price - cost

The price or cost of something is the amount of money you must pay to buy it.

...an increase in the cost of fertilizer.

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Note that you do not use any preposition except `of' after price or cost in sentences like these.

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You can also use cost to refer to the amount of money needed to do or make something.

The building was recently restored at a cost of £500,000.

They are now manufactured by the billion at a cost of a few pence each.

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You do not use price in this way.

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◊ 'costs'

You use the plural noun costs when you are referring to the total amount of money needed to run something such as a business.

She decided she needed to cut her costs by half.

Moulton's have had to raise their prices still higher to cover increased costs.

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◊ 'cost' used as a verb

You use cost as a verb to talk about the amount of money that you must pay for something.

The dress costs $200.

These four books cost £2.95 each.

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You can use cost with two objects to say how much money someone actually pays for something on a particular occasion. Note that the past tense and past participle of `cost' is cost, not `costed'.

A two-day stay there cost me $125.

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Note that you do not use `to' after cost in a sentence like this.

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