Best Places to Start a Business in Missouri

From Clayton to Town and Country, here are the up-and-coming launchpads for your next venture.

St. Louis and the surrounding area has been an attractive place for entrepreneurs in the last year—six new businesses opened for every 1,000 residents—according to a recent study by NerdWallet and data from the Missouri Department of Economic Development’s 2015 Missouri Economic Report.

NerdWallet studied where small businesses were thriving across the state and released a list of the best places to start a business in Missouri. The website analyzed 117 locations statewide with populations of at least 5,000 and calculated the final scores based on data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

NerdWallet considered six metrics in the categories of local economic health and business environment: average annual revenue of businesses, percentage of businesses with paid employees, businesses per 100 people, median annual income, median annual housing costs and unemployment rate for residents 16 and older.

The results clearly showed that the St. Louis metro areas were most popular, but that most of the top 10 cities were small.

Here are the 10 locations that came out on top:

1. Creve Coeur

2. Clayton

3. Brentwood

4. Town and Country

5. Sunset Hills

6. Maryland Heights

7. Chesterfield

8. Des Peres

9. Bridgeton

10. Ellisville

To see the full list of rankings or NerdWallet’s methodology, click here.