A number of researches have demonstrated the effectiveness of structural control technologies on building response mitigations but only a limited number of full-scale vibration control installations are in service. The impediments to the application of these technologies are largely attributed to the preconception of the associated huge capital and long-standing maintenance costs of the implementation of auxiliary damping devices, owing to the lack of research study on the costs of vibration control systems. However, the continuing applications of these technologies in Japan since late 1980s suggest that the implementation of control devices may not require enormous and unaffordable capital and maintenance costs. Therefore a collaborative study with two damper construction companies has been conducted to evaluate the capital and maintenance costs of a smart tuned mass damper (STMD). As presented in Table 1, the procurement and manufacture constitutes the largest proportion, i.e. approximately 70% - 80% of the total cost of the STMD. Whilst the maintenance cost, which has been improperly perceived as a heavy lifelong burden, in fact contributes less than 10% to the total damper cost, equivalent to no more than 0.2% of the total building construction cost. A sensitivity analysis has also been carried out to evaluate the combined effects of the generalized mass of a building and the designated acceleration reduction on the cost of the STMD, which was found to increase with the generalized mass and the target acceleration reduction. A chart was developed to facilitate the initial estimation of the cost of a STMD.