Costing software for profitable cost management

4cost software solutions allow you to create consistent cost calculations in all project phases with little effort. High accuracy ensured. Thanks to its modular structure and flexible licensing model, the 4cost costing software can be individually adapted to your company-specific needs. We offer costing tools for every task.

Maximum cost transparency throughout the product life cycle

  • Big time savings in preparing cost calculations and quotations

  • Valid calculations in early phases where little information is available

  • Calculation of product costs, development costs, manufacturing costs, software development costs, life cycle costs, product carbon footprint, etc.

  • Evaluate the profitability of products and projects in early phase

  • Identify areas of potential savings and cost drivers

  • Mutual awareness of costs across departments

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satisfied customers
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successful projects

Services for your project success

As a specialist in innovative costing, 4cost offers you an integrated service concept tailored to your specific needs. Our team of experienced value engineers and long-standing experts from all relevant fields will set you on the path to success.

Together we get the most out of your projects

  • Fast and valid cost estimates, cost analyses of existing and new products including life cycle costs forecasts

  • Should cost analysis and target costing

  • Identifying potentials and optimising the products design (design-to-cost)

  • Mapping and listing variants of product features and evaluate different product features, manufacturing processes and the bill materials

  • Professional reports including recommendations

  • Helpful strategies for negotiations with suppliers

Successful costing with 4cost

Successful costing with 4cost

4cost offers you innovative software products and integrated services for creating transparent, standardised cost calculations right from the early concept phase.

Benefit from growing profits and increased innovation through intelligent cost management with 4cost. Our cost experts will be happy to assist you.

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Our international customers report on their success with 4cost

“The comparison of providers revealed, that 4cost achieved the highest score. We were particularly convinced by the fact that 4cost’s solutions can be used for all commodities, regardless of technology. Equally decisive was the enormous speed with which cost estimates are possible despite limited information.”

Christian Ahrens Team leader of the Value Engineering department, Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH “A major advantage of the 4cost software is the seamless interlocking of the two costing approaches, top-down and bottom-up. This appeals to a wide variety of cost estimators and ensures a consistent cost view without losing information across all project phases.”

Alexander Nordmeyer Value Engineer, Rheinmetall Landsysteme GmbH “The departments experience made with the costing software from 4cost are very positive and associated with high savings. By increasing transparency in the cost structures, a monetary benefit in the seven-digit range can already be recorded. We have made the right decision in our selection process and are very happy about our success!”

Manfred Billes Department head of the EEPC team, MAN “From small start-ups to large corporations, costs must be constantly kept in view and controlled, especially in these difficult times. This succeeds very well with the 4cost software and I believe we can generate real added value for our companies.”

Sarah Wörz Officer, Digitalisierungszentrum Ostwürttemberg “The consistent calculation method of the 4cost tools convinced us right from the start. Very quickly we realised, that this methodology supports our needs in calculation, value engineering, purchasing and engineering excellently.”

Frank Hoffmann Head of Supply Chain Management, Rheinmetall Electronics GmbH “With 4cost's modern parametric calculation models it is possible to estimate good and valid costs already in phases with limited detail of knowledge. In order to establish this, we not only made use of 4cost's software solutions, but also using their expertise in value engineering.”

Senior staff member Purchasing department, Rolls-Royce “The 4cost-aces interface is user-friendly and logically structured, especially when compared to other cost estimation tools. This makes it easier to use the tool even for occasional users.”

Thomas Fiedler Head of Cost Architecture A30X, Future Projects & Costing Performance, Airbus Deutschland “We decided on 4cost because we see a significant added value for our calculation and value analysis in a consistent approach from quick cost estimates to detailed calculations. We focus now on the main cost drivers and identify areas with the greatest potential for cost optimization.”

Werner Seifried Technical Director, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009) “With 4cost we have a partner with whom we are implementing our objective of a long-term partnership in the areas of cost estimation, value analysis and cost structure analysis. We will continue to establish 4cost's solutions and use them even more intensively in the future, because the added value is obvious.”

Werner Seifried Technical Director, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009) “With the parametric cost estimate from 4cost-aces, we are fast and reliably in estimating new assemblies and examine scenarios.”

“With the 4cost-structure calculation tool, we are tracking target costs and manage our projects, including history and versioning.”

Peter Schmidt Value analysis department, Liebherr-Hydraulikbagger GmbH (2009) “The partnership-based cooperation with 4cost enables us to arrive at rapid cost estimates for our projects both in-house and directly at our customers site. I would not have expected a calculation of the costs at such an early stage in the product development process with such depth, consideration of variants and meaningfulness of the answers!”

Matthias Miesbeck Project engineer, HOLZER Firmengruppe “We were enthusiastic about the speed and cost transparency during the 4cost workshops. We used the results from the workshops as a base for our business case analysis. We froze the cost target as cost reference for the subsequent development process and continuously referenced and checked on them.”

