Science Advances APC and Open Access: The Only AAAS Journal Where You Pay to Publish

AAAS launched Science Advances in 2015 to solve two problems at once.

First, the flagship Science has extremely limited space. It publishes roughly 800 research articles per year and rejects over 93% of submissions. Science Advances provides a home for strong multidisciplinary research that doesn't fit Science's narrow format or scope requirements.

Second, Science has no open access option. As funder mandates increasingly require immediate OA, AAAS needed a journal that could satisfy those requirements. Science Advances fills that gap. It's the only AAAS research journal where authors can comply with Plan S, Wellcome Trust, and other immediate-OA mandates without workarounds.

The journal has grown quickly. It now publishes over 2,000 articles per year across all scientific disciplines, with an impact factor of 12.5 (2024). That puts it in strong company, competitive with journals like Nature Communications and PNAS.

AAAS offers several paths to reduce or eliminate the APC:

Corresponding authors based in Research4Life/Hinari Group A countries (low-income nations) and Group B countries (lower-middle-income nations) receive automatic full waivers. You don't need to apply. The system detects your institutional affiliation during the payment process and applies the waiver.

This covers researchers in approximately 120 countries. If you're at an institution in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or other qualifying regions, you pay nothing.

Active AAAS members get 4% off the APC, saving $218. AAAS membership costs $175/year for postdocs and $282 for regular members. If you publish one article per year in Science Advances, the membership essentially pays for itself through the discount.

The discount stacks with some institutional agreements, so you could potentially get both 10% institutional and 4% member discounts. Check with your library to confirm whether stacking applies to your institution's specific deal.

AAAS has negotiated bulk pricing with several institutions and consortia:

The US doesn't have a national-level agreement with AAAS. Coverage depends on whether your specific institution has negotiated a deal. This is different from the Springer Nature model, where massive consortia like Jisc (UK) or DEAL (Germany) cover entire national systems.

If you don't qualify for any of the above and genuinely can't afford the APC, AAAS offers a hardship waiver request process. Contact the Science Advances business office after acceptance. Approval is discretionary, but AAAS is generally receptive to requests from early-career researchers at institutions without grant funding or OA funds.

AAAS states that waiver requests are handled by the business team and are never visible to editors or reviewers. Your paper's fate doesn't change based on your ability to pay.

Science Advances satisfies all major public access mandates when the correct license is selected:

This is the single biggest advantage Science Advances holds over the flagship Science. While Science can't satisfy Plan S at all (no immediate OA option), Science Advances checks every box. For European researchers with cOAlition S funding, Science Advances is often the only AAAS option that works.

The $5,450 APC is the only charge. Science Advances doesn't impose page fees, color figure surcharges, or supplementary data hosting fees. But there are indirect costs to consider:

• License mistakes: Selecting CC BY-NC when your funder requires CC BY is the most common and most painful error. You won't notice until your funder's compliance check flags it. Fix it before publication, not after.

• Overlength manuscripts: Science Advances doesn't impose strict page limits for most article types, but Research Articles over 15,000 words may be asked to trim during review. This isn't a fee, but it's a time cost.

• Data availability: The journal requires that underlying data be deposited in public repositories. Repository costs are typically $0 for standard datasets, but very large datasets (genomics, imaging) may incur storage fees at repositories like Dryad or Figshare.

• Preprint costs: $0. Science Advances allows and encourages preprint posting on bioRxiv, arXiv, or other servers at any stage.

Understanding the timeline helps you budget and plan:

Science Advances (~10%) of submissions do), the full timeline from submission to publication is typically 5-7 months.

The journal accepts Research Articles, Research Resources, Reviews, and Technical Notes. Research Articles are the most common and carry the standard $5,450 APC regardless of length.

One useful feature: if your paper is rejected by Science (the flagship), you can transfer it to Science Advances with your reviewer reports. The Science Advances editors may still send it for additional review, but the transfer preserves previous feedback and can speed up the process.

Science Advances is a strong choice when three conditions align: your work is multidisciplinary, your funder requires immediate OA, and you have $5,450 in your budget (or your institution covers it).

If you're comparing Science Advances against Nature Communications, the decision comes down to price vs. prestige. Nature Communications has a higher IF and broader recognition, but costs $1,900 more. In fields where the AAAS brand carries weight (physics, earth sciences, engineering), Science Advances may actually be the better-known journal.

If OA isn't required and you're targeting the AAAS ecosystem, consider submitting to the flagship Science first. It's free to publish there. If rejected, the transfer pathway to Science Advances is smooth.

Before submitting to any AAAS journal, the manuscript needs to demonstrate broad significance beyond a single field. That's the editorial bar. If you want to test whether your paper hits that threshold, Science Advances submission readiness check to spot weaknesses before the editors do.

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