The Article Processing Charge model: what are the benefits it brings to journals co-operating with Sciendo?

Over the last decade Article Processing Charge (APC) has become the main business model for Open Access journals, especially those with commercial publishers.

While within the traditional academic journal publishing model, a research paper is submitted to the journal’s editors and if the paper meets the criteria of being of a good enough quality and if it fits into the academic scope of the given journal it is put through a peer review and possibly revision, in the Open Access model, the process is quite similar, however, when an academic paper is accepted for publication, the authors, funders or institutions pay an Article Processing Charge (APC).

Why is Open Access a good choice? The published articles are free for anyone to read, including unaffiliated researchers who may not have access to an institutional library, including here institutions in developing countries that cannot afford to subscribe to too many journals. Also, the publisher recovers the costs of the processing and publishing through APCs, instead of putting a given paper behind a paywall.

Among Open Access publishers, Sciendo is the one that offers authors good publishing conditions through our unique APCs terms. So how does this works for authors? The Article Processing Charge is a fee charged by a publisher or a journal owner to an author in order to make their work available within the Open Access model. Journals with a sufficient Impact Factor and indexing can publish with Sciendo without having to pay any up-front fees. Instead, Sciendo will retain part or all the APCs collected from authors to cover the publishing fees.

The services and solutions Sciendo is offering are available in two packages: Classic – with basic services facilitating journal publication, online submission and a peer review system and Premier that includes also editorial services, full-text XML and advanced marketing activities. The publishing fee is charged per article published. The journal owner selects a package, agrees on an APC rate and signs a contract specifying how many articles they will publish each year. Sciendo collects the APCs from authors on behalf of the journal owner and retains the revenue to cover the publishing fees themselves. The most important being that if the net revenue received from the APCs is higher than Sciendo’s publishing fees, Sciendo will return the balance to the journal owner. In the case whereby the net revenue received from the APCs is lower than Sciendo’s publishing fees, the journal owner will pay the remaining balance.

Many funders and institutional libraries are happy to pay Article Processing Charges to support academics who wish to publish in Gold Open Access, enabling them to diffuse their research at no cost or at a reduced fee. In many cases, fees might be renounced if a researcher is affiliated with a journal owner institution or society, or if they are from a low-income country. Sciendo does not influence any waiver policy a journal may wish to implement. Instead, Sciendo helps to set APC prices based on a given journal’s quality and reputation, competitive considerations and market conditions, thereby making the publishing fees cost effective and enabling journal owners to generate additional income through this model.

To find out more about Sciendo’s Article Processing Charge (APC) model please visit our page and contact our sales representative.