Estimating development cost of an interactive website based cancer screening promotion program

•Tailored interactive web-based talk show format program to increase cancer screening.•Estimate of the development costs to be used in ex ante public investment assessments.•High level personnel time input represents the major cost component. The aim of this study was to estimate the initial development costs for an innovative talk show format tailored intervention delivered via the interactive web, for increasing cancer screening in women 50–75 who were non-adherent to screening guidelines for colorectal cancer and/or breast cancer. The cost of the intervention development was estimated from a societal perspective. Micro costing methods plus vendor contract costs were used to estimate cost. Staff logs were used to track personnel time. Non-personnel costs include all additional resources used to produce the intervention. Development cost of the interactive web based intervention was $.39 million, of which 77% was direct cost. About 98% of the cost was incurred in personnel time cost, contract cost and overhead cost. The new web-based disease prevention medium required substantial investment in health promotion and media specialist time. The development cost was primarily driven by the high level of human capital required. The cost of intervention development is important information for assessing and planning future public and private investments in web-based health promotion interventions.