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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 Fees4,349 (70.62%)7.86%
Optional Fees218 (3.54%)6.99%
Some Fees203 (3.30%)2.43%
Always Fees1,388 (22.54%)3.58%
Total6,1585.97%

Average fee paid: USD $6.81

Literary Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees143 (14.37%)3.71%
Optional Fees4 (0.40%)n/a
Some Fees12 (1.21%)4.63%
Always Fees836 (84.02%)2.63%
Total9952.76%

Average fee paid: USD $19.47

Literary Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees1,958 (75.13%)7.82%
Optional Fees169 (6.49%)6.25%
Some Fees162 (6.22%)2.42%
Always Fees317 (12.16%)3.73%
Total2,6065.86%

Average fee paid: USD $3.77

Genre Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees40 (33.06%)6.96%
Optional Fees1 (0.83%)n/a
Some Fees0 (0.00%)n/a
Always Fees80 (66.12%)7.37%
Total1217.32%

Average fee paid: USD $20.08

Genre Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees505 (83.75%)8.87%
Optional Fees39 (6.47%)8.10%
Some Fees26 (4.31%)4.29%
Always Fees33 (5.47%)3.68%
Total6038.01%

Average fee paid: USD $4.39

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 5 December 2023 2:45 AM UTC (1 hour, 59 minutes ago).

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