Cost of revenue is the total of all costs incurred directly in producing, marketing, and distributing the products and services of a company to customers.
Cost of revenue can be found in the company
income statement
An income statement or profit and loss accountProfessional English in Use - Finance, Cambridge University Press, p. 10 (also referred to as a ''profit and loss statement'' (P&L), ''statement of profit or loss'', ''revenue statement'', ''stateme ...
. Generally, any costs that are directly connected with
manufacturing
Manufacturing is the creation or production of goods with the help of equipment, labor, machines, tools, and chemical or biological processing or formulation. It is the essence of secondary sector of the economy. The term may refer to a ...
and distribution of goods and services can be added to cost of revenue (i.e. direct costs). Indirect costs (e.g. depreciation, salaries paid to management or other fixed costs) are excluded.
Cost of revenue is different from
Costs of Goods Sold
In production, research, retail, and accounting, a 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. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which ...
(COGS) in that it includes costs such as distribution and marketing.
Example
Definition of cost of revenue from the annual report of an internet-based company:
"Cost of revenue. Our cost of revenue consists primarily of expenses associated with the delivery and distribution of our products. These include expenses related to the operation of our
data centers
A data center (American English) or data centre (British English)See spelling differences. is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommun ...
, such as facility and server equipment depreciation, energy and bandwidth costs, and salaries, benefits, and share-based compensation for employees on our operations teams. Cost of revenue also includes
credit card
A credit card is a payment card issued to users (cardholders) to enable the cardholder to pay a merchant for goods and services based on the cardholder's accrued debt (i.e., promise to the card issuer to pay them for the amounts plus the o ...
and other transaction fees related to processing customer transactions, amortization of
intangible assets, costs associated with data partner arrangements, and cost of
virtual reality
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs pose tracking and 3D near-eye displays to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment (particularly video games), e ...
platform device inventory sold."
Cost of revenue can also be found on such resources as
Yahoo! Finance
Yahoo! Finance is a media property that is part of the Yahoo! network. It provides financial news, data and commentary including stock quotes, press releases, financial reports, and original content. It also offers some online tools for pers ...
and
Google Finance
Google Finance is a website focusing on business news and financial information hosted by Google.
History
Google Finance was first launched by Google on March 21, 2006. The service featured business and enterprise headlines for many corporation ...
.
References
{{Reflist
Corporate finance
Costs