APC prices compared across 18 publishers
What a standard research article costs to publish open access at Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Sage and 13 other publishers — median, range, hybrid, and how openly each one publishes its prices.
Checked 14 October 2026
Median list APCs, October 2026: Elsevier $2,500 (fully open access) and $3,590 (hybrid); Wiley $2,740 (fully open access) and $3,920 (hybrid); Springer Nature $2,690 (fully open access). Among the 18 publishers compared here, Karger has the lowest median fully open access APC in US dollars ($1,600) and Cambridge University Press the highest ($3,655). Hybrid open access is usually dearer than a fully open access journal at the same publisher, but optional: the subscription route has no author charge. All prices are list prices before tax and waivers, read from each publisher’s own pages.
The comparison
| Publisher | Journals | Fully OA journals | Median APC, fully OA | Range, fully OA | Median APC, hybrid | Hybrid journals | How prices are published | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elsevier | 2,894 | 1,006 | $2,500 | $330–$8,900 | $3,590 | 1,888 | One official price list | source |
| Taylor & Francis | 2,340 | 282 | $3,230 | $825–$5,100 | $3,565 | 2,058 | One official price list | source |
| Wiley | 1,873 | 562 | $2,740 | $970–$6,730 | $3,920 | 1,264 | One official price list | source |
| Sage | 1,419 | 170 | $2,500 | $500–$3,500 | $3,910 | 1,184 | One official price list | source |
| Springer Nature | 821 | 665 | $2,690 | $1,090–$12,850 | too few (9) | 9 | One official price list | source |
| De Gruyter Brill | 632 | 73 | €1,050 | €500–€2,100 | €2,700 | 475 | One official price list | source |
| MDPI | 541 | 528 | CHF 1,200 | CHF 500–CHF 2,900 | — | 0 | One official price list | source |
| Cambridge University Press | 422 | 249 | $3,655 | $2,000–$4,390 | $3,655 | 169 | One official price list | source |
| Frontiers | 217 | 205 | CHF 2,195 | CHF 1,495–CHF 3,150 | — | 0 | Journal-by-journal fee pages | source |
| Thieme | 202 | 22 | $3,355 | $200–$3,355 | $3,620 | 144 | One official price list | source |
| IEEE | 161 | 1 | too few (1) | — | $2,800 | 160 | One official price list | source |
| IOP Publishing | 92 | 30 | $2,802 | $2,155–$3,940 | $3,665 | 57 | One official price list | source |
| Copernicus Publications | 47 | 23 | €1,800 | €900–€1,980 | — | 0 | One official price list | source |
| EDP Sciences | 43 | 27 | €1,100 | €300–€1,700 | — | 0 | One official price list | source |
| BMJ | 42 | 15 | £2,390 | £2,390–£3,690 | too few (19) | 19 | Journal-by-journal fee pages | source |
| JMIR Publications | 34 | 33 | $1,985 | $1,000–$3,500 | — | 0 | One official price list | source |
| Karger | 33 | 32 | $1,600 | $810–$4,120 | — | 0 | One official price list | source |
| Royal Society of Chemistry | 22 | 17 | £2,200 | £2,200–£2,850 | — | 0 | One official price list | source |
Medians and ranges use each publisher’s main currency (CHF for Frontiers and MDPI, EUR for De Gruyter Brill, GBP for BMJ and RSC) and per-article prices only; per-page charges and free journals are left out of the medians, and a median is shown only when there are at least 5 fully open access or 20 hybrid journals. "One official price list" means at least half the rows come from a single list the publisher links from its own site. Similar impact factor does not mean similar price: compare the journals themselves on each publisher page.
How to read it
- Fully open access vs hybrid. In a fully open access journal the APC is how the article gets published. In a hybrid journal you can publish for free through the subscription route; the price buys open access only.
- List price is not what you pay. Waivers by country, society discounts and your institution’s read-and-publish agreement can cut it to zero. Check the waiver before you budget.
- Transparency. Publishers with one downloadable list let you compare every journal at once; others publish prices only on each journal’s page, so check the page for the journal you want.