Price of coal is central to cost competitiveness of any thermal power plant as well as coal processing plant. The consumers of power-plant-grade coal are primarily interested in the cost of clean coal at a suitable level of quality for their process, but in many cases, this quality is not economically justified for coal preparation plants. Therefore, a proper allocation of credit or penalty for both ends is a matter of considerable importance that must be resolved. In this article, a technique is presented to arrive at a trade-off for such conflicting situations. The technique is about a numerical solution to the constrained nonlinear cost optimization problem involving a multivariable objective function. The merit of this approach is illustrated by means of a case study with six different coals of different characteristics.