This paper is concerned with the cost Cis  = aWis  + bTis  (a, b > 0) of a general stochastic epidemic starting with i infectives and s susceptibles; Tis  denotes the duration of the epidemic, and Wis  the area under the infective curve. The joint Laplace-Stieltjes transform of (Wis, Tis ) is studied, and a recursive equation derived for it. The duration Tis  and its mean Nis  are considered in some detail, as are also Wis  and its mean Mis . Using the results obtained, bounds are found for the mean cost of the epidemic.