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Duotrope®

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 Fees4,431 (70.77%)8.02%
Optional Fees206 (3.29%)7.41%
Some Fees221 (3.53%)2.65%
Always Fees1,403 (22.41%)3.12%
Total6,2616.04%

Average fee paid: USD $6.73

Literary Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees147 (14.47%)4.20%
Optional Fees6 (0.59%)n/a
Some Fees10 (0.98%)3.36%
Always Fees853 (83.96%)2.16%
Total1,0162.31%

Average fee paid: USD $19.22

Literary Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees2,044 (75.73%)8.07%
Optional Fees162 (6.00%)6.49%
Some Fees186 (6.89%)2.69%
Always Fees307 (11.37%)3.26%
Total2,6996.03%

Average fee paid: USD $3.72

Genre Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees50 (34.25%)7.14%
Optional Fees2 (1.37%)n/a
Some Fees0 (0.00%)n/a
Always Fees94 (64.38%)5.48%
Total1466.02%

Average fee paid: USD $17.74

Genre Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees530 (84.13%)8.85%
Optional Fees37 (5.87%)6.87%
Some Fees24 (3.81%)4.79%
Always Fees39 (6.19%)4.11%
Total6307.86%

Average fee paid: USD $4.30

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 29 November 2022 1:57 PM UTC (less than a second ago).

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