The Bottom-line at the Top: Relationship distress carries significant personal, economic, and societal consequences from relationship instability to decreased workplace productivity to rising healthcare expenses. While couple therapy is effective at improving relationships, its high financial cost limits widespread accessibility, especially for lower income couples. This important study conducted a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the online "OurRelationship" program to evaluate its financial return on investment. The primary analysis revealed an average benefit-to-cost ratio of $6.60 for every $1.00 invested in the program.
Citation: Doss, B.D., Guttman, S., Metser-Waldman, M., Ajmera, N., & Dopp, A. (2026). Economic costs and benefits of the digital OurRelationship program for distressed couples. Family Process. https://doi.org/10.1111/famp.70177
Study Set-up:
Relationship distress carries significant personal, economic, and societal consequences from relationship instability to decreased workplace productivity to rising healthcare expenses.
Research shows that couple therapy is effective at improving relationships – and it’s cost effective too. Still, its expense limits widespread access, especially for lower income couples.
Multiple rigorous studies have found the “OurRelationship” online program to have significant positive benefits on marital quality, communication, and co-parenting, as well as mental and physical health. For the most part, these studies sampled lower income and somewhat distressed couples.
Beyond improving relationship outcomes, the program also significantly reduced individual symptoms across four health outcomes: anxiety, depression, insomnia, and problematic alcohol use. These outcomes have large, quantifiable costs associated with them.
Can online relationship education programs be cost-effective interventions for moderately distressed couples? This important study conducted a rigorous cost-benefit analysis of the "OurRelationship" program to evaluate its financial return on investment.
Brief Note on Study Methods:
The “OurRelationship” program is a self-guided, 8-to-10-hour online intervention. A trained coach calls participant couples four times (for a total of about an hour) to encourage engagement, review key instruction, and answer questions.
The researchers employed the Washington State Institute for Public Policy’s highly regarded cost-benefit analysis model to estimate costs and benefits for the program.
Key Findings:
Affordable Delivery: The average cost to deliver the online intervention was estimated to be $280 per person ($560 per couple).
Good Return on Investment: The researchers found a $6.60 financial benefit for every $1.00 invested in the program.
Reliable Gain: Sensitivity analyses testing different assumptions (such as variable effect sizes, numbers of participants, etc.) showed that the program remained financially viable in every tested scenario, yielding savings ranging from a conservative $1.88 to a liberal $22.06 per dollar spent.
Who Benefits? The researchers estimated that 63% of the economic benefits went to participants and employers (via increased productivity and reduced absenteeism), while 21% went to taxpayers (via reduced costs for public assistance programs), and 16% went to the broader society (via economic effects beyond participants and taxpayers such as reduced criminality, decreased mortality).
Implications for RE Field:
Online RE programming is not just a tool for personal and relationship well-being; it is an effective financial investment for couples, employers, and taxpayers.
This study is the strongest evidence to date that RE interventions are cost effective.
Relatively low-intensity, coach-supported, online relationship education programs can scale straightforwardly to serve large populations of couples, making them ideal candidates for employer wellness initiatives, employee assistance programs (EAPs), and government-funded healthy marriage initiatives.
Of course, the benefit-to-cost ratio will vary from program to program and circumstance to circumstance. More intensive, in-person programs may have lower benefit-to-cost ratios but likely will still yield savings.
RE program administrators should consider conducting their own benefit-to-cost analysis. This study is an illustration for how to do this. And many program evaluation firms are experienced in doing these analyses for a modest price.
Program administrators can use benefits-to-costs analysis results to help market the value of their RE programs to employers, policymakers, and funders. They can better help organization leaders to understand how they can reduce costs associated with couple distress, family disruption, and associated costly healthcare usage.
Last Word: The benefits of relationship education programs can significantly outweigh their costs. They are a good investment for couples, employers, funders, and policy makers.
