Hi there,

Fixed costs occur every year (i.e. equipment maintenace/repair, equipment depreciation, factory maintenace/repair, rent, etc.). Upfront investment costs occur in the first year and are what it costs to setup things (i.e. factory construction, bonds, legal fees, etc.)

If you're thinking about an investment decision/ROI, here's how the logic goes:

Your recuring annual revenues need to be greater than your recurring annual costs...and the difference between these two needs to aggregate to be larger than your upfront investment cost (to a high enough ROI). Finally, your recurring annual costs are broken down into fixed costs AND variable costs.