Cheaper than Toronto or Vancouver on housing, which is the number that dominates everything else — with a few costs that go the other way.
For almost every household, housing dominates the budget, and it is where Calgary differs most from Canada's two largest markets. The same money buys a materially different home here. That is the substance behind most of the migration to this city, and it is the honest headline.
What that means concretely depends on your budget: see what $600,000 buys, what $800,000 buys, or how much house you can afford.
Alberta also has the highest basic personal amount of any province, meaning more income is earned before provincial tax applies.
We deliberately do not publish "you will save $X per year in income tax by moving to Alberta" figures. We tested those claims against actual bracket calculations and they did not hold up across household types — at some two-earner income levels Alberta costs more, not less. Sales tax and land transfer tax are the unambiguous advantages, so those are the ones we cite.
The realistic version: your housing cost will very likely fall, and your transport and heating costs will very likely rise. For most households moving from Toronto or Vancouver the first substantially outweighs the second — but budget for both rather than only the good news.