Editorial commentary
A page charge is a supplementary fee some journals bill authors for publication, calculated by the length of the article rather than as a flat per-article fee. Models vary: some journals charge per page across the whole article; others allow an initial allowance (commonly around six pages) included at no extra cost, then charge only for pages beyond that allowance. Rates vary considerably between journals, and the fee is typically due before the journal will proceed to final publication.
Page charges are a distinct line item from an article processing charge (APC): an APC is charged specifically to make an article openly accessible on the publisher’s platform (gold open access) and is usually a flat, article-level fee; a page charge is a length-based publication fee that some journals apply regardless of whether the article ends up open access, and some journals apply both charges to the same article. A journal may also charge separately for colour figures, which is a further distinct fee some authors conflate with page charges.
Scope note: not all journals levy page charges — the practice is now concentrated in a subset of society and subscription journals, particularly in physics and some biomedical fields, rather than being universal. Authors and grant administrators budgeting for publication costs should check a specific journal’s author-fee page directly, since neither the existence nor the amount of a page charge can be assumed from a journal’s field or its APC policy alone. For the fuller picture of author-facing publication fees, see CASRAI's guide to APCs for open access.
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