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Duotrope's Submission Fees Report

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Are submission fees worth it, or should you save your money?

There's been a lot of discussion lately about the state of submission fees in the literary world. We hope these figures shine some light on the situation. You can use the reports below to see the overall fee ratios, along with the average acceptance ratios by category, and compare "literary" versus "genre" publications.

All Active Publication Listings

Criteria: All active listings

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees4,228 (69.22%)8.00%
Optional Fees277 (4.54%)8.40%
Some Fees191 (3.13%)2.65%
Always Fees1,412 (23.12%)3.37%
Total6,1086.33%

Average fee paid: USD $7.06

Literary Contests

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Contest, Style: Literary, Genre: General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees131 (12.61%)3.97%
Optional Fees9 (0.87%)n/a
Some Fees18 (1.73%)3.93%
Always Fees881 (84.79%)2.39%
Total1,0392.51%

Average fee paid: USD $20.27

Literary Journals

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Journal, Style: Literary, Genre: General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees1,885 (74.24%)7.79%
Optional Fees203 (8.00%)7.92%
Some Fees152 (5.99%)2.68%
Always Fees299 (11.78%)3.67%
Total2,5396.24%

Average fee paid: USD $3.89

Genre Contests

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Contest, Style: Any, Genre: Any except General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees34 (30.36%)4.87%
Optional Fees2 (1.79%)n/a
Some Fees1 (0.89%)n/a
Always Fees75 (66.96%)6.60%
Total1126.65%

Average fee paid: USD $19.23

Genre Journals

Criteria: Active listings with Type: Journal, Style: Any, Genre: Any except General

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees498 (83.00%)8.18%
Optional Fees52 (8.67%)10.00%
Some Fees15 (2.50%)2.83%
Always Fees35 (5.83%)5.12%
Total6007.91%

Average fee paid: USD $4.43

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 27 April 2025 7:25 PM UTC (16 hours, 4 minutes ago).

If you have any suggestions on how we can improve this report, please let us know.