At least in life sciences, this could be publishable, depending on the details. In the end, what matters for publication is whether the paper is of interest to the scientific community.

In some cases, cost can have huge consequences. For example, if you invent a method to easily sequence a human genome for 100 USD you will get a very high-impact publication. You can read more [here][1].


  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$1,000_genome