Journal selection is often done on intuition: "this journal is good," "APCs are expensive," "decisions take forever." But what do the numbers say? Below we share original data drawn from the 13,524-journal corpus (18 disciplines) that powers Peerfect's recommendation engine. This is not a census of all journals worldwide; it's a June 2026 snapshot of the Peerfect corpus — but it gives journal selection a concrete footing.
Key findings
- Open access is the minority: 36.6% of journals are open access, 63.4% subscription-based.
- Turkey ranks 3rd: after the US (2,698) and UK (2,107), Turkey has 1,108 journals — the third most represented country.
- Publisher concentration: the top 5 publishers (Elsevier, Taylor & Francis, Wiley, Springer, SAGE) hold ~23% of the corpus.
- Median APC USD 1,990 (among DOAJ-registered open-access journals).
- Median decision/publication time: 14 weeks.
Access model distribution (full corpus, n=13,524)
| Access | Journals | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Subscription | 8,575 | 63.4% |
| Open access | 4,949 | 36.6% |
Open access still being the minority makes understanding open access and APC costs important: most journals are still subscription-based.
Estimated index distribution (multi-label, estimated)
Methodology caveat: the index information is largely estimated; only 43 journals in the corpus are directly JCR-verified. The numbers below are an approximate distribution, not exact classification. Always verify a journal's index at the source.
| Index family | Estimated journals | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Scopus | 6,224 | 46.0% |
| SCI (SCIE) | 2,667 | 19.7% |
| SSCI | 1,216 | 9.0% |
| TR Dizin (likely) | 1,081 | 8.0% |
| ESCI | 803 | 5.9% |
| AHCI | 12 | 0.1% |
Because a journal can be in multiple indexes, the totals exceed 100%. We cover the difference between indexes in a separate post.
Country distribution (top 6)
| Country | Journals |
|---|---|
| United States (US) | 2,698 |
| United Kingdom (GB) | 2,107 |
| Turkey (TR) | 1,108 |
| Indonesia (ID) | 589 |
| Netherlands (NL) | 565 |
| India (IN) | 367 |
Turkey ranking third reflects the corpus's strong Turkish/TR Dizin coverage — a clear advantage for researchers in Türkiye.
APC and process (DOAJ-registered open-access subset, n≈1,800)
These metrics are reliably available only for DOAJ-registered open-access journals; they don't represent the whole corpus.
| Indicator | Value |
|---|---|
| Journals charging an APC | 48% (52% are free) |
| Median APC (USD) | 1,990 (range: 15–8,270) |
| Offering a fee waiver | 34% |
| Median decision/publication time | 14 weeks |
| Running plagiarism checks | 79% |
The median APC being ~USD 2,000 while half the journals are free shows the "open access = expensive" perception isn't always true. Plagiarism checks being standard at 79% is the reason to take your similarity score seriously before submission.
Methodology and limits
- Source: Peerfect journal corpus (13,524 journals, 18 disciplines), enriched with OpenAlex + Crossref + DOAJ; June 2026 snapshot.
- Estimated index: heuristic; only 43 journals are JCR-verified. Not exact classification.
- Subset metrics: APC, decision time, plagiarism and fee-waiver data come from ~1,800 DOAJ-registered open-access journals.
- Discipline composition is specific to this corpus (social-sciences heavy) and does not represent the global journal population.
If you want to turn these numbers into your own decision: to see journals that fit your scope along with their index, access type and metrics before you submit, use Peerfect's free journal recommendation engine. Data is a sturdier basis for choosing the right journal than intuition.