PNAS APC and Open Access: A Tiered Pricing System That Rewards Planning

PNAS lists publish-and-read agreements with several institutions and consortia:

Under the Jisc agreement, corresponding authors at participating UK institutions may publish open access in PNAS without paying article processing charges. Authors who opt out of the CC BY license are responsible for paying the full publication charges.

The UC agreement lists a discounted total rate of $3,355 per article, with no separate article page charges. The corresponding author must be affiliated with a UC campus or the Lawrence Berkeley or Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories and must publish under that affiliation. PNAS asks authors to use their institutional email address when submitting and may ask them to validate their institution.

For authors outside these agreements, check with your grants office or library for institutional open access funds.

PNAS has a contributed track: NAS members may contribute up to two research manuscripts a year within their area of expertise, in which they had a direct, significant role in the design and execution of the work.

In the contributed track, the NAS member submits the manuscript with the names of at least two experts who have agreed to review it. An Editorial Board member checks the fit and the reviewers' expertise and may decline the paper or suggest alternative reviewers; the Editorial Office then manages the review, and the Board member makes the final decision.

PNAS requires at least two independent expert reviewers for contributed papers. The reviewers must be from different institutions than the authors and each other, must not have collaborated with the authors in the past 48 months, and must be free of other competing interests. Their names and affiliations are published in a footnote.

From a cost perspective, PNAS's publication charges page does not list a separate fee for the contributed track.

PNAS's publication charges page lists charges per article, not per page, for articles published in volume 123 and later, and it lists no page surcharge for articles beyond 12 pages.

PNAS does state a surcharge at the proof stage. Corresponding authors should return page proofs within 48 hours and limit corrections to errors or changes that affect scientific content. Extensive corrections, additions, deletions, and rephrasing of sentences are not allowed at that stage and may be subject to editorial review and incur a surcharge of $50 per page if submitted.

The practical point: keep the manuscript within PNAS's preferred length of 6 pages and its 12-page maximum, and finish the editing before the proofs arrive.

PNAS grants waivers for authors who do not have funding to cover APCs, for example in mathematics and astronomy, or from lower-income countries:

Waiver requests: Submit requests for waivers of charges to PNASWaiverRequests@nas.edu.

Plan S: If Plan S-funded authors do not have funds available, PNAS will grant waivers for the CC BY fee on a case-by-case basis.

Editorial independence: PNAS says papers are accepted or rejected for publication and published solely on the basis of merit.

PNAS also says it operates on a break-even basis and relies on subscription and publication fees to cover its expenses from year to year.

PNAS publishes guidance for several funders, and the route depends on which option you choose:

PNAS's NIH guidance covers both open access routes. For Plan S-funded work, PNAS points to immediate OA under CC BY, so confirm your funder's requirements before choosing a route.

PNAS offers two Creative Commons licenses: CC BY-NC-ND and CC BY. Delayed OA is available only under CC BY-NC-ND, and the Gates Foundation, Wellcome Trust, Jisc, and Max Planck routes call for CC BY. Don't select the wrong license.

Here's what to track:

• Proof-stage surcharge: Extensive corrections at the proof stage may incur a surcharge of $50 per page. Limit proof corrections to errors that affect scientific content and return proofs within 48 hours.

• Color figures: PNAS's publication charges page lists no separate color-figure charge.

• Submission fee: PNAS's publication charges page lists none.

• License confusion: PNAS offers two Creative Commons license options, CC BY-NC-ND and CC BY. Picking the wrong one for your funder is a common and costly mistake.

• Site license verification: If your institution has a PNAS site license, make sure the system recognizes your affiliation. The $500 difference between licensed and unlicensed rates is worth verifying.

• Supporting information: PNAS's publication charges page lists no separate SI fee, but datasets must be deposited in an approved external repository (for example Dryad or Figshare), which may have its own costs for very large files.

PNAS rewards authors who understand its pricing system and plan accordingly. Here's how to make the best choice:

1. Budget-conscious, NIH-funded? Delayed OA at $3,025. The published version reaches PubMed Central within six months, and you also deposit the Author Accepted Manuscript in NIHMS upon acceptance. You save $2,550 or more compared with immediate OA.

1. Short, focused findings? Brief Reports at $2,600 with immediate OA included, the lowest fee PNAS lists.

1. Plan S funder? Immediate OA ($5,575 with a site license, $6,075 without). Check whether the Jisc agreement or your institution covers it, and ask about the CC BY fee waiver.

1. UC system author? $3,355 total under the publish-and-read agreement, which runs through December 31, 2026. That is below the $5,575 and $6,075 immediate OA fees.

The editorial bar at PNAS is high but accessible. The journal publishes across all scientific disciplines and values broad significance. If your work connects to policy, public health, or cross-disciplinary themes, PNAS is receptive.

Before submitting, make sure your manuscript demonstrates that breadth. A paper that's excellent but narrowly technical may be better suited to a specialty journal. If you want an honest assessment of whether your paper fits the PNAS bar, PNAS submission readiness check to identify issues that lead to desk rejection.

For a comparison of how other multidisciplinary journals handle APCs, see our Science (AAAS) cost breakdown or the Nature APC guide.

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 PNAS submission readiness check.

Or see example reports before you finalize.