Cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something or deliver a service, and hence is not available for use anymore.
[1] Hence cost is the metric used in the standard modeling paradigm applied to economic processes.
In accounting, costs are the monetary value of expenditures for supplies, services, labor, products, equipment and other items purchased for use by a business or other accounting entity.
[6] Note that external costs are often both non-monetary and problematic to quantify for comparison with monetary values.
When developing a business plan for a new or existing company, product or project, planners typically make cost estimates in order to assess whether revenues/benefits will cover costs (see cost–benefit analysis).
In business economics, the profitability of a trade or sales prospect relies on the ability of an enterprise to sustain market prices that cover all costs and leave a surplus for owner interest, as expressed by:
[11] Examples of such costs are salary of sales personnel and advertising expenses.
Defensive costs form part of the genuine progress indicator (GPI) calculations.