Journal of Clinical Oncology (JCO) APC and Open Access: What ASCO Actually Charges

ASCO publishes six journals with different business models:

The two gold OA titles (JCO Global Oncology and JCO Oncology Advances) do charge APCs. These are designed to serve the global oncology community, and ASCO provides automatic full waivers for authors in HINARI Group A and Group B countries.

For the four subscription-based titles (including JCO), there are no author-facing publication costs. You pay nothing.

JCO does offer an open access option for individual articles. If your funder requires immediate OA, you can choose this route at the time of acceptance. The fee depends on:

• Your chosen license type (CC BY vs CC BY-NC-ND)
• Your geographic location
• Your ASCO membership status (members get 10%)

ASCO doesn't widely publicize a fixed OA APC for JCO in the way that Springer Nature or Elsevier do. The pricing is provided during the production process after acceptance. Based on available information, the fee is in the range of $3,000-$5,000, but this should be confirmed with ASCO at the time of acceptance.

Most JCO authors choose the free subscription route. The 12-month embargo is acceptable to most funders, and JCO's readership (virtually every academic oncology program has a subscription) means the practical impact on access is minimal.

For NIH-funded cancer research, JCO's free subscription track plus PMC deposit is the standard compliant route. Since most cancer research in the US is NCI or NIH funded, the free route works for the majority of JCO authors.

Important change for 2026: As of January 1, 2026, authors of NIH or Wellcome-funded papers published in ASCO journals are responsible for depositing the "Just Accepted" version to NIHMS themselves, after the paper is transmitted to production. ASCO previously handled some of this automatically. Make sure you complete this deposit step to stay compliant.

For Plan S funders: the OA option with CC BY satisfies Plan S, but you'll need to pay the APC. Alternatively, the rights retention strategy (depositing the accepted manuscript in an OA repository immediately) may satisfy your funder without requiring the APC.

• Truly no hidden fees. JCO doesn't charge page fees, color figure charges, submission fees, or supplementary data hosting costs. The free model is genuine.
• Reprints cost money if you need physical copies, but this is true of every journal and most researchers don't need them.
• Figure quality requirements are strict. JCO has specific resolution and format requirements for figures. If your figures don't meet specifications, you'll spend time reformatting during production. Not a dollar cost, but a time cost.
• The real cost is time. JCO's review process can take 3-6 months. If you're on a tight grant timeline, factor in review duration plus potential revision cycles.

JCO is the right choice when:

1. Your paper reports a clinical trial, large observational study, or practice-changing clinical finding in oncology
2. You want the broadest reach in the clinical oncology community
3. Cost matters and you don't want to pay $5,000-$12,000 for OA at a competitor
4. Your funder accepts a 12-month embargo (NIH, most US funders)

JCO is less ideal when:

1. Your work is basic cancer biology (Cancer Cell or Cancer Research are better fits)
2. You need immediate open access and can't use rights retention
3. Your work is translational without direct clinical implications (consider Annals of Oncology or Nature Cancer)

Before submitting to JCO, make sure your study design, statistical analysis, and clinical relevance meet the journal's high bar. JCO editors prioritize studies that change clinical practice. Run a free readiness scan to catch the issues that lead to desk rejection at this level.