Science (AAAS) APC and Open Access: What Authors Actually Pay and Why It's Complicated

Publishing in Science is free. There is no article processing charge, no page fee, no color figure charge, and no submission fee. The journal operates entirely on subscription revenue and AAAS membership dues.

This sounds ideal until you hit the open access question. Science does not offer gold open access for research articles. You can't pay to make your paper immediately free. Instead, AAAS follows an embargo model:

• First 12 months: Your article is behind the paywall. Readers need a subscription or AAAS membership.
• After 12 months: The article becomes freely accessible on the Science website.
• Accepted manuscript deposit: You can deposit the accepted (peer-reviewed but not formatted) version in institutional or funder repositories after the embargo period.

This creates a real problem for researchers with Plan S funders. cOAlition S requires immediate open access under a CC BY license, and Science cannot provide that. If you're funded by Wellcome Trust, ERC, UKRI, or another Plan S funder, publishing in Science may require a negotiated exception or a rights retention strategy.

The collision between Science and Plan S has been one of the most contentious issues in scholarly publishing. AAAS has argued that immediate open access would undermine their subscription model, which funds the journal and the broader AAAS mission. Plan S funders have argued that publicly funded research should be immediately available.

In practice, here's how researchers navigate it:

1. Rights retention strategy: Some institutions (including all UK universities under the UKRI policy) allow authors to retain the right to deposit the accepted manuscript in a repository immediately upon acceptance, regardless of the publisher's embargo. This satisfies Plan S without requiring the publisher's cooperation.
2. Negotiate with your funder: Some Plan S funders have granted temporary exceptions for subscription journals like Science, recognizing the editorial value.
3. Choose Science Advances instead: If your work fits either journal and OA compliance is non-negotiable, Science Advances satisfies Plan S while staying within the AAAS ecosystem.

The rights retention approach is the most common path for European researchers publishing in Science as of 2026.

Science Advances is a fully gold open access journal. Every article is immediately free to read. The cost to authors:

The APC is charged after acceptance, not at submission. Payments are processed through RightsLink (Copyright Clearance Center). You can pay by credit card, wire transfer, or institutional purchase order.

Who gets discounts

Automatic waivers: AAAS fully waives the APC for corresponding authors based in Research4Life / Hinari Group A and Group B countries. This is applied automatically during the payment process based on your institutional affiliation.

AAAS membership discount: Active AAAS members receive 4% off. If you're already a member ($175/year for postdocs, $282 for regular members), this saves $218 per article. The membership pays for itself if you publish one paper in Science Advances.

Institutional agreements: Several institutions have negotiated bulk discounts with AAAS:

Financial hardship: If none of the above applies and you genuinely can't afford the APC, AAAS offers a hardship discount request form. Contact the Science Advances business office after acceptance. Approval is discretionary but not uncommon for early-career researchers without grant funding.

The pattern is clear: if your funder allows a 12-month embargo, Science works. If your funder demands immediate OA, Science Advances is the AAAS option that complies.

Science (flagship):

• No page charges, color charges, or supplementary data fees.
• No submission fee.
• If you need to provide open access and your funder won't cover Science Advances, you'll need to factor in the cost of the rights retention approach (usually $0 but requires institutional support).

Science Advances:

• The $5,450 APC is the only charge. No additional page fees.
• License choice matters: CC BY-NC is the default, but Plan S funders require CC BY. Make sure you select the right license during the production process. Changing it after publication is difficult.
• Overlength charges: Science Advances doesn't impose strict page limits for most article types, but very long papers (Research Articles over 15,000 words) may be asked to trim during review.

The choice between Science and Science Advances isn't just about money. It's about what your career needs and what your funder allows.

Publish in Science (free) if:

• Your funder allows a 12-month embargo or you can use rights retention
• The prestige of the flagship Science brand matters for your career stage (tenure, grants)
• Your work fits the scope of Science's short-format Research Articles

Publish in Science Advances ($5,450) if:

• Your funder requires immediate open access
• Your paper needs more space than Science's strict word limits allow
• You want your work freely accessible from day one
• You're at a career stage where OA reach matters more than brand

Either way, getting past the desk at AAAS journals requires a paper with broad significance and clean methodology. If you want to check whether your manuscript is ready for this level of scrutiny, try a free readiness scan before submitting.