The purpose of this study was to evaluate several preradiotherapy serum inflammatory indicators, including the neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio (NLR), platelet to lymphocyte ratio (PLR), systemic immune-inflammation index (SII), and systemic inflammation score (SIS), and compare which of these indicators had the highest value in predicting survival. Inflammatory markers were combined with traditional prognostic factors, and novel nomogram models were developed to predict overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) for patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma. A total of 245 patients were enrolled. The Kaplan-Meier method and univariate and multivariate analyses were used to compare survival differences. A total of 239 patients met the eligibility criteria. The survival numbers at 1, 3, and 5 years were 176, 83, and 62, respectively. The OS and PFS rates estimated at 1, 3, and 5 years were 74.6%, 36.8%, and 26.5% and 58.4%, 31.3%, and 20.5%, respectively. The differences in patients' OS and PFS were significant when univariate analysis was applied based on inflammation-based measures. Multivariate analysis showed that tumor length, tumor stage, tumor/node/metastasis stage, chemotherapy, and SIS value were predictive variables for OS and PFS. The nomogram model established based on the multivariate models of the training data set had good predictive ability. The unadjusted C-index was 0.701 (95% CI, 0.662-0.740) and 0.695 (95% CI, 0.656-0.734) for OS and PFS, respectively. This study showed that the SIS-based nomogram could accurately predict the OS and PFS of patients with esophageal squamous cell carcinoma.