Article Publication Charges
Article publication charges at IOP Publishing
Article publication charges (APCs) are one way for researchers to publish their article on an open access basis. The charges enable us to provide services that meet the highest scientific and ethical standards, foster collaboration and communication between research communities, deliver fast editorial decisions and high impact for our authors, and ensure secure and trusted stewardship of the scholarly record over the long term.
Different journals may charge different APC rates, with the variances determined by several factors, including:
- Rejection rates: the proportion of articles reviewed that are not ultimately accepted for publication.
- Additional or customised editorial evaluation requirements.
- The amount of community-building and editorial development work undertaken by journal staff.
- Average levels of article language editing, formatting and structuring required.
- Frequency and intensity of article marketing and promotion.
IOP Publishing is a wholly owned subsidiary of the charity and not-for-profit Institute of Physics, one of the world’s oldest scholarly societies. 100% of any financial surplus generated from our activities is passed to the Institute of Physics, which uses this surplus to directly support the scientific community.
APCs can be paid by organisations, funders or researchers. In some cases, the cost of an APC is sponsored in full or in part by IOP Publishing or one of our society partners. APCs are listed on each journal website and included in the full price list below. Where APCs apply, they are only charged once an article has been accepted for publication. There is no charge if an article is rejected (before or after peer review), and there are no submission fees.
Prices are listed in three different currencies and are exclusive of any local taxes. You can download the most current price list.
For further information about APCs, including available discounts and waivers, please visit our paying for open access page.
For details of APCs for journals published on behalf of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), please visit the AAS article charges and copyright page.
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.
Publication costs
The costs that we incur in operating IOP Publishing’s journals can be broken down into several categories of services, as illustrated in the chart below:
More than half of our costs relate to providing high quality peer review and community development, prior to an article being accepted and published in one of our journals. These are two significant areas where IOP Publishing differs from many other scientific publishers. Editorial planning, content commissioning, running community events, and managing peer review and research integrity are all undertaken by professional in-house staff rather than volunteer external academics. This approach requires us to invest more heavily to hire editorial professionals but reduces the burden of running journals often placed on the research community and allows practicing scientists to spend more time on their research.