protocols.io is a cloud-based platform for creating, sharing, and running reproducible research methods. Instead of burying your method in a compressed journal Methods section, you publish it as a living, step-by-step protocol - with timers, reagent amounts, embedded videos, safety warnings, and version history - that anyone can read, run, fork, and cite. Founded in Berkeley, California in 2012 by geneticist Lenny Teytelman with co-founders Alexei Stoliartchouk and Irina Makkaveeva, the platform was acquired by Springer Nature in July 2023 after a year-long pilot partnership, and now sits alongside Nature Protocols and the Springer Nature Experiments platform.

The core promise has not changed since the acquisition: publishing a public protocol is free, and every published protocol receives a citable DOI. The platform is used most heavily in the life sciences and medicine, with growing coverage in chemistry and adjacent fields.

protocols.io is a methods repository, not a journal. There is no editorial acceptance decision, no impact factor, and no formal peer review. What you get instead:

1. Create a free account at protocols.io and open the web editor.
2. Write the protocol step by step. You can import from a document or build natively; add reagents, durations, expected results, and safety notes per step.
3. Keep it private while you draft. Drafts and lab-internal protocols stay private; free accounts have limited private space, while premium workspaces offer unlimited private protocols.
4. Publish when ready. Publication is immediate and free. The protocol becomes public under a Creative Commons license (CC BY by default) and receives its DOI.
5. Update as the method evolves. New versions get published under the same protocol with full version history, so a citation always resolves to the exact version used.

There is no formal peer review on protocols.io. The platform runs basic editorial screening for spam and inappropriate content, and quality control is community-driven: open comments on individual steps, fork counts, view metrics, and versioning create transparency about how a method is actually used. If you need peer-reviewed credit for a method, pair the protocol with a protocol paper - see the journal-submission section below.

Cite the DOI, which follows the pattern dx.doi.org/10.17504/protocols.io.xxxxxxx. Best practice for manuscripts:

• Reference the protocol DOI in your Methods section at the point where the method is used.
• Add a full citation (authors, title, protocols.io, year, DOI) to your reference list.
• Cite the specific version you followed - protocols.io preserves every published version, so version-level citation keeps your work reproducible.

Many journals now encourage or require deposited step-by-step protocols; PLOS journals in particular integrate protocols.io links directly into articles.

protocols.io complements rather than replaces journal publishing:

• PLOS ONE Lab Protocols: a partnership article type where protocols.io hosts the step-by-step method and PLOS ONE publishes a peer-reviewed companion article. The protocols.io team formats protocols for Lab Protocol authors at no charge.
• Springer Nature Experiments and Nature Protocols: since the 2023 acquisition, protocols.io connects with Springer Nature's protocol-publishing ecosystem, giving authors a route from an open platform protocol to a peer-reviewed protocol publication.
• Methods sections everywhere: roughly 200 journals reference protocols.io in their author guidelines as a recommended place to deposit detailed methods, and depositing a protocol before submission strengthens reproducibility claims in any journal.

Posting a protocol publicly generally does not conflict with journal submission - protocols are treated like preprints of methods - but check your target journal's policy if you are unsure.

• Public protocols: free. Creating an account, publishing public protocols, and getting DOIs cost nothing, and published protocols are free for anyone to read.
• Premium plans: paid. Unlimited private protocols, private lab workspaces, shared notebook records, and admin features come with premium workspace subscriptions, institutional (academic) plans, or enterprise (industry) plans. Pricing is quote-based - contact protocols.io or check whether your institution already has a site license; many universities do.

Publish only methods you have the right to share, credit original authors when forking, and include appropriate biosafety and ethical-approval notes in protocols involving animal or human subjects. Licenses are Creative Commons (CC BY by default), so downstream users must attribute you. Because there is no peer review, readers should treat protocols as author-asserted methods and check version history and comments before relying on one.