Rejected from PLOS ONE? The 7 Best Journals to Submit Next

"The sample size is insufficient." Your study is underpowered. The effect you're claiming can't be reliably detected with the number of samples you have. This is the single most common rejection trigger.

"The statistical analysis is inappropriate." Wrong statistical tests, multiple comparison problems, or conclusions drawn from non-significant trends. PLOS ONE has strengthened its statistical review process and now catches issues that journals used to overlook.

"The conclusions are not supported by the data." You overclaimed. Your data shows a trend but you claimed a definitive effect. Your correlation doesn't support the causal claim in your discussion. This gap between evidence and conclusion is taken seriously.

"Missing controls or replication." Your experiment lacks appropriate negative controls, positive controls, or independent replication. Reviewers expect at least biological replicates (independent experiments), not just technical replicates (repeated measurements of the same sample).

"Ethical or reporting concerns." Missing ethics approval, insufficient informed consent documentation, or failure to report the study according to relevant guidelines (CONSORT, STROBE, ARRIVE).

Before choosing your next journal, a PLOS ONE manuscript fit check can tell you whether the issue was scope or something more fundamental to address first.

1. Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports (Springer Nature) is PLOS ONE's most direct competitor: broad scope, soundness-based review, high volume. The acceptance rate (~50%) is similar to PLOS ONE's, and the journal is part of the Nature Portfolio (though it shouldn't be confused with the Nature research journals).

If PLOS ONE rejected for borderline methodological concerns, Scientific Reports' different reviewers may see it differently. But don't submit the identical manuscript without addressing PLOS ONE's feedback.

Best for: Sound scientific work across all disciplines. Papers that need a broad-scope, accessible venue.

2. PeerJ

PeerJ publishes life and environmental science with a fast review process and a lower APC ($1,700) than PLOS ONE or Scientific Reports. The journal evaluates technical soundness and doesn't filter on novelty, similar to PLOS ONE's model.

PeerJ also offers preprint posting through PeerJ Preprints, which can establish priority while you work through the review process.

Best for: Life science and environmental science papers needing fast, affordable open-access publication.

3. Frontiers journals

Frontiers operates a network of field-specific journals (Frontiers in Immunology, Frontiers in Microbiology, Frontiers in Plant Science, etc.) with a collaborative review model. Reviewers and authors work together to improve the manuscript before publication, which makes the process less adversarial than traditional review.

Choose the Frontiers journal that matches your specific field for the best reviewer expertise.

Best for: Field-specific research across all biological and physical sciences. Authors who prefer a collaborative review experience.

4. BMC series journals

BMC publishes dozens of field-specific journals (BMC Biology, BMC Medicine, BMC Genomics, BMC Immunology, etc.) with open-access, peer-reviewed publication. Each journal covers a specific field, so reviewers have relevant expertise.

Best for: Field-specific research needing open-access publication within a specific discipline.

5. SAGE Open Medicine

For clinical and medical research, SAGE Open Medicine provides a rapid, open-access publication pathway. The journal focuses on soundness rather than novelty, similar to PLOS ONE's model.

Best for: Clinical research, medical case series, and health research needing rapid publication.

6. Heliyon

Heliyon is Cell Press's broad-scope, soundness-focused journal. It publishes across all disciplines and evaluates technical soundness rather than perceived importance. The Cell Press affiliation provides editorial infrastructure.

Best for: Sound research across any scientific discipline.

7. F1000Research

F1000Research uses post-publication open peer review. Your paper is published immediately, then reviewed openly by invited experts. This is the fastest route to publication, but the reviews are public and your paper's status depends on passing peer review after publication.

Best for: Rapid publication with transparent review. Papers where establishing priority matters.

A PLOS ONE rejection carries a different signal than a rejection from Nature or Cell. Those journals reject for impact, scope, or novelty. PLOS ONE rejects for methodology. That means the problems in your paper are real, not just a matter of editorial taste, and they'll follow you to every journal.

If PLOS ONE reviewers said your statistics are wrong, they're probably right. If they said your sample size is too small, increasing it is the fix, not submitting to a less rigorous journal. If they said your conclusions overreach your data, toning down the claims is necessary everywhere.

Take the reviewer comments seriously. Get a colleague to read them with fresh eyes. Consider a statistical consultation if the feedback involves quantitative methods.

A PLOS ONE rejection is a signal that your methodology needs work. Don't submit the same manuscript elsewhere without fixing the problems.

Statistics. If PLOS ONE flagged your statistical analysis, get a statistical consultation. Wrong tests, missing corrections, and overclaimed results will be caught at any journal.

Sample size. If your study is underpowered, either increase your sample size or honestly frame the study as preliminary or exploratory. Don't claim definitive results from underpowered data.

Controls. Add missing controls. If you can't run new controls, acknowledge the limitation explicitly and adjust your conclusions accordingly.

Reporting. Complete the relevant reporting checklist (CONSORT, STROBE, ARRIVE, PRISMA) before resubmitting. Every journal checks these.

Run your manuscript through a PLOS ONE resubmission readiness and next-journal fit check to catch formatting issues, statistical problems, and reporting gaps before your next submission.

In our pre-submission review work with manuscripts targeting PLOS ONE, four patterns generate the most consistent desk rejections worth knowing before resubmission.

Underpowered studies with conclusions that exceed what the data can support. PLOS ONE's editorial scope is scientific soundness, not novelty, but editors are rigorous about whether the evidence actually supports the conclusions claimed. We see this failure as the most common pattern in PLOS ONE desk rejections we review: papers presenting statistically significant findings from samples too small to support generalization, or drawing broad mechanistic conclusions from experiments in one cell line or one animal cohort. In our review of PLOS ONE submissions, we find that editors consistently flag sample size problems at the desk when the study design cannot deliver the statistical power the conclusions require.

Mismatched statistical tests or analytical methods. PLOS ONE has strengthened its statistical review process substantially. We see this failure regularly in manuscripts we review: parametric tests applied to non-normal data without justification, multiple comparisons not accounted for, or effect sizes reported without confidence intervals. Editors screen for these problems at the desk because they undermine the paper's scientific validity independently of the biological question being asked.

Missing controls or absent replication that limits confidence in the primary finding. PLOS ONE's soundness standard requires that the primary findings be adequately controlled. We see this pattern in PLOS ONE submissions we review missing critical control conditions: no vehicle control, no isotype control in antibody experiments, no scrambled siRNA control, or no independent biological replicate to confirm the key finding. These gaps generate desk returns because they prevent verification of the result's validity.

Conclusions drawn from indirect or proxy evidence without direct measurement. Papers asserting mechanistic conclusions from correlational or indirect data, or drawing causal claims from observational study designs without acknowledging the design's limitations, generate consistent editorial concerns at PLOS ONE. We see this pattern in submissions we review: papers where the evidence supports an association but the language presents it as a mechanism.

SciRev community data for PLOS ONE confirms desk rejections typically arrive within days, with post-review first decisions within 4-8 weeks, consistent with the volume-driven editorial process PLOS ONE manages across all scientific disciplines.