Open Access vs Subscription Journals: Pros and Cons

The two models differ less in quality than in who pays, who can read the paper and what rights you keep. Those three things should drive the choice.

Explainer · 9 min read · Directive Publications Editorial Team

The real difference: who pays, who reads, who holds the rights

The debate about open access vs subscription journals is often framed as a debate about quality. It is mostly a debate about money and rights.

In the subscription model, sometimes called the traditional publishing model, libraries and individual readers pay to read. The author usually pays no article processing charge (APC), and the article sits behind a paywall for anyone without access through an institution.

In the open access model, the article is free to read from the day it is published, usually under a Creative Commons licence. The costs are covered some other way: an APC paid by the author's funder or institution, an institutional agreement, or, in diamond journals, a sponsor that charges neither readers nor authors.

Three questions follow from that, and they drive every other trade-off in this post:

1. Who needs to read this paper, and can they get past a paywall?
2. Who will pay, and is that payment allowed by your funders?
3. What rights do you and your co-authors keep after publication?

If you need the full map of routes first (gold, green, hybrid, diamond, bronze), our explainer on open access models covers each one. This post assumes you know the terms and need to choose.

Subscription journals: the advantages

No APC in most cases. For a paper without a funding line for publication costs, the subscription route removes the largest direct cost. That matters for unfunded clinical work, retrospective audits and studies led by trainees.

Familiar titles and readerships. Many long-established journals in medicine run on subscription or hybrid models. If the specialists you most need to reach read one of those journals, publishing there can put the paper in front of the right audience, even if the general public cannot read it.

A free open route often still exists. Many subscription publishers allow you to deposit the author accepted manuscript in a repository, sometimes after an embargo. A paper can therefore appear in a subscription journal and still be openly readable as a manuscript. The terms vary by publisher and by journal, so check them in Jisc's Open Policy Finder and on the journal's own site.

Subscription journals: the disadvantages

Paywalled journals limit who reads your work. Clinicians outside large academic centres, patients and carers, policy staff and researchers at institutions with small library budgets may not have access. For clinical guidance, public health findings or anything patients will search for, that is a real cost to impact.

Your rights are usually narrower. Subscription journals commonly ask authors to transfer copyright or grant an exclusive licence. That can restrict reusing your own figures, posting the final version or translating the paper. Read the agreement before you sign, and check which version you may post, where, and from when.

"Free to publish" is not always free. Some subscription journals charge page charges, a flat publication charge, or fees for colour figures in print. These are listed in the author guidelines, and they can approach the cost of an APC elsewhere.

Funder compliance may need extra work. If a funder requires immediate open access, a subscription journal may only comply if you deposit the accepted manuscript on the funder's terms. Under the 2024 NIH Public Access Policy, for example, author accepted manuscripts from NIH-funded research accepted on or after 1 July 2025 must be submitted to PubMed Central and made available without embargo on the official date of publication. A journal whose own sharing policy imposes a longer embargo can put that route in conflict with your funder.

Open access journals: the advantages

Anyone can read the paper. That is the one benefit that follows directly from the definition. Free access reaches clinicians without subscriptions, patients, journalists, guideline developers and researchers in every country, without asking any of them to log in.

You usually keep copyright. Most fully open access journals publish under a Creative Commons licence and leave copyright with the authors. A CC BY licence lets others translate, teach with, and text-mine the work with attribution, which matters for systematic reviewers and guideline groups.

Funder compliance is simpler. The Plan S principles state that authors or their institutions retain copyright, that publications must carry an open licence, preferably CC BY, and that open access fees should be covered by funders or institutions, not by individual researchers. A fully open access journal with a CC BY licence satisfies most of that in one step.

No access barrier for your own team. Former trainees, collaborators who have moved institutions and partners in clinical networks can all read and share the published version without worrying about access.

Open access journals: the disadvantages

Someone has to pay. Many open access journals charge an APC, and the amount varies widely by journal and article type. If no grant, agreement or waiver covers it, the cost can fall on a department or an individual. Our guide to article processing charges sets out what the fee covers and how to find funding before you submit.

Predatory publishers imitate the model. The author-pays route is the one predatory operators copy, because the payment comes from the author. A fee-charging journal you have never heard of needs the same scrutiny you would give any unfamiliar title: check its indexing, editorial board, peer review policy and fee transparency. Our list of predatory journal red flags is a quick screen.

The citation benefit is uncertain. Authors are often told open access will raise citations. A 2021 systematic review in PLOS ONE included 134 studies: 64 found an open access citation advantage, 37 found none, 32 found one only in subsets, and one was inconclusive. The authors said the quality and heterogeneity of the studies make generalisation difficult. Do not promise a department or a promotion committee that open access will raise a paper's citation count.

Open licences need care with third-party material. A CC BY licence applies to the whole article unless stated otherwise. Figures, scales or images you reproduce from other sources need permission that is compatible with the licence, which can take time to obtain.

Hybrid journals: the middle option with funder problems

A hybrid journal is a subscription journal that lets you make one article open, usually by paying an APC. It looks like the best of both models: the established title and open reading. For funded authors it is often the most restricted option.

The Plan S principles say that its funders do not support the hybrid model, except as part of transformative arrangements with a clearly defined timeframe. Wellcome funds APCs only in fully open access journals or platforms. Other funders allow hybrid fees only under agreements their institutions have signed. So the same hybrid journal can be fully funded for one co-author and unfundable for another.

Before paying a hybrid fee, check two cheaper routes. First, whether a read-and-publish agreement covers the corresponding author's institution. Second, whether depositing the accepted manuscript would satisfy every funder at no cost.

Side-by-side comparison

The table describes typical arrangements. Individual journals vary, so the journal's author guidelines and licence agreement are what count.

Choosing a model, paper by paper

As a senior author you make this decision for a group, often across several funders and institutions. Work through it in this order:

1. List every funder acknowledged on the paper. Policies often cover work funded in whole or in part, so a co-author's grant counts. Note each one's licence, deposit and fee rules.
2. Rule out journals that cannot comply. A journal whose licence or embargo conflicts with any funder's requirement drops off the list, whatever its reputation.
3. Decide who must be able to read the paper. If patients, front-line clinicians or researchers in low-resource settings are a main audience, weight open reading heavily.
4. Settle who pays before you submit. Check agreements tied to the corresponding author's affiliation, grant funds, waivers and no-fee options. Choose the corresponding author with this in mind.
5. Then compare fit, quality and speed. Among journals that pass the first four steps, choose on scope, editorial standards, indexing and readership.

Record the decision and the policy versions you checked. Funder and publisher terms change, and a written note saves the next paper from repeating the same research.

The choice is not permanent across your output

You do not have to pick a side. A research group can reasonably publish a funded trial in a fully open access journal, a short clinical observation in a subscription specialty journal with a repository deposit, and a methods paper in a diamond journal. What matters is that each paper is readable by the people who need it, compliant with every funder, and paid for by someone entitled to pay.

If you are weighing an open access journal for your next manuscript, Directive Publications sets out its requirements on the for authors page, so you can check licence and fee terms before you submit.