College Station, TX has 278,335 residents and sits 180th among the 387 US metropolitan areas by population. Households, home values, education, business density, and which trades are already crowded, all from Census data.
Officially the College Station-Bryan, TX metropolitan statistical area, it takes in College Station and Bryan.
Households here bring in a median of $60,087, 26 percent below the national figure. Housing: a median home value of $279,700, 16 percent below the national figure. Together they say a good deal about the ticket sizes a local business can expect.
Median age 28.6, 10.3 years below the national median. 51.1% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, 14 points below the US share. 39.7% of adults finished a four-year degree or more (4 points above the US share). The unemployment rate stands at 4.9%, about the same as the US share.
How does that compare with the state as a whole? Income in College Station, TX is 23 percent lower than the Texas figure, the median home value is about the same as the Texas figure, and business density is 9 percent thinner than the Texas figure; the full numbers are on the Texas page.
There are 5,631 employer businesses in College Station, TX. That is 20.2 establishments per 1,000 people, 19 percent below the national figure. Contractors in the home-services trades total 296, or 5.3% of the base, about the same as the US share. The busiest category listed below is restaurants (500 establishments).
| Trade (NAICS) | Count | Per 100,000 | Index vs US |
|---|---|---|---|
| Self-storage facilities | 24 | 8.6 | 1.92× |
| Concrete foundation and structure contractors | 27 | 9.7 | 1.72× |
| Lessors of real estate (all) | 133 | 47.8 | 1.45× |
| Plumbing, heating and air-conditioning contractors | 95 | 34.1 | 1.27× |
| Restaurants and other eating places | 500 | 179.6 | 1.20× |
| Grocery and convenience retailers | 80 | 28.7 | 1.19× |
| Roofing contractors | 20 | 7.2 | 1.16× |
| Highway, street and bridge construction | 7 | 2.5 | 1.12× |
| Physicians' offices | 158 | 56.8 | 1.08× |
| Landscaping services | 84 | 30.2 | 1.06× |
| Automobile dealers | 33 | 11.9 | 1.04× |
| General automotive repair | 55 | 19.8 | 0.96× |
| Electrical contractors | 50 | 18 | 0.89× |
| Child day care services | 48 | 17.2 | 0.87× |
| Dentists | 74 | 26.6 | 0.81× |
| Personal care services (all) | 85 | 30.5 | 0.79× |
| Legal services | 95 | 34.1 | 0.78× |
| Beauty salons | 42 | 15.1 | 0.74× |
| Other specialty trade contractors (paving, asphalt, fencing) | 20 | 7.2 | 0.69× |
| General freight trucking | 46 | 16.5 | 0.58× |
Index: local share of all establishments divided by the US share; above 1 means the trade is more common here than nationally.
Where competition is thickest: self-storage operators, concrete contractors, real estate lessors and plumbing and HVAC contractors all hold a larger share of the local base than they do nationally. The sharpest example is self-storage operators: 24 establishments, 1.9 times the share seen nationally. Less common here than nationally: general freight trucking, specialty trade contractors, beauty salons and legal services. General freight trucking are the thinnest at 46, about 58% of the national share. Roughly where the national mix would put them: electrical contractors, landscaping services and road and paving contractors.
Three categories dominate by count: restaurants at 500, physicians' offices at 158 and real estate lessors at 133. Scaled to residents, restaurants run 179.6 per 100,000, more than physicians' offices or real estate lessors. Grouped, trucking, storage, real estate and road construction hold about the same as the share they hold nationally, while legal services sit at about 78% of.
In the crowded trades (self-storage operators, concrete contractors and real estate lessors) the map pack decides more calls than the ads do. Business Profile completeness, review volume and review recency become the separating factors, and paid search has to be tight rather than broad. For general freight trucking, specialty trade contractors and beauty salons, the opportunity is coverage. Few competitors means the business that shows up for every nearby town and every variant of the search collects most of it. With household income 26 percent below the national figure, price transparency and financing matter more in the ad copy, and a phone call is usually the conversion to optimize for. A 51.1% ownership rate, under the national share, shifts part of the home-services market to landlords and management companies. Younger residents (median age 10.3 years below the national median) split their attention between search, social feeds and AI assistants, so the presence has to be in all three.
A short list of services chosen for this market; the full range is on the services page.
Ranking for the service-and-town searches without paying per click.
A site built to convert a local search into a phone call or a form.
Paid social that reaches people before they search.
A steady flow of new reviews and a reply on every one of them.
Google search ads for the exact services and towns, tracked to the phone call.
Listing management for the map results that most local searches start and end with.
College Station, TX has 278,335 residents (US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimate), ranking 180th of 387 metropolitan areas.
The median household income in College Station, TX is $60,087 (ACS 2024 5-year), below the US median of $80,734.
The Census Bureau counts 5,631 employer establishments in College Station, TX (County Business Patterns 2023), or 20.2 businesses per 1,000 residents.
The median home value in College Station, TX is $279,700, and 51.1% of homes are owner-occupied (ACS 2024 5-year).
Measured against the US business mix (County Business Patterns 2023), self-storage operators, concrete contractors and real estate lessors have more establishments per resident than the US average; general freight trucking, specialty trade contractors and beauty salons have fewer in College Station, TX.
Start with the free audit: it checks the listing, the site and the tracking before anyone spends anything.
Data: US Census Bureau ACS 2024 5-year estimates and County Business Patterns 2023. Updated 2026-09-29.