added up. A new report pegs the state’s median at $1,726 a month across the most common household bill categories, compared with a $2,083 national median.
A New Report Crunches the Numbers
The figures come from the 2026 U.S. Household Bill Pay Report, compiled by Doxo, an online bill payment service, which compared common household expenses using its own bill payment data along with other sources, according to NBC4 WCMH-TV. The report ranked Ohio as the 37th most expensive state in the U.S. for household bills, per that account — though a separate version of the underlying Doxo report places Ohio 36th nationally, with a median monthly bill of $1,717 and an index 18% below the national figure. The two accounts differ slightly on Ohio’s exact rank and median, and the dossier does not explain why.
Doxo says its index is built on actual bill-payment activity from more than 10 million paying consumers and over 120,000 billers across 97% of U.S. ZIP codes, with a baseline index value of 100 representing the national median for comparison.
Where Ohio Saves — and Where It Doesn’t
The savings show up most clearly in housing. Ohio’s median monthly mortgage bill came in at $1,276, compared with $1,769 nationally, the station reports — a gap of roughly $500 a month. Renters fare just as well: the median monthly rent in Ohio sits at $1,017, versus $1,453 nationally, a difference of $436 a month, according to the same report.
Auto loans and electricity bills followed the same pattern. Ohio’s median monthly auto loan payment was $412, compared with $480 across the country, and the median electric bill was $100, versus $125 nationally. Taken together, the report notes that Ohioans paid less than the national median for housing, auto loans and electricity.
But not every category tilted in Ohio’s favor. The state’s median monthly natural gas bill was $90, compared with $71 nationwide, and Ohio’s median monthly auto insurance cost came in at $123, versus $108 nationally. The report frames these two categories as the exceptions where Ohioans paid more than the rest of the country.
A Different Insurance Picture From Another Source
A separate analysis from MoneyGeek complicates the insurance comparison. That report found Ohio drivers pay an average of $83 a month for full coverage, which it describes as 33% below a national average of $124 a month, with full-coverage rates across Ohio’s ten most populous cities ranging from $104 in Cleveland down to $84 in Lorain. The dossier does not reconcile this with the higher $123 median auto insurance figure cited above, and the two reports may use different populations or coverage assumptions.
Utilities Are Cheaper Than a Decade and a Half Ago
Zooming out, Ohio’s overall utility spending tells a longer story. According to the Ohio Housing Finance Agency, adjusted for inflation, Ohio households now spend 22% less on basic utilities than they did 15 years ago if they own their home, and 16% less if they rent, per ohiohome.org. That same research notes utility costs have been climbing again since hitting historic lows in 2021, even though they remain below where they stood 15 years prior.
The financial strain that remains is uneven across the state. In 2024, 5.2% of Ohio households relied on the state’s Home Energy Assistance Program to help cover utility costs, with participation highest in Southeast Ohio, where 12.7% of households used the program, the agency’s research shows.
A separate Doxo utilities report put Ohio’s median monthly utilities bill at $359, just under the $363 national median, and estimated the state’s overall utilities market at $21.6 billion across 4,829,571 households. That same report found wide variation among Ohio’s own cities: Cincinnati’s median monthly utilities bill was $567, well above Columbus at $413 and Cleveland at $346.
How Ohio’s Cities Stack Up Nationally
City-level rankings in the broader Doxo report show a similar split. Among the 50 largest U.S. cities, Columbus posted a median monthly bill of $2,010 and ranked 36th, while Cleveland came in lower at $1,669 and ranked 49th. Cincinnati and Dayton landed in between, with Cincinnati at $2,079 (32nd) and Dayton at $1,711 (47th), according to the same data.
Nationally, the cost pressures behind these numbers aren’t slowing down everywhere. U.S. households overall now spend $5.03 trillion a year on household bills — equal to 27% of total consumer spending — and North Carolina posted the largest year-over-year jump in household bills at 7%, followed by New Hampshire at 5.4%, according to a Businesswire release on the index. For now, Ohio remains on the cheaper side of that national ledger, even with gas and insurance bills bucking the trend.
