Abstract As the enzyme production and its application is a costly process mainly because of the inducible production, this study aimed to screen the basic components of media for the production of cost-effective lipases. A newly isolated yeast strain, namely Dipodascus capitatus A4C is a specific yeast that could produce lipases in both extracellular and cell-bound forms. Various low-cost substrates were applied as single or mixed carbon sources for D. capitatus A4C. These included non-edible vegetable oil (Jatropha curcas oil), crude glycerol, and molasses. The suitable cost-effective carbon source for extracellular lipase production was 2% J. curcas oil, which gave high extracellular lipase activity of 2670 U/L at 96 h. While the suitable low-cost carbon source for cell-bound lipase production was 2% molasses, which gave high cell-bound lipase activity of 373 U/L at 48 h. The present work emphasized that the lipolytic activity of D. capitatus A4C can be improved with a compatible use of low-cost carbon sources as co-substrates.