Abstract: A cost estimating method and apparatus estimates a cost of an article with regard to operation bases spread out all over the world. An actual price database which includes actual prices of articles and a cost table which includes factors necessary for calculating virtual costs of articles are created for each possible region subjected to cost estimation beforehand. The method selects an article subjected to cost estimation and a region subjected to cost estimation of the article. If the article is actually traded in the selected region, the method retrieves, as an estimated cost of the article, the actual price of the article from the actual price database. If the article is not actually traded in the selected region, the method calculates, as an estimated cost of the article, the virtual cost of the article by using the factors in the cost table.