Skip to Content

Duotrope's Submission Fees Report

A pink piggy bank
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 Fees4,375 (70.95%)7.78%
Optional Fees212 (3.44%)6.83%
Some Fees218 (3.54%)2.31%
Always Fees1,361 (22.07%)3.40%
Total6,1665.79%

Average fee paid: USD $6.55

Literary Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees145 (14.87%)3.38%
Optional Fees4 (0.41%)n/a
Some Fees9 (0.92%)n/a
Always Fees817 (83.79%)2.41%
Total9752.53%

Average fee paid: USD $19.08

Literary Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees2,003 (75.39%)7.76%
Optional Fees164 (6.17%)6.09%
Some Fees181 (6.81%)2.29%
Always Fees309 (11.63%)3.41%
Total2,6575.65%

Average fee paid: USD $3.68

Genre Contests

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees50 (37.04%)5.14%
Optional Fees1 (0.74%)n/a
Some Fees0 (0.00%)n/a
Always Fees84 (62.22%)6.68%
Total1356.17%

Average fee paid: USD $19.38

Genre Journals

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

Fees?CountAvg Acceptance%
Never Fees520 (84.42%)8.85%
Optional Fees36 (5.84%)8.18%
Some Fees28 (4.55%)4.22%
Always Fees32 (5.19%)3.21%
Total6167.83%

Average fee paid: USD $4.20

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 3 June 2023 3:30 PM UTC (21 hours, 48 minutes ago).

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