Paying for open access

• General information
• Transformative and institutional open access agreements
• Waivers and discounts
• Reviewer rewards
• Membership discounts

General information

To find out more about charges and costs associated with open access publication please visit our Article Publication Charges information page. 

Open access article publication charges (APCs) should not be a barrier to publishing your work openly and we strive to assist as many authors as possible to do so. 

Increasingly, funders and universities (often through the library) will cover the costs of open access publication. Many research grants allow funds to be used for APCs and funders may operate dedicated publishing funds. Departmental funds or central institutional funds administered by your research office or library may be available. We encourage you to consult your funder and institutional library to find out what support is available but please contact the journal team if you require any support. 

APCs can be paid using our simple online charging service, or we accept payment against invoice or a prepayment account for institutions and funders. 

Transformative and institutional open access agreements

IOP has established agreements to enable authors from a variety of institutions to publish on an open access basis at no cost to themselves. Further details about these agreements can be found on our transformative agreement hub.

Use IOPP Journal Finder to see if you might be covered by a transformative agreement.

Go to IOPP Journal Finder

Visit our transformative agreement hub for more information and support on transformative agreements.

Waivers and discounts

During 2026 IOP Publishing is piloting an expanded programme of APC discounts and waivers for authors based in low and middle income countries.

Authors may be eligible for these discounts and waivers if a pre-existing arrangement is not already in place between IOP Publishing and an institution to cover the costs of open access publication on their behalf.

Discounts and waivers will be applied automatically if all authors on an article are based in the eligible country. Discounts and waivers will be granted upon request at submission if the article’s corresponding author and the majority of co-authors are based in eligible countries.

Discounts and waivers apply equally to APCs in IOP Publishing’s fully open access journals and hybrid open access journals. Journals published on behalf of partner organisations may have a different policy so please consult individual journal webpages to confirm if different terms apply.

Please refer to the table below to determine which category of discount may apply.

*Please note: APCs are currently fully waived for corresponding authors based in Ukraine. See our Statement on Ukraine – IOP Publishing for more details.

Authors based in India and Indonesia may also be eligible for APC discounts in IOP Publishing’s fully open access journals. Please consult individual journal pricing information pages for details.

Applications for discretionary APC waivers or discounts for authors from other countries who are unable to pay a charge will be considered on a case-by-case basis. All applications for a discretionary waiver or discount must be made by email to the journal office at the point of submission. Applications made once a paper has entered peer review or has been accepted will not be considered.

Reviewer rewards

In recognition of the contribution made by our reviewers, IOP has introduced a reviewer reward scheme. Reviewers who review articles for selected journals from our portfolio receive a 10% credit. Credit can be used towards the cost of publishing an article a reviewer has contributed to, on a gold open access basis. A reviewer reward credit will be given for every review completed.

Membership discounts

Authors of articles in fully gold open access journals who are members of the Institute of Physics and certain affiliated societies are entitled to discounted APCs. For details, see the individual journal web pages.