Is PLOS ONE a Predatory Journal? No, and Here's Why People Ask

Short answer

PLOS ONE is not predatory. It's a legitimate, nonprofit, peer-reviewed journal indexed in PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Its high acceptance rate and open-access APC cause confusion, but those are features of its editorial model, not signs of predatory behavior.

Best for

• Understanding why PLOS ONE gets confused with predatory journals
• Deciding whether PLOS ONE's reputation is acceptable for your career stage
• Researchers evaluating open-access mega-journals

Not best for

• Assuming acceptance rate alone determines journal quality
• Conflating open-access fees with predatory practices
• Treating any single metric as the full picture

What "Predatory" Actually Means

A predatory journal is one that charges publication fees while providing little or no legitimate editorial service. The defining features: fake or nonexistent peer review, fabricated editorial boards, aggressive email solicitation, and rapid acceptance regardless of manuscript quality. Predatory journals exist to collect APCs, not to advance science.

PLOS ONE doesn't fit any of these criteria. It has a real editorial board of working scientists. Manuscripts go through genuine single-blind peer review. Papers get rejected. The review process takes weeks, not days. The journal is indexed in every major database.

Why the Confusion Exists

Three factors drive the "is PLOS ONE predatory?" question:

High acceptance rate. PLOS ONE accepts approximately 31% of submissions (down from higher rates in earlier years). For context, Nature Communications accepts around 20%, and Scientific Reports accepts around 57%. A 31% acceptance rate isn't particularly high by journal standards, but it's much higher than Nature (under 7%) or Cell (under 8%), which shapes perception.

Publication fees. PLOS ONE charges $1,895 per accepted article. Because predatory journals also charge APCs, some researchers associate any publication fee with predatory behavior. But legitimate open-access journals need revenue to operate, and author-pays models are standard across the open-access landscape. Nature Communications charges EUR 5,390. BMC Medicine charges over $3,000. APCs alone don't indicate predatory behavior.

High volume. PLOS ONE publishes tens of thousands of papers per year. That volume, combined with the soundness-only review model, means papers of varying significance all appear in the same journal. Some researchers see that range and assume a lack of quality control. What's actually happening is a deliberate editorial choice to publish all sound science regardless of perceived novelty.

The Soundness-Only Model

This is the part most critics misunderstand. PLOS ONE reviews for scientific soundness, not for novelty, significance, or impact. Reviewers ask: Is the methodology appropriate? Are the statistics correct? Do the conclusions follow from the data? Is the study reproducible?

They don't ask: Is this finding new? Will this paper get cited a lot? Does this advance the field in an exciting direction?

That's a legitimate editorial philosophy. It reduces publication bias. Negative results get published. Replication studies have a home. Methods papers that wouldn't interest high-impact editors still get into the literature. The trade-off is that the journal publishes work across a very wide quality spectrum, and the IF (2.6 in 2024 JCR) reflects that breadth.

How PLOS ONE Compares to Actual Predatory Journals

What PLOS ONE's Reputation Means for Your Career

PLOS ONE is accepted everywhere as a legitimate publication. It counts for databases, h-index calculations, grant reports, and thesis requirements. No hiring committee will question whether it's a real journal.

The question is whether it signals the level of selectivity you want associated with your work. In applied fields like environmental science, public health, and agricultural research, PLOS ONE publications are common and unremarkable. In competitive biomedical subfields, a CV dominated by PLOS ONE papers may raise questions about why the researcher isn't placing work in more selective venues.

That's a career positioning question, not a legitimacy question. For a detailed comparison with similar journals, see Scientific Reports vs PLOS ONE. For guidance on whether PLOS ONE fits your situation, see Is PLOS ONE a good journal? and our journal selection guide.

Sources

• PLOS ONE editorial policies and peer review guidelines, plos.org, accessed March 2026
• Clarivate JCR 2024: PLOS ONE IF 2.6
• PLOS ONE acceptance rate based on published editorial reports