Motivation is a key component of teachers’ professional competences in promoting students’ self-regulated learning (SRL). This study combines expectancy-value theory and SRL to explore the associations and interactions of teachers’ expectancies, values and costs in promoting SRL and metacognition. Two hundred and eighty teachers participated in this cross-sectional study. Latent structural regression and interaction analyses indicate that expectancies and values are positively related to teachers’ promotion of SRL and metacognition. Mixed results were found for teachers’ costs and the interaction effects. This study highlights the importance of considering teachers’ expectancies, values and costs in promoting SRL and metacognition in research. •Values are related to teachers’ promotion of SRL and metacognition.•Values and costs are particularly important for the promotion of metacognition.•Success expectancies show stronger relations to the SRL promotion than values and costs.•Interaction effects emerged for the promotion of metacognition.