PLOS ONE Review Time

PLOS publishes detailed timeline metrics on their journal information page. The most recent semi-annual data (Jan-Jun 2023) breaks down every stage:

Source: PLOS ONE Journal Information

The 17-day number is the desk decision, whether your paper goes to review or gets rejected without review. PLOS reports that 30.82% of submissions were rejected without peer review in that half-year, up from roughly 21-23% in every period from 2020 through 2022. The 45-day number is the first substantive feedback if your paper passes desk review.

The gap between 45 days (first decision) and 188 days (acceptance) is revision time. Most PLOS ONE papers go through 1-2 rounds of revision, and that's where the timeline stretches. Budget 6-7 months from submission to citable publication in a typical case (PLOS's table above lists a median of 204 days from submission to publication for January to June 2023).

PLOS ONE's soundness-only model should, in theory, produce faster reviews. Reviewers don't need to evaluate novelty or impact, just whether the methods and conclusions hold up. So why does it still take 45 days to first decision?

The bottleneck is reviewer recruitment, not reviewing itself. PLOS ONE's academic editors often need to send several invitations to land willing reviewers, and each declined invitation costs days while the editor regroups. The problem compounds for niche topics where the qualified reviewer pool is small. An immunology paper might find reviewers in a week; a paper on diatom taxonomy could wait a month.

There's also a structural issue: PLOS ONE published 18,300 articles in 2025, according to PLOS. That volume requires thousands of active reviewers, and reviewer fatigue is real. Many qualified researchers are already reviewing for 3-4 other journals. PLOS ONE doesn't pay reviewers and doesn't have the prestige incentive that makes people jump at a Nature review request.

What slows things down most:

• Summer months (June-August) and December holidays

• Highly specialized topics (smaller reviewer pool)

• Conference season (varies by field)

Best months to submit: September-October, February-March.

Use the editor and reviewer fields well. PLOS ONE's submission form asks you to recommend 2-5 Academic Editors from the Editorial Board and to name any editors or reviewers who should not assess your manuscript, with a reason; it does not ask for suggested reviewers. PLOS says it is not appropriate to suggest recent collaborators or other researchers at your institution.

Choose the right academic editor. PLOS ONE asks you to recommend 2-5 Academic Editors. Look at their recent publications and check whether they've edited PLOS ONE papers recently. A good editor knows who to invite as reviewers, which can save days.

Make it easy to review. Reviewers who see a messy paper often delay writing their report. Clear figures with descriptive captions, organized methods that someone could replicate, and an honest limitations section all help. If the reviewer can read it quickly, they'll write their report quickly.

The academic editor reads all reviews, adds their own assessment, and picks a decision. PLOS ONE's decision types are Reject, Major revision, Minor revision and Accept. PLOS does not publish the share of reviewed papers that receive each decision, so treat any percentage you see as an estimate.

Many PLOS ONE papers that survive initial review get a "major revision" decision.

The most common revision requests aren't about your conclusions, they're about whether someone else could reproduce your work. Reviewers ask for raw data files, exact statistical test parameters, sample size justifications, and detailed descriptions of exclusion criteria. If you anticipate these requests and address them in your initial submission, you'll either avoid revision entirely or get "minor" instead of "major."

One round of major revision adds roughly 2-3 months to your total timeline. The fastest way to minimize this: respond within 2 weeks of receiving the decision. Quick turnaround signals to editors and reviewers that you're serious, and reviewers tend to re-review faster when the revision arrives promptly.

Once that decision lands, read what a PLOS ONE major revision means and what to do next before you plan the extra experiments.

How this page was created: sources used include PLOS ONE submission guidelines, journal information, editorial and peer-review process pages, PLOS publication-fee information, Clarivate JCR, and our pre-submission review work on soundness-first journal submissions. We did not test a private live PLOS Editorial Manager account; status and timing guidance is based on public PLOS materials and documented author experience.

In our analysis of PLOS ONE-targeted submissions, the named failure pattern is a paper that treats "soundness-only" as "light review." PLOS says editors decide based on scientific rigor regardless of novelty, which means reviewers focus hard on methods, data availability, ethics, and whether conclusions are supported by the design.

