Duotrope's Submission Fees Report

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?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	4,349 (70.62%)	7.86%
Optional Fees	218 (3.54%)	6.99%
Some Fees	203 (3.30%)	2.43%
Always Fees	1,388 (22.54%)	3.58%
Total	6,158	5.97%

Average fee paid: USD $6.81

Literary Contests

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	143 (14.37%)	3.71%
Optional Fees	4 (0.40%)	n/a
Some Fees	12 (1.21%)	4.63%
Always Fees	836 (84.02%)	2.63%
Total	995	2.76%

Average fee paid: USD $19.47

Literary Journals

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	1,958 (75.13%)	7.82%
Optional Fees	169 (6.49%)	6.25%
Some Fees	162 (6.22%)	2.42%
Always Fees	317 (12.16%)	3.73%
Total	2,606	5.86%

Average fee paid: USD $3.77

Genre Contests

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	40 (33.06%)	6.96%
Optional Fees	1 (0.83%)	n/a
Some Fees	0 (0.00%)	n/a
Always Fees	80 (66.12%)	7.37%
Total	121	7.32%

Average fee paid: USD $20.08

Genre Journals

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	505 (83.75%)	8.87%
Optional Fees	39 (6.47%)	8.10%
Some Fees	26 (4.31%)	4.29%
Always Fees	33 (5.47%)	3.68%
Total	603	8.01%

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.