Abstract: Shale gas resources are abundant, with the progress of mining technology and the reduction of mining costs, it has received continuous attention in recent years.Therefore, analyzing the cost factors that affect the economic benefits of shale gas development is helpful to clarify the changing factors and rules of cost, and can be used as a reference for the economic evaluation of shale gas development.This paper analyzes the similarities and differences between shale gas and conventional natural gas development, finds out the particularity of shale gas development, analyzes the cost items of shale gas development, and finds out the key drivers affecting cost changes.According to the key factors affecting shale gas cost change, production decline law and learning effect, the cost estimation method based on production and well number cost quota and the operation cost estimation method based on production decline law and learning effect are established respectively.The cost quota estimation method estimates the shale gas development cost with fewer parameters, which simplifies the detailed estimation method and ensures the reliability of the estimation results.The model constructed by the operation cost estimation method is based on the change law of shale gas operation cost, which is simple and easy to use, and the focus is to determine the appropriate learning ratio.The research results show that the cost quota estimation method combined with the annual workload can effectively estimate the development cost of each year, the operation cost estimation method based on the law of production decline and learning effect can effectively estimate the operation cost in the future production and operation period, and the cost estimation results can be used as the basis for subsequent economic evaluation and guide the investment decision-making of the project.