Fee policy

Open access provides free and immediate online access to academic research for anyone in the world to read, distribute, and re-use.

We receive payment in the form of article publishing charges (APCs) on articles that pass peer review and are accepted for publication by our external and independent editorial boards. APCs are an alternative business model to traditional subscription fees, with the benefit that all content is openly and freely available for anybody to read and download, accelerating scientific collaboration and innovation.

APCs are our only revenue stream and cover the cost of all our operations. APCs are usually covered by the authors' research organisations or by funding grants.

Our APC rates are competitive (see comparison below) and enable us to provide industry-leading services for our authors, editors, and readers. We also invest the revenue from APCs into launching new journals and supporting fields with lower levels of funding, so that we can offer the benefits of open access to as many researchers as possible.

Our business model has allowed us to publish high quality, impactful journals that consistently rank among the most cited in their fields. Frontiers is currently the 3rd most-cited publisher, receiving an average of 5 citations per article.

Our APC pricing spectrum is sustainable and inclusive. This means that for journal pricing we consider journal maturity and open access funding availability in different research communities (see table below). In other words, more mature journals and richer communities support and subsidize new journals and communities with less research funding. This means that all research communities can benefit from open access publishing.

The table below displays the general rationale of Frontiers' fee policy. Journal-specific APCs are listed on each journal's page, which also contains journal-specific article types.

Table 1: Frontiers' APCs are structured in four categories, depending on the journal's maturity and the level of research funding and/or open access funding available in various research communities. Our APCs are charged in Swiss Francs (CHF). VAT or local taxes will be added where applicable.

APCs are our sole revenue stream, and they cover the publishing services we offer which allow us to publish certified research of the highest quality.

We are transparent about how our APCs are invested. This spirit of transparency is in line with Coalition S for Plan S.

Our team

APCs pay for our people - highly skilled professionals who run our editorial programs, build our technology, and deliver premium services on our custom-built open science platform.

Journal operations

Our journal teams manage every aspect of journal operations and growth, from editorial board management, to commissioning high-quality content, handling article collections, and supporting our editors.

Review operations

We have clearly defined quality standards for research and peer review.

Our research integrity team checks and sorts research articles for quality, ethics and research integrity. Quality checks are monitored and improved continuously, allowing for improvements as well as automation of processes, such as integration into AIRA, our artificial intelligence review assistant.

Our review operations team ensures that quality standards are adhered to during peer review, that the appropriate experts are assigned to the manuscripts, and that editors are supported at every step of the process. They also provide rigorous feedback to the authors so that each stage of the review process advances in an effective and timely manner.

Publication

Production costs include typesetting and copy-editing, assignment of persistent identifiers, journal indexing, archiving in all relevant academic and national databases, and permanent storage, such as CLOCKSS.

Innovation

We have a relentless focus on technology and innovation to continuously raise the bar for our services and quality standards, make processes simpler and more efficient, and the work of our authors, reviewers, and editors easier. APC income is reinvested in this space to allow for the deployment of new platform tools and services, including AIRA. See our history for a timeline of our innovations and awards.

Communications

We support our authors, reviewers, and editors by disseminating and promoting their research through news media, social media, newsletters, article alerts, our news site, conferences, and by organizing and sponsoring events. Our articles have been viewed and downloaded over 1.8 billion times and progress can be monitored on the impact metrics page of each published article.

General administration

APCs also cover general operations, including human resources and accounting, as well as costs of administrative functions and office rental.

Inclusive growth

Investment in growth supports new publication initiatives across the academic spectrum. Higher APCs in mature journals subsidize the launch of new journals before they become self-sustainable.

Honoraria

Chief editors are awarded honoraria for their work. This is strictly independent from acceptance decisions.

Advocacy and collaborations

We work with like-minded organizations through policy engagement and collaborations to pursue our common vision of open science for all of society. They include the European Commission, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and project for Horizon 2020.

Outreach and awards

APCs, together with other funding sources, also support our scientific outreach programs, including:

• Frontiers for Young Minds, an open access, online scientific journal for young people

• Frontiers Policy Labs , an initiative that strengthens the connection between robust scientific research and informed policymaking

• Frontiers Forum , where leading scientists present science-led solutions for healthy lives on a healthy planet.

Our fee support program ensures that all articles that pass peer review can benefit from open access – regardless of the author's field or funding situation.

Our funding model is inclusive, and a portion of our income is used to support authors unable to pay APCs. Authors and institutions with insufficient funding are eligible for discounts to their article publishing charges, as long as their article passes our independent and rigorous peer review. In 2022, Frontiers provided $22.9M in fee support to over 30,000 authors. Of those articles, 44% of authors were from South America, and 38% from African nations.

To apply for fee support, please complete our fee support application form. Your request for a fee support will in no way influence whether your submission is accepted or rejected for publication.

Frontiers works with research institutions, libraries, consortia, and funders to support authors who want to publish in a Frontiers journal. A central invoicing platform removes the burden from authors and helps contribute to the growing number of research articles that are openly available to all. Organizations can become institutional members via individual agreements, or (national) consortium agreements.

We currently have eight national consortia agreements and partnerships with more than 650 institutions across the world who support Frontiers' editorial program. Check if your institution has a payment plan with us.

How to become an institutional partner

If your institution is not a member, there are many reasons to put us in touch with your librarian.

• Reduced administrative time for authors and institutions  by centralizing communications and streamlining submission and payment workflows

• Authors  released of some/all responsibility for article processing charges (APCs) – depending on the agreement with their institution

• Discounts on APCs depending on the agreement

• Institutions  provided with insight into open access uptake and expenditure via detailed data reports on articles published by their researchers

• Institutions remain in full control with every APC verified by their central contact point
  

How to become an institutional member

To set up an institutional membership with Frontiers, or if you require more information, please email  institutions@frontiersin.org  or call us at +41 21 5101729.

Recommend institutional plans to your librarian.

Frontiers does not set acceptance or rejection rates. Instead, our editorial policy is based on clearly defined quality standards and certifies objective quality, validity, and rigor of research. Articles that pass rigorous peer review performed are accepted - articles that do not are rejected.

As submissions have been increasing over the years, so have rejections, and our rejection rates range from 50% to 70% depending on the journal. Our APCs also cover the cost of the substantial work associated with reviewing and triaging manuscripts that get rejected.

We have analyzed the listed journal prices and APCs across 10 scientific publishers in 2022 and revenue data stipulated in company annual reports of major subscription publishers in 2020. Based on these data, we estimated the mean revenue generated for gold open access articles, articles published open access in hybrid journal, and subscription articles.

• Frontiers’ average APC: US$2,270

• Range for gold open access publishers: US$1,260 – US$8,900

• Range for hybrid journals: US$1,270 - US$11,690

• Range for subscription publishers: $4,000 – $9,500

These estimates are in line with previous industry reports from the European Commission in 2017 and Delta Think in 2021 and 2022, which consistently show the cost-effectiveness of gold open access publishing.