Meaning & use
commercial viability
Last updated
Meaning
noununcountablebusiness
The ability of a product, idea or business to earn enough money to keep going and make a profit.
Grammar: Uncountable and often with of: the commercial viability of the app.
Patterns
- the commercial viability of something
- question the commercial viability of something
Investors asked about the commercial viability of the electric scooter.
The study tested the commercial viability of growing herbs indoors.
Without proof of commercial viability, the bank refused to lend more money.
Common combinations
- assess commercial viability
- The team will assess commercial viability before launching.
- prove commercial viability
- The startup had to prove its commercial viability.
- long-term commercial viability
- Cheap imports threaten long-term commercial viability.
- question the commercial viability
- Analysts began to question the commercial viability of the project.
- lack commercial viability
- The product lacked commercial viability.
Synonyms and how they differ
- profitability
- Profitability is about the money already made, while commercial viability looks at whether success is possible.
- feasibility
- Feasibility asks whether something can be done at all, whereas commercial viability asks whether it can make money.
- marketability
- Marketability looks only at whether people would buy it, which is narrower than viability.
- sustainability
- Sustainability stresses lasting a long time, and may refer to the environment rather than finances.
Opposites
Word family
- viable adjective
- able to work or succeed
- viably adverb
- in a way that can succeed
- commercial adjective
- relating to buying and selling
- viability noun
- the ability to work successfully
Commonly confused: commercial viability or commercial value?
commercial viability vs commercial value
Commercial value is how much something is worth in money, while commercial viability is whether a business can succeed.
Practice
Before building the factory, the board asked for a report on the ____ of the new battery design.
Choose one answer.
Commercial viability is the noun phrase for the ability to make money. The other options use the wrong word order or part of speech.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “commercial viability”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.