PNAS vs Nature Communications: Which Broad-Scope Journal Fits?
PNAS and Nature Communications fit different goals. Compare selectivity, audience signal, review flow, and when each is better.
Journal fit
See whether this paper looks realistic for Nature Communications.
Run the Free Readiness Scan with Nature Communications as your target journal and see whether this paper looks like a realistic submission.
Nature Communications at a glance
Key metrics to place the journal before deciding whether it fits your manuscript and career goals.
What makes this journal worth targeting
- Nature Communications's scope and readership determine whether the journal is a useful target.
- Scope specificity matters more than headline metrics for most manuscript decisions.
- Acceptance rate of ~20% means fit determines most outcomes.
When to look elsewhere
- When your paper sits at the edge of the journal's stated scope, borderline fit rarely improves after submission.
- If timeline matters: Nature Communications takes ~9 days. A faster-turnaround journal may suit a grant or job deadline better.
- If OA is required: gold OA costs Verify current Nature Communications pricing page. Check institutional agreements before submitting.
PNAS vs Nature Communications at a glance
Use the table to see where the journals diverge before you read the longer comparison. The right choice usually comes down to scope, editorial filter, and the kind of paper you actually have.
Question | PNAS | Nature Communications |
|---|---|---|
Best fit | PNAS is one of the oldest and most cited multidisciplinary journals in science, founded. | Nature Communications publishes high-quality research across all areas of natural. |
Editors prioritize | Significance beyond your specialty - the PNAS breadth test | Solid significance without requiring 'breakthrough' |
Typical article types | Research Article, Brief Report | Article, Review |
Closest alternatives | Nature Communications, Science Advances | Science Advances, PNAS |
Quick answer: Choose PNAS when cost, scientist-led editorial culture, or field-specific PNAS prestige matter more than a higher citation-metric label.
Choose Nature Communications when the paper can justify the APC, the Nature-brand signaling matters in your field, and the manuscript can survive a faster professional-editor triage model.
This is one of the clearest examples of a journal choice being shaped by editorial culture and cost, not just by raw prestige.
PNAS and Nature Communications are both broad-scope journals that publish across all sciences. But they have fundamentally different models: PNAS has a unique NAS-member system and lower-cost publication options, while Nature Communications charges about $7,350 for gold open access and uses a Nature Portfolio professional-editor process. The choice turns on cost, speed, prestige weighting, and which editorial culture fits your paper.
Method note: this comparison was checked against the 2026 JCR release for 2025 JIF data, Nature Communications APC and journal-metrics pages, PNAS publication-charge and author-center pages, and Manusights review patterns from broad-scope submissions where authors were deciding between professional-editor and scientist-editor journals.
Quick comparison
Metric | PNAS | Nature Communications |
|---|---|---|
2025 JIF | 9.5 | 18.1 |
Acceptance rate | ~16% (Direct) | ~8% |
Immediate OA publication charge | $4,975 | $7,350 |
Delayed OA option | $2,575 | Not available |
Publisher | National Academy of Sciences | Nature Portfolio |
Submission tracks | Direct + Contributed (NAS members) | Single track |
Review time | 6-12 weeks (Direct) | 4-8 weeks |
Scope | All sciences | All sciences |
Citation profile and prestige
Nature Communications JIF 18.1 is significantly higher than PNAS at 9.5. In fields where JIF matters for career advancement, this gap is real. However, PNAS carries distinct prestige in certain fields (ecology, evolutionary biology, social sciences, earth sciences) where its NAS heritage and readership matter more than the metric number.
Cost
This is often the deciding factor. Nature Communications is fully gold open access and charges about $7,350. PNAS has a lower immediate open-access charge and a delayed-open-access option. For unfunded researchers or labs with tight budgets, that difference can matter more than the JIF gap.
The NAS member system
PNAS has a unique Contributed track where NAS members can submit papers with pre-arranged reviewers. This track is faster but limited (one paper per member per year). If you have an NAS member collaborator, this is a significant advantage. If you don't, the Direct track is comparable to other journals.
Editorial culture
PNAS's editors are working scientists, which means desk decisions can take longer (2-4 weeks vs 1-2 at Nature Communications). But it also means the person evaluating your paper has genuine field expertise.
Nature Communications uses full-time professional editors (Nature Portfolio style) who make faster triage decisions but may not have deep expertise in your specific subfield.
In our review work on PNAS vs Nature Communications choices
In our review work on PNAS vs Nature Communications choices, the decision usually breaks on manuscript-level signals rather than on the JIF table. The stronger first target is the journal whose editors can understand the paper's claim, audience, and evidence package fastest.
A PNAS or Nature Communications paper with a broad claim but a narrow audience usually struggles at both journals. Nature Communications may desk-reject it because the cross-field significance is not visible quickly enough in the abstract, title, and first figure. PNAS may struggle with the same manuscript if the Significance Statement cannot explain why scientists outside the specialty should care. Before choosing either journal, we look for a concrete bridge between the main result and a larger scientific problem, not just a sentence saying the work is broadly important.
A technically complex PNAS candidate can benefit from the scientist-editor model. When the contribution depends on specialized methods, field history, unusual controls, or a subtle methodological advance, a scientist editor can be an advantage. The methods, limitations, and figure logic still need to be clean, but PNAS is more likely to reward a paper whose value appears through expert reading. Nature Communications can still fit, but the abstract and cover letter need to translate the technical value for a professional editor before specialist reviewers ever see it.
A Nature Communications submission needs to justify the access cost. We see authors overvalue the higher JIF when the paper's strongest audience is actually a society or academy readership. If the lab is paying out of pocket, the Nature Communications APC should buy a real audience or signaling advantage, not just a larger number in a comparison table. The cover letter should make that case through the paper's readership, field timing, and reviewer pool, not through journal prestige alone.
