High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! In accounting, profit is the difference between price and the costs of bringing to market whatever it is that is accounted as an enterprise (whether by harvest, extraction, manufacture, or purchase) in terms of the component costs of delivered goods and/or services and any operating or other expenses. There are several important profit measures in common use which will be explained in the following. Note that the words earnings, profit and income are used as substitutes in some of these terms (also depending on US vs. UK usage), thus inflating the number of profit measures.