An article processing charge (APC) is the fee an open access journal charges, usually after acceptance, to publish your article so that anyone can read it free. Paying an APC is normal at many genuine journals. It does not buy acceptance, speed or quality, and a journal that treats the fee as the point of the transaction is one to avoid.
This guide explains the kinds of open access, what an APC actually pays for, what typical fees look like, the waivers and Indian funding routes that exist, and how to tell a fair fee from one worth questioning. Last reviewed September 2026.
What are gold, green, hybrid and diamond open access?
Open access means a reader can read, download and usually reuse an article without paying or logging in. The labels describe who carries the cost and where the free copy sits.
| Model | Who pays | Where the free version lives | What to watch for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gold | Usually the author, through an APC, or a funder or institution on the author’s behalf | On the journal’s website, free to read from the day of publication | The fee, and whether the journal is genuinely indexed and peer reviewed |
| Diamond (sometimes called platinum) | Nobody pays to publish or to read; a university, society or government body funds the journal | On the journal’s website | Smaller journals can be slow and may not be indexed in Scopus or Web of Science |
| Hybrid | Subscription journal; the author may pay an APC to make one article open | Your single article is open; the rest of the journal stays behind a paywall | Hybrid APCs are often the highest of all, and paying adds no weight to the paper |
| Green | Nobody pays an APC; readers’ libraries pay the subscription | A version you deposit in a repository (institutional, arXiv, SSRN, Zenodo), sometimes after an embargo | Which version you may post (preprint or accepted manuscript) and when |
| Bronze | No licence; the publisher makes it free to read at its own discretion | Publisher’s site, possibly only for a period | Access can be withdrawn; it is not open access in the formal sense |
For most PhD scholars in India the choice is not really between models. You pick a journal that suits the paper and that your university will count (our guide to choosing a journal covers how), and then the journal’s model decides whether an APC applies. What matters is knowing the model before you submit, so that a bill after acceptance is not a surprise.
Green open access is underused by Indian scholars. If you publish in a subscription journal, most large publishers let you post your accepted manuscript (the version after peer review, before the publisher’s typesetting) in your university repository or a subject repository, sometimes after an embargo of 6 to 24 months. Jisc’s Open Policy Finder (formerly SHERPA Romeo) lists each publisher’s self-archiving policy. It costs you nothing, and it makes your work readable by people without library access.
What does an article processing charge actually pay for?
A subscription journal is paid for by libraries. An open access journal has no subscription income, so the APC replaces it. The fee covers the journal’s running costs spread across the articles it publishes: the manuscript submission system, managing peer review (reviewers themselves are almost never paid), copy-editing, typesetting, XML and PDF production, DOI registration through Crossref, long-term archiving in services such as CLOCKSS or Portico, indexing work, hosting and, at commercial publishers, profit.
What the APC does not pay for is a decision. At a genuine journal the editor and reviewers decide on the paper without knowing, or caring, whether you can pay. That separation is the whole test. If the fee is mentioned before review, if someone offers acceptance in exchange for it, or if the amount changes depending on how fast you want the paper out, the fee has become the product.
How much do APCs cost?
| Type of journal | Typical APC range (list price) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Diamond journals | None | Many university, society and Indian government-supported journals work this way |
| Society and smaller OA journals | A few hundred US dollars to about US$1,500 | Wide variation; some Indian journals charge in rupees |
| Large OA journals from major publishers | Roughly US$1,500 to US$3,500 | PLOS ONE lists US$2,477 for a research article on its fees page (checked September 2026) |
| Selective OA and hybrid titles | US$3,500 to over US$10,000 | Nature’s open access charge is above US$12,000 on its own site; Nature Communications is above US$7,000 |
The ranges above are list prices. Publishers raise them most years, many quote in US dollars, pounds or euros, and GST may apply on invoices raised in India. Always read the fee on the journal’s own page on the day you submit, and note that some publishers fix the fee at the rate on the submission date.
Is paying a fee a sign of a predatory journal?
No, not on its own. PLOS, BMC, Frontiers, MDPI, IEEE Access, Scientific Reports and thousands of society journals charge APCs, and most are indexed in Scopus and Web of Science. At the same time, most journals in the DOAJ do not charge authors anything. So the existence of a fee tells you very little. How the fee is handled tells you a lot.
Use this checklist before you pay any journal:
- The fee is published on the journal’s own website before you submit, in a fixed currency, and does not change after acceptance.
- The fee is charged only after acceptance, not at submission. A small submission fee exists at a few genuine journals, but it is stated in advance.
- The journal is listed where it claims to be. Check the title and ISSN yourself on Scopus Sources, the Web of Science Master Journal List and, for open access titles, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ).
- The invoice comes from the publisher, not from an agent, a personal bank account or a UPI ID belonging to an individual.
- A waiver or discount policy is written down, even if you do not qualify for it.
- The licence is stated, usually a Creative Commons licence such as CC BY, and you can see it on published articles.
- Recent articles show real review dates: weeks or months between received and accepted, not a few days.
If an agent, a WhatsApp contact or a “publication consultant” is collecting the fee, pause and check. Genuine publishers invoice authors or institutions directly. Our predatory journal guide covers hijacked and clone journals, which copy a real journal’s name and ISSN and account for most misdirected APC payments by Indian scholars.
Can Indian scholars get an APC waiver or funding?
Sometimes, but plan as if you will not. The routes worth checking are these.
Publisher waivers
Many large publishers give automatic waivers or discounts to authors from low-income countries, and a lot of them use the Research4Life country lists to decide who qualifies. India is not eligible for Research4Life, because countries with a total GNI above US$1 trillion are excluded, so most Indian authors do not get an automatic geographic waiver. Individual journals and society publishers do sometimes grant waivers on request for students or unfunded authors. Ask before you submit, in a short email to the editorial office, and get any waiver in writing.
