[GOAL] [SCHOLCOMM] Recent APC price changes for 4 publishers (BMC, Hindawi, PLOS, PeerJ)

Mon Apr 16 15:02:36 BST 2018

Adding up the data summary for MDPI to the picture:

•164 journals with numeric data in 2017 (average APC 438CHF) and 2018 
(average APC 533CHF)
•107 journals (65.2%) with no change in APC, including 40 journals free 
(average APC 375CHF)
•40 journals (24.3%) with APC increase of 6% - 142% (increase range from 
100 – 500CHF; average APC increase 219CHF; average percent increase 27.3%)
•17 journals (10.3%) free in 2017, introduced APC in 2018 
(250CHF-550CHF; average APC 370CHF)

Original data can be found here:
http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc
http://www.mdpi.com/about/apc-2017

Some Publishers and Journals statistics can also be found here:
https://www.scilit.net/rankings
Please read the "Disclaimer & Notes".

Hoping this is useful,
Best wishes,
Franck

Franck Vazquez, Ph.D
Chief Executive Officer, MDPI
St. Alban-Anlage 66, 4052 Basel, Switzerland
Tel. +41 61 683 77 34
http://www.mdpi.com
--
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7967-3798
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Franck_Vazquez
https://www.linkedin.com/in/franck-vazquez-932a96a8/

On 13.04.18 18:14, Heather Morrison wrote:
> Following is a summary of recent APC changes for 4 publishers, prepared 
> on request but posted in case this might be of interest to anyone else. 
> In brief, each publisher appears to be following a different pricing 
> strategy ranging from flat pricing over many years with one rare 
> exception, to a tenfold increase from 2016 – 2017.
> 
> 
> *BioMedCentral*: mixed picture
> 
> • 269 journals with numeric data 2017 and 2018 (April 4 sampling date 
> both years)
> • 20 with price increases of 2% – 83% (30 – 620 GBP)
> • 5 with price decreases of 1% – 15% (15 – 205 GBP)
> • Of interest: 25 journals with no publication fee (appears to be 
> society / university sponsorship)
> • Of concern: 44 journals with “title not found”: some will reflect 
> earlier title drop
> 
> 
> *Hindawi *April 2016 – November 2017: mixed picture, price increases a 
> bit concerning
> 
> • 281 journals with numeric data for 2016 and 2017 (including 0 = free 
> for now*)
> • 99 journals have price increases ranging from 14 – 108% (100% = price 
> has doubled), increases of 250 – 650 USD
> • 115 journals have no change in pricing
> • 45 journals have price decreases of 6 – 25%, 50 – 100 USD
> • Of interest: 230 Predecessor journals (ISRN series): good practice
> • Of concern: 186 title not found (not limited to 2017), excluding 
> predecessor
> 
> *Rotating free journals: 5 of the 281 journals were free in 2016; 1 is 
> still free, the other 4 have APCs of 1250 – 1750 USD. 17 journals that 
> had an APC in 2016 were free in 2017. Paul Peters sent an e-mail 
> explaining this strategy a few years ago.
> 
> 
> *PLOS ONE*: flat pricing with one exception
>  From 2014 – 2018, there has been only one price change for PLOS 
> journals: PLOS ONE was $1,350 USD in 2014 and is $1,495 USD today. The 
> sample date was December 2017, a visual scan confirms the same prices 
> are in effect as of April 13, 2018.
> 
> 
> *PeerJ*: tenfold price increase from 2016 – 2017 (99 USD – 1,095 USD); 
> new journal PeerJ Computer Science is 895 USD.
> 
> See also yesterday’s post
> 
> 
> Frontiers: 40% of journals have price increases from 18 – 31% 
> <https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/12/frontiers-40-journals-have-apc-increases-of-18-31-from-2017-to-2018/>. 
> 
> 
> 
> Blog post link (text is the same):
> 
> 
> https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org/2018/04/13/recent-apc-price-changes-for-4-publishers-bmc-hindawi-plos-peerj/
> 
> 
> best,
> 
> 
> Heather Morrison
> 
> Associate Professor, School of Information Studies, University of Ottawa
> 
> Professeur Agrégé, École des Sciences de l'Information, Université d'Ottawa
> 
> Heather.Morrison at uottawa.ca
> 
> https://sustainingknowledgecommons.org
> 
> https://uniweb.uottawa.ca/?lang=en#/members/706
> 