What PLOS ONE does well: broad disciplinary scope, transparent journal timing tables, single-anonymized peer review, and a clear revision path for technically sound work.

Where PLOS ONE falls short for authors: the first decision can look fast while the full acceptance path stretches for months, and revision cycles punish manuscripts with weak methods documentation.

Use this page if you are already in the review timeline or deciding whether the wait is normal. Use the PLOS ONE submission process guide for upload mechanics, and use the PLOS ONE journal overview for target-fit context.

PLOS ONE's scope is broad, but it still rejects a large share of submissions without peer review (PLOS reports 30.82% for January to June 2023). It will do so if:

1. Methods are obviously flawed (no controls, wrong statistics)

1. Ethics are questionable (no IRB approval for human subjects)

1. It's not research (opinion pieces, literature reviews without meta-analysis)

1. Plagiarism is detected (PLOS screens a proportion of manuscripts with Crossref Similarity Check)

PLOS reports a median of 17 days to the first editorial decision, whether that is rejection or peer review, for January to June 2023.

The best way to avoid a PLOS ONE desk rejection: arrive desk-ready. That means complete methods, proper statistical reporting, a clear data availability statement, and adherence to the relevant reporting guideline (CONSORT, STROBE, PRISMA, etc.). Papers that arrive desk-ready tend to move faster through the entire queue because they give reviewers fewer reasons to ask for clarification before starting their assessment.

Once accepted, PLOS ONE moves fast:

• Copyright/license forms: 2-3 days

• Production editing: 7-10 days

• Proofs review: 3-5 days

• Publication: 1-2 days after proofs approved.

Total time from acceptance to publication: PLOS reports a median of 10 days for January to June 2023.

Article processing charge: $2,477 for standard PLOS ONE research articles on PLOS's current fee page. Waivers and Research4Life support remain available for eligible authors.

A PLOS ONE revision risk check won't speed up the review process, but it eliminates the most common reason for major revision: methodological and statistical issues. One fewer revision round saves 2-3 months.

For drafts aimed at PLOS ONE, across our pre-submission reviews three patterns are the ones we would fix first if the goal is a shorter path to acceptance. The link to timing is concrete: PLOS lists data availability among the items its staff check before a paper reaches review, so a vague statement costs days before any reviewer is even invited.

Scope-fit ambiguity in the abstract. PLOS ONE editors move fastest on manuscripts whose contribution is obviously aligned with the journal's editorial scope (technically sound research evaluated on methodology rather than perceived novelty). The named failure pattern: manuscripts without explicit data-availability and code-availability statements get held at editor review. Check whether your abstract reads to PLOS ONE's scope →

Methods package incomplete for the journal's reviewer pool. PLOS ONE reviewers expect specific methodological detail. Methodology sections that defer reproducibility detail to supplementary materials extend revision rounds. Check if your methods package is reviewer-complete →

Reference-list and clean-citation failure mode. PLOS ONE's submission guidelines say submitted research should not rely upon retracted research and that retracted articles should not be cited unless needed to discuss retracted work. Check whether your reference list is clean against Crossref + Retraction Watch →

Editorial detail (for desk-screen calibration). Verify the current Editor-in-Chief and handling-editor list on the journal's editorial-team page before quoting any name in a submission cover letter. Submission portal: Editorial Manager. Manuscript constraints: 300-word abstract limit and no main-text word cap (PLOS ONE enforces methodological rigor over length).

We reviewed each of these constraints against current journal author guidelines (accessed 2026-10-08); evidence basis for the patterns above includes both publicly documented author-guidelines and our internal anonymized submission corpus.

A worked example of where the months go. Take a cell-imaging paper whose data statement says "available on reasonable request." It is queried at the initial quality check, the authors deposit the images, and the paper enters review a week or two late. Reviewers then ask for the exact test behind each p-value and the number of biological replicates per panel, which turns what could have been a minor revision into a major one. Neither request is about whether the finding is interesting; both are about whether someone could repeat it.