The 10 Best Madison Suburbs To Live In For 2026

The 10 Best Madison Suburbs To Live For 2026

Waunakee is always mentioned as one of the best suburbs in the Madison area. We’ll tell you the good about “Awesome Waunakee.”

Everyone here is rich; families average $125,220 a year, which is the 3rd highest in the Madison region. And only 1.43% are out of work. Homes average more than $584,110 each.

Cross Plains is the second best ‘burb we looked at near Madison for 2026.

It ranks 8th for incomes in the area and only 0.46% of residents lack insurance, good for 2nd best.

Here in Cottage Grove, it’s really safe, and residents are just about as rich as you’ll see in the Madison metro area.

The bad side? Schools are more crowded, and the cost of living puts a large part of the city out of reach for most families.

But price is based on demand and a lot of people want to live in Cottage Grove.

Shorewood Hills ranks as the 4th best suburb of Madison for 2026.

You won’t find many better places to raise your kids in the region than in Shorewood Hills and the schools are some of the best around.

Coming in as the fifth best is Verona.

Verona gets kudos for having the 3rd most expensive homes in the Madison area, where houses sell for an average of $590,564. However, the cost of living here is among the highest in the area.

Mount Horeb is proud of its 6th place finish on this list. And here’s why.

Most residents have great jobs and the unemployment rate sits at 3.56%.

According to online reports, Mount Horeb is quickly becoming one of the more affluent suburbs in the Madison area, meaning you need to get in soon.

The 7th best suburb on our list goes to Lodi.

Lodi schools are some of the best in the region, and crime is really low. The cost of living makes it a lot more desirable for many families, especially first-time home buyers.

And, it’s only 16.7 miles to downtown, which is a good thing.

Oregon is growing quickly, and for a good reason. Crime is far below average, and most residents are gainfully employed. Even the cost of living is reasonable.

A solid 2.59% of people lack insurance, good for 14th in the area.

Is ‘Everything Better In McFarland?’

Almost.

It placed 9th on our list thanks to the fact that it’s really expensive to live here, but the schools are great, so you get what you pay for in that regard.

And rounding out the top ten for 2026 is Prairie du Sac.

This city is far above average in every category, and the best part? It’s far more affordable than the other cities listed above. So, you get a big bang for your buck here.

Methodology: How We Determined The Best Suburbs Around Madison for 2026

Figuring out the best suburbs around Madison was simple. We used Saturday Night Science to find things people like about living in the suburbs and then locate the suburbs with those things.

We analyzed the newest American Community Survey data for 2020-2024 to research each suburb. We decided upon the following criteria:

• Low unemployment rate
• High median household incomes
• Population density (lots of things to do)
• High home values
• A lot of college-educated people
• Low poverty
• High rate of insured families

We defined a suburb as being within 30 miles of Madison.

Additionally, we limited the analysis to places that have over 2,000 people. This left us with a grand total of 26 suburbs to evaluate around Madison.

We ranked each place with scores from 1 to 26 in each category, where 1 was the “best.

Next, we averaged the rankings for each place to create a quality-of-life index.

Finally, we crowned the city with the best quality of life index, the “Best Suburb near Madison.” We’re lookin’ at you, Waunakee.

This result may differ from our state-wide data as we did not include commute times and crime for this analysis to allow for a more extensive selection of suburbs.

We updated the data for 2026. This report is our eleventh time ranking the best Madison suburbs. Skip to the end to see the list of all the suburbs ranked from best to worst.