BMJ Open APC and Open Access: The Clinical Megajournal With Published Peer Reviews

The current BMJ Open authors page confirms the structural points that matter:

• BMJ Open has an article processing charges section
• the page includes waivers and discounts
• the page includes the peer review process
• BMJ Open reports a current median time to first decision with review of 134 days
• BMJ Open reports a current impact factor of 2.3

BMJ's current open-access agreements page adds the second important piece: BMJ says institutional agreements can fully cover or discount APCs for eligible authors.

BMJ's own public author pages are less crawl-friendly than many publisher sites on the exact pound amount, but current public journal records consistently list GBP 2,163 for BMJ Open. That number also fits the current BMJ Open market position and current institutional-agreement framing.

BMJ Open is a broad clinical megajournal, but the editorial model is more distinctive than the price.

The journal homepage says BMJ Open promotes transparency by publishing:

• reviewer reports
• previous manuscript versions
• prepublication histories

That changes the cost question. Authors are not just paying for open access. They are paying to publish inside a transparent clinical review record.

For some authors, that is a real advantage. For others, it is a liability because weak revisions and methodological compromises stay visible.

These numbers explain the economics. BMJ Open is not charging for flagship-medicine scarcity. It is charging for a recognized BMJ clinical platform with open peer review and broad discoverability.

The year-over-year move is slightly negative. BMJ Open is down from 2.4 in 2023 to 2.3 in 2024. That does not make the journal weak. It does mean authors should read it honestly: this is a credible broad medical outlet, not a prestige shortcut.

BMJ's open-access agreements page is straightforward: some institutional agreements fully cover APCs, while others provide discounts.

That means the actual amount paid by authors can change because of:

• national or institutional BMJ agreements
• library-managed OA funding
• waiver and discount eligibility
• country-based support or hardship review

The safe planning rule is:

• assume GBP 2,163
• then check whether BMJ agreement coverage changes it

Because BMJ Open is fully OA, the APC planning step matters earlier than it would at a hybrid journal.

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting BMJ Open, the APC tends to be a bad use of money when the manuscript is not ready for the journal's transparency requirements.

Methods problems stay visible. Open peer review is much less forgiving of vague reporting, weak observational framing, or incomplete revisions because the review history becomes part of the publication record.

BMJ Open is broad, but it is not consequence-free. The journal is open to a wide range of clinical, public-health, protocol, and health-services work, but it still screens for methodological soundness and clear reporting discipline.

The journal is often a better home than a prestige chase, but only for the right paper. Sound clinical studies, protocols, and observational work often fit well here. Weakly justified scope jumps to BMJ, JAMA Network Open, or Lancet-family journals usually do not.

That is why the BMJ Open APC is easiest to defend when the paper is solid, transparent, and correctly placed.

BMJ Open is a fully OA journal, so the APC is unavoidable unless agreement coverage or a waiver reduces it. The current usable planning number is about GBP 2,163.

That makes the real decision:

• whether the paper belongs in a broad BMJ-branded clinical venue
• whether the authors are comfortable with the journal's open peer-review posture
• whether the APC is being paid by an institution, a funder, or the authors themselves