Software cost estimation is of the most challenging task in project management in order to ensuring smoother development operation and target achievement. There has been evolution of various standards tools and techniques for cost estimation practiced in the industry at present times. However, it was never investigated about the overall picturization of effectiveness of such techniques till date. This paper initiates its contribution by presenting taxonomies of conventional cost-estimation techniques and then investigates the research trends towards frequently addressed problems in it. The paper also reviews the existing techniques in well-structured manner in order to highlight the problems addressed, techniques used, advantages associated and limitation explored from literatures. Finally, we also brief the explored open research issues as an added contribution to this manuscript