Hinrik Weber Head of the optoelectronics business unit, Pepperl+Fuchs “The speed in which the costs are determined is impressive with this method. Elaborate work plans do not have to be predefined and evaluated, because the parametric approach of 4cost-aces is based on material and value-added approaches.”

Ernst Tabel Project manager, Pepperl+Fuchs “With 4cost-aces we are able to arrive at valid cost statements very quickly. Compared to a bottom-up calculation that typically takes several weeks, we only need one to three days for the first cost assessment.”

Gregor Schwab Head of Orders & Offers, Production, EADS Defence & Security “In addition to the drastic time advantage of this costing method, the workshops have another effect that should not be underestimated: all participants agree on a common costing basis during the meetings and evaluate it in detail. The acceptance of the calculated cost values is very high due to the involvement of all participants.”

Gregor Schwab Head of Orders & Offers, Production, EADS Defence & Security “The workshop with the 4cost team was convincing both in terms of methodology and result. We were getting an idea of how the parametric approach of the 4cost-aces costing software works. Many new possibilities could now be approached in our daily work.”

Stefan Buchwald Strategic buyer, BARD Engineering “The 4cost solutions enable us to become an extended workbench to the costing departments of companies in our region.”

Peter Schmidt Head, Digitalisierungszentrum Ostwürttemberg “The early breakdown of product and project costs with 4cost-aces not only offers us a high level of cost transparency, but in particular shows us optimisation potential for development and design. On the one hand, we are thus able to forecast future manufacturing costs in the case of design changes and on the other hand, to independently check manufacturing costs of already existing designs.”

Martin Klotz Product Cost Engineer, Liebherr-Werk Biberach GmbH “The simplicity and speed of creating and comparing different technical, location and quantity scenarios in 4cost-aces is impressive.”

Andreas Müller Senior Operations and Procurement Manager, AutoFlight Europe “Thanks to the workshop with 4cost, we received meaningful and transparent results in a short time, which allows us to take measures at an early stage to secure the profitability of our products.”

Andreas Müller Senior Operations and Procurement Manager, AutoFlight Europe “The use of 4cost-aces has led to a considerable improvement in our efficiency, as we calculate up to 75 % faster. Cost calculations that would otherwise take us several weeks to complete are done within a few days with 4cost-aces.”

Hanno Pieles Director Business Unit Performance, newboxes “4cost-aces has become a valuable tool for our company because we use it to help our clients increase their cost transparency significantly and take their cost management to the next level.”

Hanno Pieles Director Business Unit Performance, newboxes "Parametric costing enables us to create valid calculations in the early quotation phases with relatively little effort."

Tim Wiedemann Systems Engineer, MT Aerospace AG “Thanks to 4cost-aces, we can plan and implement our projects more efficiently. The software has established itself as an indispensable tool in our development process and contributes significantly to the success of our projects.”

Hannes Büttner Head of Projects & Value Analysis, BAUER Maschinen GmbH “The calculations using parametrics are incredibly fast compared to the bottom-up approach, which allows us to react quickly to new requirements and designs. The design-to-cost process is streamlined and requires fewer resources.”

Hannes Büttner Head of Projects & Value Analysis, BAUER Maschinen GmbH “With the introduction of 4cost-aces, we have consistently enhanced our established processes. Following an intensive testing and implementation phase, nearly all cost estimates at MTG are now carried out using 4cost-aces.”

Michael Rudius Head of Operations, MTG Marinetechnik GmbH “With 4cost-aces, we can now perform calculations even in areas where we previously had to rely on approximate values—such as for project management, documentation, software, and maintenance costs.”

Michael Rudius Head of Operations, MTG Marinetechnik GmbH Rheinmetall MAN digiZ Rolls-Royce Airbus Liebherr Holzer Pepperl+Fuchs EADS BARD AutoFlight Europe GmbH newboxes GmbH MT Aerospace AG BAUER Maschinen GmbH MTG Marinetechnik GmbH
Profitable in any industry

Profitable in any industry

Calculate project and product costs transparently, optimise them at an early stage and control them effectively. Discover the industry-specific advantages offered by 4cost’s innovative costing solutions.

Our industry solutions

Expert knowledge, distilled for you

The cost experts at 4cost have already proven their costing skills in more than 2,500 successful client projects across all industries. We are happy to share our knowledge on the topics of cost optimisation, value engineering and product costing with you.

We keep you up to date

  • Blog: Hands-on expertise on the topic of cost management. Our experts show you how to map costs transparently and optimise them effectively.

  • White papers: Download our free white papers and learn how to permanently optimise your project and product costs.

  • FAQ: Here you will find answers to the most frequently asked questions about our company, our costing software and our services.

  • Glossary: Here you will find explanations of terminology commonly used in the area of cost calculation.

In use throughout the company

Useful across the company

Discover the specific advantages and benefits of 4cost in the fields of Management, Cost & Value Engineering, Purchasing & Procurement, Development & Design and Sales.

Our corporate solutions

Cost clarity creates profit