Frontiers in Microbiology APC and Open Access: What CHF 3,150 Buys in a Gold OA Megajournal

Frontiers in Microbiology is entirely gold open access. Like all Frontiers journals, there's no option to publish behind a paywall. Every article goes out under a CC BY license immediately upon publication.

This means:

• You can't avoid the APC by choosing a subscription route

• Every paper is free to read from day one

• The CC BY license allows reuse, redistribution, and derivative works with attribution

For researchers who need to satisfy funder OA mandates, this simplifies things. There's no license selection step. CC BY is the default and only option, which Frontiers says is compatible with funder mandates such as those of the Wellcome Trust and NIH.

Frontiers operates institutional partnerships and national consortium agreements, which differ from a typical Read & Publish deal:

Frontiers institutional partnerships:

• Frontiers says it partners with more than 700 universities, libraries, and funders worldwide (its fee policy page says more than 740), with either partial or full coverage of publishing fees depending on the agreement

• If your institution is a partner, you can publish open access without paying an invoice, and you select the institution in the payment step of the submission system

• Flat-fee agreements let an institution pay one annual fee covering unlimited publishing by members of its academic community

Consortium arrangements:

• Organizations can join through individual agreements or (national) consortium agreements

• Frontiers lets you check whether your institution already has a payment plan

The key difference from a typical Read & Publish deal: Frontiers' coverage ranges from partial to full depending on the agreement, so check whether your institution is a partner before assuming that your grant or department pays the whole fee.

Discounts, not automatic waivers: Frontiers offers discounts rather than automatic waivers. Authors in countries the World Bank classifies as low or lower-middle income may be eligible for discounts to their APC, and each request is reviewed individually based on financial need, author location, and the availability of support funds.

Partial support: Frontiers says support is not guaranteed and is partial coverage of fees. It does not publish a fixed discount percentage, and a discount is valid for 6 months from the decision.

Hardship requests: Fee support is open to anyone regardless of institutional affiliation, including independent researchers. Frontiers says an institution that simply lacks open access funds does not entitle you to a full waiver, and a request does not influence whether your manuscript is accepted.

Funder-specific arrangements: Some funding bodies have direct agreements with Frontiers. Check with your grants office before assuming you need to pay out of pocket.

Because Frontiers in Microbiology is fully gold OA with CC BY as the only license, Frontiers states that its articles fulfill or exceed the open access requirements of mandates such as those of the NIH, the Medical Research Council, Research Councils UK, and the Wellcome Trust, without any additional steps. For other funders, including Plan S funders, check your funder's current policy. There's no embargo period, no green OA workaround needed, and no license selection to worry about.

1. A very large journal. Frontiers in Microbiology's own page lists more than 42,000 published articles, and it is one of the highest-volume microbiology journals. Frontiers says it sets no rejection rate. The volume also means the journal covers an enormous range of subfields, from food microbiology to virology to soil ecology.

2. The impact factor is 5.8 (2024). This places it in Q1/Q2 depending on the specific microbiology subcategory in JCR. It's higher than Applied and Environmental Microbiology (4.2) and well below mBio (4.7) or Nature Microbiology (18.7). But for the price point and the acceptance timeline, it's a fair tradeoff for solid work that doesn't need a prestige-tier venue.

3. Section-based editorial structure. Frontiers in Microbiology has 18 specialty sections, including Antimicrobials, Resistance and Chemotherapy; Food Microbiology; Infectious Agents and Disease; Microbe and Virus Interactions with Plants; Systems Microbiology; and Virology. You submit your manuscript directly to the relevant section, so handling editors and reviewers should have genuine expertise in your area.

Frontiers has a distinctive peer review process that you should understand before submitting:

Interactive review: Authors and reviewers communicate directly through the Frontiers review forum. This can accelerate the revision cycle but also means the process isn't blind. Reviewer names are published with accepted articles.

Low desk rejection rate: Frontiers is designed to evaluate technical soundness rather than perceived impact. Most submissions that meet basic formatting and scope requirements proceed to review. This is the opposite of ASM journals, where editors desk-reject a significant fraction before review.

Speed: Frontiers states that its average review time is under 90 days across its journals. It does not publish a journal-level median for Frontiers in Microbiology.

Volume concerns: Some microbiologists view Frontiers' high volume with skepticism, arguing that quality varies too much across such a large volume of articles. Others counter that volume reflects broad subdiscipline coverage, not lower standards. Both perspectives have merit. The safest approach is to evaluate each paper on its own rather than generalizing.

• No page charges beyond the APC

• No color figure fees

• Currency risk: Because the APC is priced in CHF, the dollar equivalent fluctuates. If the Swiss Franc strengthens between submission and acceptance, you pay more in your local currency.

• VAT: European authors may owe VAT on top of the listed APC

• Formatting time: Frontiers has strict formatting templates. Frontiers says figures and tables that don't follow its guidelines cause substantial delay in production, and a manuscript whose language and presentation are not clear enough can be rejected. This isn't a financial cost, but it's a meaningful time cost.

The journal is a good fit when:

1. Your work is technically sound microbiology that doesn't need a high-selectivity venue

1. You need or prefer gold open access with CC BY licensing

1. Your budget can handle an APC of CHF 3,150 but not $6,000-$10,000

1. Speed matters and you want to avoid long review queues

1. You're early-career and need indexed, Q1/Q2 publications on your CV

Think twice if:

1. You're comparing against AEM's free subscription track and don't have an OA mandate

1. Your work is strong enough for mBio or ISME Journal, where the prestige-per-dollar ratio is better

1. Budget is very tight and PLOS ONE at $2,477 would also fit your scope

1. You or your advisors have concerns about the Frontiers brand perception in your subfield

Before submitting, check that your manuscript meets Frontiers' formatting requirements and that your methodology section is airtight. Even at journals with broad acceptance, reviewers focus on technical rigor. Frontiers in Microbiology submission readiness check to catch statistical gaps, missing controls, and structural issues that slow down review.

Method note: this page was reviewed against Frontiers fee schedules, journal scope pages, JCR context, waiver policy language, and Manusights microbiology submission-screening patterns. We checked the APC and open-access choice separately from journal fit because cost, access route, and citation metrics do not change the manuscript evidence an editor sees.

In our pre-submission review work, the specific risk pattern was treating a fee, JIF, or unofficial rate as the submission decision. The editorial triage pattern is stricter in practice: editors actually screen for scope, evidence strength, and audience fit before cost or citation metrics matter.

Use this year-over-year checklist before citing numbers from Frontiers in Microbiology in a grant, CV, or submission memo. It is a verification aid, not a claim that every older value is stable.

Do not use one number as the whole Frontiers in Microbiology decision. Check CiteScore, SJR, H-index, article type, publication volume, and the journal's real audience before treating the fee, acceptance rate, or JIF as decisive.

In our review work, the common mistake is using a metric to justify a weak fit. A stronger submission decision asks whether the manuscript would still look native to the journal if the headline number disappeared.

Worth paying if:

• Your funder mandates open access (check Plan S / cOAlition S requirements)

• An institutional Read & Publish agreement covers the fee

• Open access visibility meaningfully benefits your research area

• The APC fits within your grant budget

Consider alternatives if:

• The APC is a personal out-of-pocket expense

• A subscription option or green OA (preprint + embargo) satisfies your funder

• Another OA journal with a lower APC would provide similar visibility

For a manuscript-specific signal before you submit, run a Frontiers In Microbiology submission readiness check.

Or see example reports before you finalize.