When referring to opportunity cost, it’s about calculating costs that have yet to happen. Opportunity cost is not the same as a sunk cost, which is money your business has already spent. You receive a call from a notary one morning telling you that you inherited https://www.bookstime.com/bookkeeping-services $100,000 from a distant, wealthy relative. You wish to invest this money for a year before using the proceeds to put a down payment on a house. You call your financial advisor and he presents you with a variety of options for investing the money.

Working with limited resources is one of the challenges that entrepreneurs must learn to love. There’s no shortage of pricing strategies and economic theories to create harmony out of a tight business budget. But as more opportunities arise to spend, save, or invest, you need a clear-cut method of comparing your choices.

Opportunity Cost Vs. Sunk Cost

Hence, the estimation of what the cost may look like to calculate opportunity cost in business. The foregone option is the most profitable option that you did not choose. In short, the opportunity cost of any decision is the amount you will lose out on when choosing an option.

A firm may choose to sell a product in its current state or process it further in hopes of generating additional revenue. Kerosene, a product of refining crude, would sell for $55.47 per kilolitre. While the price of kerosene is more attractive than crude, the firm must determine its profitability by considering the incremental costs required to refine crude oil into kerosene. It makes intuitive sense that Charlie can buy only a limited number of bus tickets and burgers with a limited budget. Johnson points to historical data on stocks versus bonds to illustrate the missed financial opportunities. From 1926 to 2020, large capitalization stocks, like those in the S&P 500, have seen average annual returns of 10.2%.

Opportunity Cost Examples

While there are options for underwater borrowers, this could be a reason to keep renting for now and saving for a higher down payment. Whichever choice they choose, the option that has been foregone is the opportunity cost. For business reasons, the importance of opportunity cost is to compare two options to see which is more beneficial.

Before joining Forbes Advisor, John was a senior writer at Acorns and editor at market research group Corporate Insight. His work has appeared in CNBC + Acorns’s Grow, MarketWatch and The Financial Diet. The problem comes up when you never look at what else you could do with your money or buy things without considering the lost opportunities. Having takeout for lunch occasionally can be a wise decision, especially if it gets you out of the office for a much-needed break. In 1962, a little known band called The Beatles auditioned for Decca Records. This decision would have been made because the opportunity cost to sign them did not outweigh the opportunity cost to pass on them.

Economic Profit and Accounting Profit

Pete Rathburn is a copy editor and fact-checker with expertise in economics and personal finance and over twenty years of experience in the classroom.

Opportunity costs can be easily overlooked because sometimes the benefits are unrealized, and therefore, hidden from view. You also need to consider your own unique investment goals and the risks that come with each goal. This will give you a better idea of what you’re gaining and losing.

The True Cost Of Investing: Opportunity Cost

She owns a small, start-up tech company that manufactures smartphones and tablets. Lilith has some important business decisions to make concerning the allocation of her company’s resources over the next fiscal year. A large part of her decision-making analysis will concern calculating and assessing opportunity cost. In contrast, opportunity cost considers the loss of potential returns from an alternative investment decision.

There’s no way of knowing exactly how a different course of action may have played out financially. Therefore, to determine opportunity cost, a company or investor must project the outcome and forecast the financial impact. This includes projecting sales numbers, market penetration, customer demographics, manufacturing costs, customer opportunity cost returns, and seasonality. As an investor who has already put money into investments, you might find another investment that promises greater returns. The opportunity cost of holding the underperforming asset may rise to the point where the rational investment option is to sell and invest in the more promising investment.