Home to 189,255 people, Billings, MT is the 236th-largest of the 387 US metropolitan areas. This page lays out the income and housing picture and a trade-by-trade look at the competition.
Housing: a median home value of $355,200, 7 percent above the national figure. Money first: median household income in the Billings metro is $77,194, 4 percent below the national figure. Both figures matter for pricing and for which offers land.
Age and education shape how people search and who answers the phone. A labor force of 99,197 carries an unemployment rate of 3.4%, 2 points below the US share. Owners occupy 70.8% of homes, 6 points above the US share. The median resident is 39.9 years old, 1 years above the national median. Education: 34.1% with a bachelor's or higher, 2 points below the US share.
Billings, MT versus Montana: income 6 percent higher than the Montana figure, home values 5 percent lower than the Montana figure, business density 6 percent thinner than the Montana figure.
The business base: 6,797 establishments with employees. That is 35.9 establishments per 1,000 people, 44 percent above the national figure. Home-services contractors make up 409 of those establishments, 6% of the total, 1 points above the US share. The busiest category listed below is restaurants (400 establishments).
| Business type | Establishments | Per 100k residents | Share ratio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 19 | 10 | 2.53× |
| Self-storage facilities | 19 | 10 | 1.26× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 28 | 14.8 | 0.34× |
| Roofing contractors | 29 | 15.3 | 1.40× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 35 | 18.5 | 1.84× |
| Beauty salons | 40 | 21.1 | 0.58× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 48 | 25.4 | 1.38× |
| Automobile dealers | 58 | 30.6 | 1.52× |
| Electrical contractors | 75 | 39.6 | 1.11× |
| Personal care services (all) | 75 | 39.6 | 0.57× |
| General freight trucking | 82 | 43.3 | 0.86× |
| Child day care services | 84 | 44.4 | 1.26× |
| General automotive repair | 95 | 50.2 | 1.38× |
| Physicians' offices | 104 | 55 | 0.59× |
| Dentists | 105 | 55.5 | 0.95× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 107 | 56.5 | 1.18× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 110 | 58.1 | 0.99× |
| Landscaping services | 115 | 60.8 | 1.20× |
| Legal services | 121 | 63.9 | 0.82× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 400 | 211.4 | 0.80× |
Index: local share of all establishments divided by the US share; above 1 means the trade is more common here than nationally.
Relative to the national mix, road and paving contractors, concrete contractors, automobile dealers and roofing contractors take up an outsized slice of the Billings, MT business base. The sharpest example is road and paving contractors: 19 establishments, 2.5 times the share seen nationally. The thin end of the table is grocery stores, personal care services, beauty salons and physicians' offices. Grocery stores number just 28, about 34% of the US share, which is room for a well-run operator to be the obvious choice. Electrical contractors, dentists and general freight trucking track the US share closely.
Restaurants (400), legal services (121) and landscaping services (115) are the biggest categories by establishment count. Per 100,000 residents: restaurants 211.4, followed by legal services and landscaping services. Across the groups, automotive businesses run 1.4 times the US share and medical and dental practices about 73% of.
Advertisers in road and paving contractors, concrete contractors and automobile dealers should assume high competition on Google Ads and put equal weight on the free real estate: an accurate Business Profile, steady new reviews, and pages that match the local searches word for word. Where the base is thin (grocery stores, personal care services and beauty salons), reach beats refinement: cover the service-plus-place searches across the whole area, because there are few competitors to split them with. With a median age 1 years above the national median, the classic path of search, reviews and a phone call still carries most of the business. At 70.8% owner-occupied, home-services demand comes straight from residents rather than through landlords.
Where to start in Billings, MT, based on the competition profile above.
Site structure, pages and citations that earn organic placement in Billings, MT.
Design and build of a site that turns local traffic into leads.
Replies to reviews, written and posted for the business.
Content for the site, planned around what people search.
Google search ads for the exact services and towns, tracked to the phone call.
Keeping the Business Profile complete, current and answered so it earns the map placement.
Billings, MT has 189,255 residents (US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimate), ranking 236th of 387 metropolitan areas.
The median household income in Billings, MT is $77,194 (ACS 2024 5-year), below the US median of $80,734.
The Census Bureau counts 6,797 employer establishments in Billings, MT (County Business Patterns 2023), or 35.9 businesses per 1,000 residents.
The median home value in Billings, MT is $355,200, and 70.8% of homes are owner-occupied (ACS 2024 5-year).
Measured against the US business mix (County Business Patterns 2023), road and paving contractors, concrete contractors and automobile dealers have more establishments per resident than the US average; grocery stores, personal care services and beauty salons have fewer in Billings, MT.
A quick review of where you show up today, then a plan for where you should.
Data: US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates and County Business Patterns 2023. Updated 2026-09-29.