In manufacturing today, nothing is more important than giving a customer a clear and straight-forward accounting of what their money has purchased. Many potentially promising return business orders are lost because of unclear, ambiguous, or improper billing. One of the best ways of resolving cost bargaining conflicts is by providing a comprehensive and accurate cost of production to the customer. Unfortunately, many manufacturing students and professionals have no idea how bills are generated or the specific items that go into sales quotes. To address that concern, this article takes a comprehensive look at manufacturing product cost estimation from a product prototyping point of view. The author makes a comprehensive examination of various cost-related components to explain cost contributors and shows how to analyze and apply them in practical product costing. His goal is to simplify and demystify the field of manufacturing product costing to make it understandable to teachers and students alike. (Contains 4 tables and 1 photo.)