Beneficial for PLM implementation is the use of data from every product phase for optimising future goods. The objective is to decrease engineering efforts. In order to determine monetary efficiency and its influence on the product’s lifecycle, it is essential to anticipate revenues and obtain information about expected costs. Most approaches focus on production expenses as they evoke the major share of costs. Development expenditures are not identifiable reliably. Existing methods premise the availability of accurate values as input. A new approach has been developed, that is based on requirements. Assuming that products with similar indicators cause similar development efforts, databases are set-up to allow for development cost prediction. The model was validated for civil aircraft. A retrospective analysis of existing aircraft and their requirements provided the necessary input. Approach and validation are presented and information about the software demonstrator that was integrated into a lifecycle assessment platform is given.