ONOS APC support
The Government of India’s One Nation One Subscription scheme, which began on 1 January 2025, gives government-funded institutions access to journals from a group of publishers. It also has an APC component: centrally negotiated discounts or payment for authors from eligible institutions publishing in selected open access journals. Which journals, which institutions and what share of the fee is covered have been set out in guidelines and publisher agreements that have changed since launch. Check the current position on the ONOS APC support page and with your university librarian before you assume anything.
Your university and your funder
Some universities and institutes have a publication fund, especially for papers in high-quartile journals, and some fellowship contingency grants can be used for publication charges. Read the rules first: many funds pay only for fully open access journals, cap the amount, or refuse hybrid APCs. Get approval before submission, not after the invoice arrives.
Transformative agreements
Your library may have a “read and publish” agreement with a publisher under which authors from your institution publish open access in that publisher’s hybrid journals at no charge to them. These are more common at IITs, IISERs and central research institutes than at state universities, and ONOS has added some. The library will know.
How do you find Scopus journals with no publication fee?
There are two kinds, and scholars searching for “free Scopus journals” usually forget the first.
Subscription journals. Most of the older Scopus-indexed journals in any field are subscription or hybrid titles. If you don’t choose the open access option, you pay nothing to publish, because library subscriptions cover the costs. A few subscription journals still levy page or colour-figure charges, so read the author guidelines, but for most of them the answer is simply zero. This is the route most Indian scholars without a publication fund should look at first.
Diamond open access journals. These charge neither author nor reader. Plenty are indexed in Scopus, often run by universities, learned societies and government bodies. Finding them takes two databases:
Search DOAJ and filter for no fees
On doaj.org, search journals by subject or keyword and tick the “Without fees” filter. It keeps only journals that record no APC and no other charges.
Note the ISSN of each likely journal
Open the journal record in DOAJ and copy the print ISSN and the e-ISSN, along with the journal’s website address.
Check each ISSN on Scopus Sources
Search by ISSN, not title. Keep only journals whose coverage runs to the present and whose publisher link matches the website DOAJ gave you.
Confirm on the journal’s own fees page
Fee policies change. Read the journal’s current author guidelines before you submit, and keep a screenshot.
Do it in that order. DOAJ tells you about fees; only Scopus tells you about Scopus. The Scopus source title spreadsheet has an open access column, but it doesn’t record whether a journal charges, so it can’t replace the DOAJ step.
Expect diamond journals to be slower and harder to get into. Many run on volunteer editors, and every scholar hunting for a free journal is sending them papers.
Checking “free Scopus publication” offers
If an agent says the journal is free but charges a “consultancy” or “processing” fee, the fee is for access to something that costs nothing to submit to. You can send the manuscript yourself through the journal’s own submission system. A claim to influence acceptance at a no-fee journal matters more than the money: it would mean either the claim is inaccurate or the journal is not what it appears to be.
Should a PhD scholar pay for open access?
If the best journal for your paper is an open access journal with an APC, and you or your institution can afford it, paying is reasonable. The paper is read more widely, it is free for other Indian researchers without large library budgets, and many funders now prefer it.
If the choice is between a fee-charging journal and an equally suitable subscription or diamond journal, most scholars don’t need to pay. Publish in the subscription journal and post your accepted manuscript as green open access. Your university counts the paper by where it appears and whether that journal is indexed and approved, not by whether you paid. A few checks settle this:
- Is the journal indexed where your university needs it to be? Check it yourself; our Scopus guide shows how.
- Is the fee proportionate? A US$3,000 APC for a journal with modest citation metrics is expensive for what it offers. See our guide to impact factor and quartiles for reading those numbers.
- Would you choose this journal if it were free? If the only attraction is speed, be careful.
- Is the paper yours to sign away? Check what licence you will grant; CC BY lets anyone reuse the work with credit.
One firm rule: pay fees only to the publisher, and only after peer review.
Sources
- Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)
- Open Policy Finder, formerly SHERPA Romeo: publisher open access and self-archiving policies (Jisc)
- One Nation One Subscription: APC support
- Research4Life: eligibility criteria
- PLOS publication fees
- Nature Communications: open access fees and funding
- Think. Check. Submit. journal checklist
FAQ
Questions scholars ask
Do I pay the APC at submission or after acceptance?
At genuine journals, almost always after acceptance. A handful charge a small, clearly published submission or processing fee. If a journal asks for the full publication fee before the paper has been reviewed, check the journal carefully before going any further.
Does paying an APC make peer review faster?
No. Open access journals from large publishers sometimes run efficient editorial offices, but reviewers still take weeks. A journal that offers faster review for a higher fee is selling something other than peer review.
Is a paper in an open access journal worth less for my PhD?
No. Universities and selection committees look at whether the journal is peer reviewed and indexed or approved, not at its business model. An open access paper in a well-indexed journal counts the same as a subscription one.
Can I post my paper on ResearchGate or my university repository?
Usually you can post the accepted manuscript in a repository, and often the preprint too, but each publisher sets its own rules and embargo. Check Jisc’s Open Policy Finder (formerly SHERPA Romeo) or the publisher’s sharing policy. If the article is published under CC BY, you can share the final version freely.
The journal says it is “UGC approved” and charges ₹3,000. Is that fine?
The UGC-CARE list was discontinued, so “UGC approved” is no longer a meaningful claim on its own. Check the journal against Scopus, Web of Science and your university’s own approved list, and confirm the ISSN matches the real journal before paying anything.
