By metro
Two things move a simulator build from one city to the next: what the trades charge, and how much of the year you cannot play outside. Both are published by federal agencies and neither appears on a single one of the installer pages that rank for these searches. Here they are for 12 metros, against one reference build.
| Metro | Trade index | Same build | Indoor days | Heating degree days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago Bays $45–$65/hr | 1.254 | $43,553+11% | 132 | 6,339 |
| Boston Index from 2 of 3 trades — the third is suppressed here | 1.202 | $42,681+9% | 128 | 5,681 |
| Minneapolis Bays $44–$55/hr | 1.131 | $41,491+6% | 152 | 7,581 |
| Philadelphia | 1.039 | $39,954+2% | 93 | 4,612 |
| Detroit | 1.024 | $39,696+1% | 132 | 6,136 |
| Denver | 0.997 | $39,245under 1% | 95 | 6,059 |
| Kansas City | 0.990 | $39,133under 1% | 96 | 5,133 |
| Salt Lake City | 0.892 | $37,501-5% | 113 | 5,607 |
| Phoenix | 0.886 | $37,392-5% | 1 | 935 |
| Nashville | 0.868 | $37,096-6% | 60 | 3,688 |
| Atlanta | 0.864 | $37,017-6% | 37 | 2,767 |
| Dallas | 0.801 | $35,981-8% | 28 | 2,286 |
Reference build: a garage conversion with insulation, finish work and a professional install, mid-range launch monitor and standard enclosure — nationally $23,300–$55,300. The trade index is the mean of local-to-national mean annual wage ratios for electricians, carpenters and drywall installers, BLS OEWS May 2025. Indoor days are days whose high does not reach 50°F, our subtraction from NOAA 1991–2020 normals. Retrieved 2026-08-25.
The cost spread is real but modest. Chicago trades run 1.25 against the national mean and Dallas runs 0.80 — a 56% gap in what a tradesperson earns. On the reference build that comes out as +11% against -8%, because equipment does not move at all and most of a room bill is material. Geography matters less than the internet implies.
The demand side has a far wider spread than the cost side. Minneapolis has 152 days a year when the high stays under 50°F. Dallas has 28. That is the number that should drive the decision, and it varies by a factor the cost column never approaches.
Cold and expensive mostly travel together — but not always. Split these metros at the median and the colder half averages +4% on the reference build while the warmer half averages -4%. The place you most want a simulator is, on the whole, the place it costs most to build one. The clearest exception is Salt Lake City: 113 days indoors at -5%, which makes it the best value in this table by some distance. Whether the trade is worth making anywhere depends on how much you would actually play, which is the arithmetic each metro page works through against local bay rates.
A note on completeness: Boston has an index built from two trades rather than three, because BLS suppresses cells it cannot publish without identifying an individual employer. Those rows are marked in the table rather than quietly averaged as though they were whole.
Each one works through local bay rates, what the local premium actually applies to, and what the climate means for a garage rather than a basement. More follow; we would rather write them one at a time and survey the local rates by hand than generate twelve at once.
For a figure against your own room rather than a reference build, the residential cost calculator takes your ceiling height and space. Thinking about bays to rent out instead? That is the commercial facility model.