PeerJ is one of the best-known independent experiments in open-access publishing. Founded in 2012 by Jason Hoyt (formerly of Mendeley) and Peter Binfield (formerly publisher of PLOS ONE), it set out to prove that rigorous, fully open-access publishing does not need to cost thousands of dollars per paper - famously launching with a lifetime membership model instead of article fees. The publisher joined Taylor & Francis Group, the academic publishing division of Informa PLC, following an acquisition announced in March 2024, but it continues to operate its own journals, platform, and pricing.

Today PeerJ publishes two active peer-reviewed journals: PeerJ (subtitled Life & Environment, covering biology, life sciences, environmental sciences, and medicine) and PeerJ Computer Science. Five PeerJ chemistry journals launched in 2019 (Analytical, Organic, Inorganic, Physical Chemistry, and Materials Science) are no longer accepting submissions, and the PeerJ Preprints server was discontinued in 2019. This guide covers what PeerJ publishes, what it costs, how peer review works, and how to submit.

Both journals use the megajournal model: peer review evaluates scientific and methodological soundness, not perceived novelty or importance. Article types include Research Articles, Literature Reviews, Method Papers, and Data Reports; PeerJ also supports Registered Reports assessed against Royal Society Open Science criteria. Raw data and code are almost always required for review and publication, either in an archival repository with a DOI (e.g., Zenodo, Dryad, Figshare) or as machine-readable supplemental files.

PeerJ is 100% Gold open access: every article is published immediately under a CC BY license (a non-commercial license is available as a $395 add-on). There are three ways to pay (2026 prices, before local taxes):

Note that under the membership route every author on the paper must hold a membership (with a workaround process for very large author lists), so the APC is often simpler for one-off multi-author papers. Fee waivers are considered - check PeerJ's current pricing page before submission. Because PeerJ is fully OA it has no subscription journals and therefore no transformative (Read & Publish) agreements; AIMs play the equivalent institutional role.

• Model: single-anonymized by default; reviewers may sign their reviews, and authors can opt to publish the full peer-review history alongside the article - a majority of authors do.
• Criteria: editorial decisions are based on scientific and methodological soundness only, judged by an academic editor plus (typically) two or more external reviewers over multiple rounds where needed.
• Speed: PeerJ advertises roughly 30-35 days to first decision.

1. Pick the journal - PeerJ (Life & Environment) or PeerJ Computer Science - and read its Aims & Scope.
2. Prepare the manuscript using PeerJ's Word or LaTeX (Overleaf) template, or the matching template on SciSpace. Use US Letter, line numbers, and the standard section structure (Abstract, Introduction, Materials & Methods, Results, Discussion, Conclusions).
3. Format references in any style you like - PeerJ standardizes them after acceptance, as long as they are full, clear, and consistent.
4. Deposit your data and code with a DOI, or attach them as machine-readable supplemental files.
5. Submit via peerj.com - PeerJ runs its own proprietary submission and review platform; no cover letter is required.
6. Choose your payment route (APC, membership, or institutional AIM coverage) during submission.

PeerJ is a member of COPE, OASPA, and STM, and follows COPE guidelines on corrections and retractions. Its data-sharing policy is among the strictest of any broad-scope publisher: raw data and code are required at submission for nearly all articles. Human and animal research requires documented ethics approval, and clinical trials must follow CONSORT reporting standards.