Community-based, targeted reef rehabilitation and restoration programs on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef have shown promise in overcoming historical cost-efficiency and logistical constraints in scaling coral propagation practices. Through the Coral Nurture Program, multiple reef tourism operators have planted an unprecedented 65,000 coral fragments at 25 diverse reef sites (Aug 2018-Dec 2021), providing an unparalleled dataset with which to evaluate cost-effectiveness, and in turn, return-on-investment to gauge how this activity can support broader, stewardship-based management of high-value tourism sites. Cost analysis of 275 planting trips demonstrate a cost per coral planted using Coralclip® of US$3.53 ± 0.21 (mean/error) across all trips but ranging US$0.55-26.82 per coral across different reef environment and operation contexts. We next evaluated the realised cost of planting by accounting for survivorship across sites, collating visual assessments pre-2021 alongside dedicated field surveys in February 2022, employing a novel, metal detector-based approach capable of tracking outplant survivorship beyond 12 months. Surveys (n=38) across 10 sites resulted in survivorship of 78.9% ± 1.3 (mean/error) (ranging 55.4 - 95.8%) and an adjusted realised $/coral of US$4.27 ± 0.26 (mean/error). We discuss how these findings apply to informing more cost-effective efforts as activity continues to scale across diverse sites and operations.