Cost estimate
type of estimate
A cost estimate is the approximation of the cost of a program, project, or operation. The cost estimate is the product of the cost estimating process. The cost estimate has a single total value and may have identifiable component values.
The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) defines a cost estimate as "the summation of individual cost elements, using established methods and valid data, to estimate the future costs of a program, based on what is known today".
The American Association of Cost Engineering (AACEI) defines a cost estimate as the prediction of the probable costs of a project or effort, for a given and documented scope, a defined location, and point of time in the future (February 2021).
Potential cost overruns can be avoided with a credible, reliable, and accurate cost estimate.
Overview
The GAO reports that "realistic cost estimating was imperative when making wise decisions in acquiring new systems". A cost estimate is often needed to support evaluations of project feasibility or funding requirements in support of planning. A cost estimate is often used to establish a budget as the cost constraint for a project or operation.
In project management, project cost management is a major functional division.
The public source identifies “Cost estimate” as type of estimate. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Cost, estimate and type.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q795053. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 2021.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cost estimate” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.