10 Friendliest States for Online Business

You do business online—it shouldn’t matter where you’re located geographically, right? If business internet is “the great equalizer,” isn’t West Virginia just as digitally viable as Virginia? Aren’t the Carolinas and the Dakotas all the same when comes down to the 0s and 1s?

We wanted to know: where’s the place to be? Frontier Business’s research to determine the ten friendliest states for online business balanced factors like technological infrastructures (broadband speed, access, business phone, business bundles, etc.) with economic climates, workforce education, and overall quality of life in each state and region of the US.

The findings were fascinating. Arkansas may be a scenic state with enviable cost-of-living stats, but, when it comes to technology, it’s frozen in 1997. And just because it’s home to Silicon Valley doesn’t mean that California is an internet leader—it narrowly cracked our top five. We found that, while great tech bases and solid workforces tend to go hand in hand, they also congregate in more expensive states. Even if the cost of living is cheap, your business will likely end up paying for it elsewhere.

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Our Methodology

Frontier Business’s “10 Friendliest States for Online Business” rankings were determined by cross-referencing each state’s broadband technology quality and accessibility with local business climate/expense outlooks, workforce demographics and education, median household incomes, and cost-of-living indexes. For further details, please refer to our Methodology page.