Value of Publishing at Springer Nature

A commitment to transparency in what we do and what it delivers

Springer Nature is committed to quality, openness and collaboration. This goes beyond just what we do, but encompasses who we are as a publisher and how we do it - Why? Because we know as a global publisher we have a duty to hold ourselves accountable and ensure that the communities we serve can transparently see how we are supporting them as the research ecosystem evolves.

Authors

Authors are at the heart of what we do, and we are committed to ensuring their work is used, reused and has the greatest reach.

  • Articles are downloaded on average 902 times – increasing year on year and doubling between 2017 and 20201.

  • Articles are cited 5.83 times on average - 60% increased reuse in three years.

  • Broadest selection of fully OA journals, appearing across more JCR categories than other publishers.

  • 16% of all OA primary research globally is published by Springer Nature, supporting over 2.5 million authors.

  • Our journals provide multiple comparable metrics of reach, impact and author service on their websites, and are also available on third-party comparison sites such as DOAJ.

  • Our OA articles provide best value for money for the author. The average cost for each use of an article in our fully OA journals was €0.24 in 2021, 30% lower than our nearest pure-OA competitor.

1 Annual Report https://annualreport.springernature.com/2021/

Librarians

We work closely with the librarian community to support the research community with the tools and sustainable services it needs to access, produce and maintain the integrity of research.

  • Flexible pricing policies to ensure budget is allocated to the most relevant resources
  • Long-term journal packages to provide best value per journal, and ensure stable and sustainable pricing in face of policy, funding and other global changes
  • Adaptive business model to help institutions and librarians make a sustainable move to OA, meeting different regional needs
  • Strict no double dipping policy - our subscription list prices are based only on subscription content. We do not count OA articles when assessing changes.
  • More information can be found in our main Librarians and Open Research for Librarians channels.

Community commitment

Driving OA value

  • Our fully OA journals author's work is downloaded more than those of other fully OA publishers.
  • Our fully OA articles are reused more being cited on average over 7 times - with citations from all OA articles growing by 50% between 2017 and 2020.

Find out more about our APC, Waiver and OA policies.

Transparent Pricing

We annually review our pricing to ensure consistency and sustainability across our portfolios. 

Our APC pricing reflects both the value that the journals deliver as well as the costs involved in: 

  1. Managing peer review
  2. Publishing
  3. Promotion
  4. Author support
  5. Investment in improving systems to deliver a superior and sustainable service.

Subscription price is based on a number of factors including:

  1. Number of subscription articles published by the journal
  2. Article usage
  3. Value placed on the content by the wider community
  4. Inflation and other variable costs are also taken into consideration                           

Individual customers are provided with detailed information taking into account the above factors and related to their specific accounts