Cost analysis examines the costs of specific programs--including interventions, education practices and policies, and tools--designed to improve students' academic outcomes. Cost analysis--(1) Describes the resources needed to run a program, whether related to personnel, facilities, or materials; (2) Attaches value (estimates prices) for those resources; and (3) Gathers information to estimate a program's cost. The Institute of Education Sciences (IES) encourages, and sometimes requires, cost analysis for IES-funded research and evaluation projects. IES believes cost analysis is crucial to support education agencies' decision-making in the adoption of programs, policies, or practices. IES has released this starter kit for grant applicants who are new to this kind of analysis. The kit will help applicants plan a cost analysis, setting the foundation for more complex economic analyses. A three-phased approach (Identify the ingredients; Price the ingredients; Create and use the cost estimate) is outlined and broken into additional steps. [This toolkit was originally developed for the Institute of Education Sciences under Grant R305U190002 to Grant Thornton Public Sector, LLC.]