A clean fallback path matters before either submission. If Nature Communications says no after desk triage, the PNAS version often needs a sharper Significance Statement and a less portfolio-style introduction, not a full scientific rebuild. If PNAS says no, the Nature Communications version may need a more immediate abstract, clearer visual story, and stronger cross-field framing. Authors who know that translation work before submitting waste fewer weeks after the first rejection.
The Significance Statement
PNAS requires a 120-word Significance Statement written for a broad audience. This is a triage tool. If the significance isn't clear to a non-specialist, the paper gets desk-rejected. Nature Communications doesn't require this, but the editors make a similar judgment informally.
Choose PNAS if:
- cost matters and PNAS's immediate or delayed open-access charges fit the budget better
- your field values the NAS heritage (ecology, evolution, social sciences, earth sciences)
- you have an NAS member collaborator (Contributed track is faster)
- you can write a compelling 120-word Significance Statement
Journal fit
Ready to find out which journal fits? Run the scan for Nature Communications first.
Run the scan with Nature Communications as the target. Get a fit signal that makes the comparison concrete.
Choose Nature Communications if:
- the JIF difference matters for your career context (18.1 vs 9.5)
- life sciences or biomedical research is the focus (Nature brand is stronger)
- you want faster editorial decisions (1-2 week desk vs 2-4 at PNAS)
- you're comfortable with the about $7,350 APC
Think twice about both if:
- a specialty journal would give better visibility to the target community
- Science Advances (JIF 13.9, $5,450 standard APC before discounts or waivers) splits the difference on citation signal and cost
- the paper would benefit from a society journal's specific readership
Before submitting to either, a PNAS vs. Nature Communications scope check can help assess which journal's editorial culture is the better fit.
Fast decision matrix
This comparison becomes much clearer when you separate prestige from submission model.
What matters most in this submission | Better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
Lower open-access cost | PNAS | The fee difference is material |
Higher JIF signaling | Nature Communications | The metric gap is real |
Scientist-led editorial culture and significance statement logic | PNAS | The editorial experience is different |
Faster professional-editor triage and Nature-brand positioning | Nature Communications | That is the portfolio model |
How to choose before you submit
Use this checklist:
- would the paper benefit more from a scientist-editor reading or from rapid professional-editor triage
- does the lab budget make the Nature Communications APC strategically acceptable
- can you write a Significance Statement that makes the PNAS case feel inevitable
- does your field still treat PNAS as a prestige venue independent of raw JIF
- if Nature Communications says no, would the same paper become a clean PNAS submission with only modest reframing
That is usually where the real answer lives. The journals overlap in scope, but they do not feel the same to authors, reviewers, or budgets, and that affects submission strategy far more than a generic ranking would.
What rejection from one often means for the other
These journals overlap in scope, but a rejection from one does not mean the other will read the paper the same way. If Nature Communications rejects early, the issue may be APC economics, portfolio selectivity, or a professional-editor view that the story is not sharp enough for the Nature system. PNAS can still be realistic if the work has strong field-level interest and a credible significance statement for a broad scientific audience.
If PNAS rejects, the signal is often different. The paper may still be strong, but the significance statement or scientist-editor read did not make the broad case feel inevitable. Nature Communications may remain viable if the story is professionally packaged, the data are strong enough, and the APC is acceptable. In other words, the journals can reject for different editorial reasons even when the manuscript quality is similar.
That is why authors should not treat this as a pure prestige ladder. The next move depends on which editorial culture misunderstood the paper less. Budget, audience, and submission model all shape that answer.
When cost should outweigh prestige signaling
Nature Communications can be the better brand outcome on paper, but the APC changes the decision in a way many comparison pages understate. If paying the fee would delay submission, consume limited lab funds, or force the authors to publish fewer papers elsewhere, the prestige advantage is no longer a simple upside. It becomes a budget tradeoff that needs to earn its place.
PNAS is often the cleaner choice when the paper already has a believable audience, the field still respects the journal's identity, and the team wants a broad journal without attaching a very large APC to the decision. That is particularly true when the manuscript's strength is scientific seriousness rather than glossy portfolio fit.
The practical question is not whether Nature Communications has the bigger label. It is whether the incremental signaling is worth the extra cost, the editorial style, and the submission model for this exact paper. If the answer is shaky, PNAS is usually the more defensible first move.
What a strong PNAS-first case looks like
The strongest PNAS-first submissions usually have a clear broad-interest message that can be explained to scientists outside the immediate subfield without turning the paper into a marketing exercise. That is why the significance statement matters so much. It forces authors to explain why the result deserves attention beyond the specialist audience.
If the paper already has that quality, PNAS can be a very strong first choice because it pairs reach with a scientist-led editorial culture and a materially better cost profile. If the manuscript instead depends more on Nature-brand signaling than on an independently persuasive cross-field case, Nature Communications may be the cleaner fit. The choice becomes easier when you ask which journal rewards the manuscript's real strengths rather than its hoped-for optics.
Frequently asked questions
PNAS and Nature Communications serve different communities. Choose based on scope fit, editorial culture, access costs, and whether the manuscript needs scientist-editor depth or Nature Portfolio signaling.
Nature Communications has the higher 2025 JIF: 18.1 vs PNAS at 9.5 in the 2026 JCR release.
Choose based on scope fit and target audience, not just JIF. PNAS is stronger when scientist-led editorial culture, cost control, and long citation half-life matter; Nature Communications is stronger when Nature-brand signaling and fast professional-editor triage matter.
Sources
Final step
See whether this paper fits Nature Communications.
Run the Free Readiness Scan with Nature Communications as your target journal and get a manuscript-specific fit signal before you commit.
Target journal carried over: Nature Communications
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