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	4,475 (72.31 %)	7.94 %
Optional Fees	128 (2.07 %)	4.32 %
Some Fees	246 (3.97 %)	2.11 %
Always Fees	1,340 (21.65 %)	3.14 %
Total	6,189	5.77 %

Average fee paid: USD $6.81

Literary Contests

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	146 (14.60 %)	6.42 %
Optional Fees	4 (0.40 %)	n/a
Some Fees	13 (1.30 %)	5.58 %
Always Fees	837 (83.70 %)	2.35 %
Total	1,000	2.72 %

Average fee paid: USD $18.72

Literary Journals

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	2,040 (78.07 %)	7.79 %
Optional Fees	108 (4.13 %)	4.31 %
Some Fees	193 (7.39 %)	2.01 %
Always Fees	272 (10.41 %)	3.24 %
Total	2,613	5.66 %

Average fee paid: USD $3.69

Genre Contests

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	45 (37.19 %)	9.09 %
Optional Fees	1 (0.83 %)	n/a
Some Fees	0 (0.00 %)	n/a
Always Fees	75 (61.98 %)	4.41 %
Total	121	5.82 %

Average fee paid: USD $16.51

Genre Journals

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

Fees?	Count	Avg Acceptance%
Never Fees	571 (89.08 %)	8.71 %
Optional Fees	17 (2.65 %)	6.51 %
Some Fees	24 (3.74 %)	4.23 %
Always Fees	29 (4.52 %)	3.88 %
Total	641	7.93 %

Average fee paid: USD $4.22

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 30 October 2020 7:23 PM UTC (2 hours, 29 minutes ago).

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