The Texas number, honestly stated.
The CareScout 2025 survey puts Texas assisted living at a median of $5,666 per month for a one-bedroom private unit — $67,992 a year — ranking Texas 34th of 50 states, below the $6,200 national median (which rose 5% year over year).
A second, differently-measured source lands nearby: A Place for Mom's data reported by Stacker shows Texas families who moved in during 2025 actually paid a median of $5,458 per month, care fees included. Quoted rates and real bills rarely match to the dollar — plan with both in view.
If your parent needs a secured memory care setting, plan meaningfully higher: $6,673/month was the Texas median for 2025 move-ins per the same A Place for Mom data, and A Place for Mom's published figures, current as of 2026, show roughly $6,223/month for Texas against a ~$6,999 national average. And at the lighter end, Texas independent living — apartment life with activities, no hands-on care — ran $3,550/month in the same 2025 move-in data.
What that monthly rate usually includes.
Communities vary, but the base monthly rate typically covers the apartment and the life around it:
- The private apartment or suite — rent, utilities, and maintenance.
- Three meals a day plus snacks, in a shared dining room.
- Housekeeping, laundry, and linen service.
- Activities, outings, and a social calendar — often the most underrated line item.
- Staff on site around the clock, and an emergency call system in the room.
- Scheduled local transportation to appointments and errands.
What usually costs extra — and where budgets get surprised.
The number on the brochure is almost always the base rate. The all-in number your family actually pays depends on your parent's care level — and that's where the surprises live:
- Personal care — help with bathing, dressing, grooming, and mobility is typically priced as a care level or points tier added to the base rate.
- Medication management — having the community handle medications is usually its own added fee.
- The community fee — a one-time move-in charge at most communities. Ask the amount, and ask if it's ever waived.
- Memory care — a secured wing is its own, higher price point, as the numbers above show.
- Incontinence care, escorts to meals, and second-person assists — each can add a tier at some communities.
- Rate increases — annual increases are normal; the size and history of them varies by community and is always worth asking about.
None of this is a reason for alarm — it's a reason to ask for the all-in monthly number for your parent's assessed care level, in writing, before you fall in love with a lobby.
The pricing questions worth asking every community.
- What's the all-in monthly cost for my parent's assessed care level — not the starting rate?
- How is care priced — levels, points, or à la carte — and what moves my parent from one tier to the next?
- What's the community fee, and is it refundable?
- How often have rates increased in the last few years, and by how much?
- What happens to the rate if my parent's needs increase — and who decides when they have?
- What would cause my parent to be asked to move out, and how much notice is given?
- Is a deposit required to hold an apartment, and is it refundable?
- Are there move-in specials right now — and what's the catch, honestly?
Kendall asks these questions for a living, tours communities with families, and knows which Permian Basin communities answer them straight. Her placement guidance is free to you — we don't accept referral fees.
How assisted living compares to the alternatives.
One genuinely strange fact of the Texas market: a semi-private nursing home room — $5,627/month at the Texas median (CareScout 2025), the lowest in the nation — actually sits slightly below the Texas assisted living median. That doesn't make a nursing home the right answer; it's a medical setting for medical needs. But it tells you Texas assisted living is priced against unusually inexpensive alternatives here.
Against home care, the crossover math matters most: at the typical $25–$35/hour Texas caregiver range, roughly full-time home care hours cost about what the assisted living median costs — with everything a community includes still on top. Lighter hours at home are far cheaper; around-the-clock needs usually favor a community.
And adult day health care — daytime activities, meals, and supervision at a licensed center — ran $90/day at the Texas median in the CareScout 2025 survey ($1,950/month at five days a week), which can stretch a home-care budget considerably for a working daughter who needs the daytime covered.
Why you can trust these numbers — and who to call about yours.
Kendall Warren is a Board Certified Patient Advocate (BCPA) and Certified Senior Advisor (CSA) with more than ten years beside Permian Basin families — including years inside the Texas care market itself, so she knows what the surveys capture and what they miss. Her guidance is free and independent: it costs families nothing, and we don't accept referral fees.
“I walk beside families as if you were my own.” — Kendall Warren, BCPA · CSA
Averages orient you. They don't price your parent's actual situation — the honest local numbers are a free call away: (432) 901-6465.