Transparent Life Sciences Journal Pricing
Wageningen Academic's transparent pricing ensures that we do not receive both an article processing charge and subscription income for open access (OA) articles (also known as double dipping).
How we calculated 2023 prices
First we took account of cost inflation based upon the official Dutch Services Producer Price Index (SPPI) at 2.00% (2021). Then we calculated the percentage change in the number of non-OA articles published. We did this by comparing the 2 most recent rolling 3-year periods: 2018-2020 and 2019-2021 (with 2021 being the last complete year). Any articles that have had a full waiver of the APC fee were counted as non-OA for this calculation.
By using rolling 3-year periods rather than comparing 1 year with the previous, we try to smooth out any short-term fluctuations. If the percentage of non-OA articles drops the price will be adjusted accordingly. We capped the price change at ±5% to avoid drastic price increases in any 1 year.
Each year we shall publish the percentages and article counts on our web site. The figures used for the 2023 subscription prices are shown below.
Below are final article counts for each subscription title in the periods 2018-2020 and 2019-2021, and the division of paid OA and non-OA articles in each period. The percentage change in number of non-OA articles is combined with the rate of inflation as measured by Dutch SPPI to give the net decrease or increase in price. For simplicity subsequent prices will be rounded down or up to the closest full Euro or US Dollar.
| Journal | 2018-2020 | 2019-2021 | Change in non-OA | Inflation | 2023 price adjustment1 | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Number of articles | Number paid Open Access | Number of articles | Number paid Open Access | ||||
| Beneficial Microbes | 237 | 68 | 195 | 74 | -28.40% | 2.0% | -5.00% |
| Comparative Exercise Physiology | 121 | 11 | 142 | 15 | 15.45% | 2.0% | 5.00% |
| Journal of Insects as Food and Feed | 131 | 21 | 197 | 64 | 20.91% | 2.0% | 5.00% |
| World Mycotoxin Journal | 136 | 33 | 133 | 30 | 0% | 2.0% | 2.0% |
1 Price increase is capped at 5%.
Transparent pricing for the OA content - price breakdown
| Journal community development i.e. identifying need for the journal, aims and scope development, investment in funding for field, editorial board costs, commissioning content, competitor analysis, benchmarking, policy development, portfolio development. |
6% |
| Submission first decision i.e. triaging [NB this line is separated from the next in order to accommodate the Open Platform publishing model]. |
5% |
| Peer review Specialist reviews; e.g. recruiting and training peer reviewers and the editors who work with them, peer review management and tracking systems. Not factor in time or resources donated by editors or reviewers. |
10% |
| Services acceptance publication i.e. copyediting, formatting, typesetting, proofreading, assigning and depositing DOIs, XML file conversion (if content is not born XML), tagging, quality assurance checks, integration with a&I databases/aggregators/repositories/APC management systems, figure re-lettering or other improvements, dealing with article enhancements such as video abstracts, proofing process and author engagement around this, issue compilation, issue line up, printing, alignment with synchronous articles, vendor management, article pipeline management; addition of ORCIDs and other IDs to support funder/institutional disambiguation, checking references, design. |
42% |
| Services post publication i.e. handling ethical queries, provision of usage statistics, longterm preservation and access, reader services, postage, inventory and stock control. |
5% |
| Platform development support i.e. platform, platform vendor management, hosting, systems development, systems support. One off development costs should be amortized over 3 years, and figures in reporting period specified by reporting-period-start and report-period-end included. |
17% |
| Sales and marketing i.e. sales teams, sales administration,legal costs for contracts, integration with and promotion on social media networks, sponsorship. |
10% |
| Author customer support i.e. helpdesk, usage/impact/other reports, training, author queries about copyright or CC licenses. |
5% |