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	Average Acceptance%
Never Fees	4,456 (72.08 %)	7.79 %
Optional Fees	117 (1.89 %)	4.28 %
Some Fees	253 (4.09 %)	2.16 %
Always Fees	1,356 (21.93 %)	2.97 %
Total	6,182	5.61 %

Average fee paid: USD $6.94

Literary Contests

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

Fees?	Count	Average Acceptance%
Never Fees	144 (14.15 %)	5.86 %
Optional Fees	3 (0.29 %)	n/a
Some Fees	10 (0.98 %)	3.02 %
Always Fees	861 (84.58 %)	2.39 %
Total	1,018	2.65 %

Average fee paid: USD $18.80

Literary Journals

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

Fees?	Count	Average Acceptance%
Never Fees	2,033 (78.16 %)	7.53 %
Optional Fees	98 (3.77 %)	4.28 %
Some Fees	207 (7.96 %)	2.10 %
Always Fees	263 (10.11 %)	2.97 %
Total	2,601	5.43 %

Average fee paid: USD $3.69

Genre Contests

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

Fees?	Count	Average Acceptance%
Never Fees	43 (35.25 %)	10.08 %
Optional Fees	0 (0.00 %)	n/a
Some Fees	0 (0.00 %)	n/a
Always Fees	79 (64.75 %)	4.47 %
Total	122	6.19 %

Average fee paid: USD $15.79

Genre Journals

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

Fees?	Count	Average Acceptance%
Never Fees	568 (89.31 %)	9.30 %
Optional Fees	16 (2.52 %)	7.46 %
Some Fees	23 (3.62 %)	3.72 %
Always Fees	29 (4.56 %)	3.84 %
Total	636	8.26 %

Average fee paid: USD $4.18

Note: These statistics are compiled once a day and based on submissions reports for the past 12 months. Last compiled: 14 August 2020 5:14 AM UTC (20 hours, 51 minutes ago).

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