Publishing fees

Open Access provides free and immediate online access to the scholarly literature for anyone in the world to read, distribute and reuse. Frontiers, as a Gold Open Access publisher, offsets all the costs associated with our high-quality publishing service through Article Processing Charges (APCs): articles that are accepted for publication by our external editors following rigorous peer review incur a publishing fee charged to authors, institutions or funders.

Article processing charges by journal

Please consult the table below for information on Frontiers APCs, which vary by journal. For specific article-type descriptions, refer to the article-type page of each Journal; a list of the different types is provided below the table. Please note that Frontiers APCs are subject to periodic revision.

Article types

We offer a range of article types to optimally support our various academic communities in communicating their results and research advances.

A-Type Articles: Clinical Trial, Hypothesis & Theory, Methods, Original Research, Policy and Practice Reviews, Review, Systematic Review, Study Protocol, Technology and Code, Registered Report

B-Type Articles: Brief Research Report, Case Report, Community Case Study, Conceptual Analysis, Curriculum Instruction and Pedagogy, Mini Review, Perspective, Policy Brief

C-Type Articles: Data Report, General Commentary, Opinion

D-Type Articles: Book Review, Core Concept (Young Minds), Correction, Editorial, Field Grand Challenge, New Discovery (Young Minds), Specialty Grand Challenge.

Fee support for authors

The APC income generated also provides for assistance to those authors unable to pay publication fees. From the beginning, Frontiers has offered authors support to ensure that financial barriers do not prevent quality research benefiting from Open Access publication. There are a number of options for authors to fund APCs through either funder, institutional and publisher initiatives. Frontiers provides the following:

• Frontiers institutional memberships
• Frontiers fee-waiver program

Authors may also find further Open Access funding opportunities on the Open Access directory list of OA publication funds.

Frontiers institutional memberships

As Open Access mandates are growing, many institutions, funding agencies and foundations have created Open Access Funds to pay APCs. Frontiers is working with libraries, funding agencies and research consortia to find ways to remove some or all of the responsibility for APCs from individual authors. You can see which institutions currently participate and learn more about how the Frontiers Institutional Membership can facilitate the payment of APCs for your institution here.

Frontiers fee-waiver program

Frontiers is committed to help researchers overcome any financial barriers to publication. In cases where authors do not have the means to pay the APCs, they can apply for a waiver. Please complete our Waiver Application form online, and allow up to two weeks for Frontiers to review and reply to your request. Frontiers Waivers have a validity of 6 months.

IMPORTANT: Authors wishing to apply for a waiver must do so before, or immediately after, their manuscript is submitted to avoid delays in the event that your article is accepted. Decisions to accept articles are made by external editors solely based on objective review criteria, and information about waiver applications are not disclosed to the editors or reviewers.

Effective date of fees and discounts

The above fees and discounts are valid for articles submitted on or after December 9, 2017. APCs may be subject to periodic revision. The invoiced APC is the one valid at the time of manuscript submission.

APC payment

A pro forma invoice is created on submission of your manuscript, for complete transparency regarding APCs; it can be accessed anytime from the Review Forum during the review process. A final invoice will only be issued in case your article is accepted for publication. APCs are payable within 30 days of the final invoice date.

Frontiers fees support premium services

Frontiers offsets the costs associated with our high-quality publishing service through APCs in order to provide free access to the scholarly literature, while authors retain the copyright of their work. The Frontiers APCs pay for the people who run our editorial programs and build our technology – allowing us to deliver premium services on a dedicated custom-built Open Science Platform. Below are in brief some of the services that we provide.

Open Science Platform: A cloud-based, scalable publishing engine supporting every phase of the publishing process, including registration, submission, review, publication, and invoicing – all built in-house.

Collaborative Peer Review: Our Collaborative Review Forum enables direct interaction between authors and reviewers and facilities rigorous, efficient, and transparent peer review to ensure quality publications.

Quality Control: We employ dedicated teams to support our editors and reviewers in the review process and with our IT teams continuously translate quality checks into automated software that checks for plagiarism, conflicts-of-interest, flagged content amongst others. Dedicated editorial support and technology ensures excellence at scale.

Reviewer Recommendations: AI-powered reviewer recommendation for editors using our extensive reviewer database.

Article Collection Management: Research Topics enable leading researchers to host and manage themed article collections across journals spotlighting hot research areas. Our platform approach includes impact metrics and eBook production.

Journal Management: Frontiers editors grow world-class journals through their dedicated Digital Editorial Office, overseeing efficiently the review process, tracking journal performance and safeguarding the quality of the content.

Research Evaluation: Since pioneering article impact metrics in 2008, we provide detailed data on views, downloads, demographic information, and external data such as citations via Cross Ref and Scopus and social media mentions via Altmetric. In addition we showcase author impact and article collection impact.

Research Dissemination: Designed to maximise impact for articles and authors, our Loop network provides online profiles for authors, reviewers and editors showcasing publications, collaborations, editorial contributions, including reviewer recognition on every article, and impact. In addition, we deposit articles in all major databases and indexes, as well as archive them for permanent storage.

Research Outreach: Frontiers for Young Minds is our non-for-profit journal written for kids by leading researchers, and then reviewed by kids. Free to access and publish in, Frontiers for Young Minds provides cutting-edge research in an understandable way to young audiences.

Community Support: We acknowledge the work of editors through honoraria, and provide a flexible and inclusive waiver program for authors. In addition, we subsidise journals in new fields and areas that have lower research budgets. We also recognize outstanding scientific contributions with our annual Spotlight Award.

More information about the Frontiers Open Science platform, our journals and services can be found on our blog, including:

• Frontiers journals reach top impact, read our journal report and impact analysis
• Frontiers award-winning innovations on our Open Science Platform
• Frontiers collaborative review delivers scientific excellence at scale.
• Frontiers community by numbers
• Frontiers recognizes outstanding research with the Spotlight Award
• Frontiers APC structure and rationale
• Frontiers financial commitment to open access publishing - a transparent expenditure analysis.
• Meet our team.

If you would like to learn more about Open Access publishing, we encourage you to read some of the great resources provided by Peter Suber or the Budapest Open Access Initiative in 2002.