Is there a correlation between APC and journal prestige?

There is no direct correlation between APCs and the journal prestige. However, it is seen that generally high APCs are always associated with publishing in reputed international journals with high impact factor. While the less reputed or local journals have lower APCs but the reach is low as well. Although researchers prefer publishing in the reputed journals as the target audience is larger, but most of the times end up publishing in the local journals to avoid paying high APCs. However, the move towards open access (OA) has been embraced by a number of journals. As a result, some journals do not charge article processing charges (APCs). OA journals do away with paywalls, but they need to make a profit elsewhere. With the onset of OA, the megajournals, a category of OA journals, have also come into being. These are peer-reviewed journals; however, they might have less-stringent publishing criteria. APCs for publishing in megajournals are usually lower than those of traditional journals.

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