Why does MDPI have article processing charges (APC) for publishing in its journals?
MDPI publishes all its journals in full open access format. The scientific community and the general public can unlimitedly and immediately access all content published in our journals for free as soon as it is published on the Internet. This means that MDPI does not have any income from selling subscriptions to print or online versions of its journals or from charging “pay-per-view” fees. Therefore, MDPI needs to defray its editorial and production costs by collecting article processing charges (APC) from authors’ institutes or research funding bodies. MDPI is committed to keep its open access publication charges at a minimum level. Already now, MDPI’s charges—if calculated per page—are much lower than the revenues per published page that traditional, subscription-based academic publishers can generate.
