The hardness of cold-forged products is in close relationship with its effective strain. This study presented the estimating method of hardness for cold-forged SKH9 products without hardness tests in view of resistance to plastic deformation using finite element code, DEFORM$^{TM}$. The flow stress equation obtained from the compression test was only used as a basic data to estimate the relationship between effective strain and hardness. In addition, this new estimating method was applied to the cold-forged product which was widely used in industrial field to show the feasibility. As a result, the predicted hardness numbers through FE simulation showed good agreement with the measured hardness numbers. It is possible to estimate the hardness not by hardness tests, but by only computer simulations for the deformed products. Also, effective strain values were possibly estimated by measuring hardness numbers, and vice versa.