It is late, the manuscript is nearly finished, and an email sits unsent in your drafts folder. The article processing charge is beyond what you can pay yourself, and you know a waiver route exists because the publisher's site says so.
What stops it being sent is not embarrassment. It is a rational calculation: a message about money, arriving in the same inbox as the manuscript, might quietly reclassify the paper as a low-value prospect. So eligible authors pay charges they cannot afford, or shelve the work.
Here is the wording, the timing, and an honest account of what protects you — including the part that is a promise, not a mechanism.
The fear that stops the email is rational, not shy
Take the fear seriously: the structure producing it is real. Our Fee Waivers & Discounts policy asks you to send a waiver request to the editorial office — the same address given on Submit a Manuscript. There is no separate finance portal routing around that inbox, and we will not pretend otherwise.
Requests are handled administratively, separately from editorial evaluation, and treated confidentially. Two checkable things carry the weight: when the money becomes real, and what is written down.
The charge becomes payable only after formal acceptance
Submission is free: no submission fee and no review fee. The APC becomes payable only if and when a manuscript is formally accepted after peer review. If it is rejected, nothing is owed.
That ordering matters more than any assurance about inboxes: a request made at submission concerns a charge that may never exist. What the charge covers is on Publication Charges.
What our policy commits to, word for word — and what it does not claim
From Fee Waivers & Discounts:
Waiver requests and payment status are kept entirely separate from peer review. Editorial decisions are based solely on merit and are never affected by an author's ability to pay or by a waiver request.
That is a stated commitment, published in our own name, and you are entitled to hold us to it. It is not a claim that a handling editor is technically prevented from learning a request was made. We will not tell you requests are anonymised or diverted to a desk editors cannot reach, because that describes machinery, not policy.
Work out which of the three published routes describes you before you write a sentence
A request is easier to assess when it names one of the three published routes and the fact behind it.
| Route | What to state | When to send it | Full or partial | Not required |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfunded or self-funded research | That the work carried no grant, and no institution is covering publication costs for it | At or before submission, before review begins | Full if you can meet nothing; partial if you can name a figure | No published form; no fixed evidence list |
| Corresponding author in a low-income or lower-middle-income economy | That you are the corresponding author and are based in that country — name it | At or before submission, before review begins | Full if you can meet nothing; partial if you can name a figure | No published form; no fixed evidence list |
| Other demonstrated need, considered case by case | The circumstance in a sentence or two — what changed, or what is unavailable to you | At or before submission, before review begins | Full if you can meet nothing; partial if you can name a figure | No published form; no fixed evidence list |
The last column is the one to read closely. The policy specifies an email address and nothing else; the fields above make an assessment straightforward, they are not a form you must complete. Naming one route keeps the request clear; if two apply, put the second in the circumstance sentence.
Send it at submission, before peer review begins
The policy asks for requests at or before submission, not after acceptance. Send it with the manuscript, so it is on record before review starts.
If you are reading this after acceptance: the published rule is at or before submission, and the policy does not set out how a later request is handled. We will not invent an answer. Write to the editorial office, state what has changed and what you can meet, and ask what options exist. Saying nothing is the only course with a certain result.
Ask for the right thing: a full waiver, or a partial reduction with a figure you can meet
Decide before you write. Ask for a full waiver when there is no source of funds at all — no grant, no publication budget, no departmental allowance. Ask for a partial reduction when something is available and you know roughly what.
Name the figure. "A reduction would be helpful" gives an administrator nothing to act on; "I could meet approximately [amount]" is a proposition someone can accept or decline. Do not name a figure you cannot meet — if a partial reduction is granted, that is the amount you have offered to pay.
The template: six sentences to the editorial office
Copy this and replace the bracketed parts. Put the manuscript title in the subject line. Do not add an apology.
Dear Editorial Office,
I am submitting the manuscript "[Title]" to [journal name], and am writing at the same time to request consideration under your published waiver policy.
The route that applies is [unfunded or self-funded research / corresponding author based in a low-income or lower-middle-income economy: (country) / other demonstrated need].
[One or two sentences of plain circumstance — see the variants below.]
I am requesting [a full waiver of the article processing charge / a partial reduction, to a charge of approximately (figure and currency), which I am able to meet].
I understand this request is administrative, and I am content for it to be assessed on that basis, separately from the editorial evaluation of the manuscript.
Thank you for considering it, and I am happy to provide anything further that would help.
[Name], corresponding author, [affiliation], [ORCID iD]
That is the whole request: six short parts, with the circumstance no longer than the variants below.
A funded co-author, an affiliation that pays nothing, a grant that excludes publication costs
These are the cases that are hardest to phrase, because the plain version can sound like an admission. It is not. Each paragraph drops into the template in place of the circumstance sentence.
You have an affiliation, but the institution pays nothing towards publication
I hold an academic affiliation with [institution], but it does not operate a publication fund and makes no contribution towards article processing charges. No institutional support is available to me for this article.
A co-author holds funding, but it does not cover this work
A co-author holds an award from [funder] for [separate project]. That award does not cover the work reported here, which falls outside its scope, and its terms do not permit publication costs for this article to be charged against it.
The grant has ended, or explicitly excludes publication costs
The study was supported by [funder, grant number]. That award [closed in (month, year) / explicitly excludes publication and dissemination costs], and no funds remain against which this charge could be met.
Self-funded clinical work with no grant of any kind
This work was carried out in the course of clinical practice, without a grant of any kind. Data collection and analysis were undertaken by the authors in their own time, and the costs so far have been met personally. There is no funder and no institutional budget to which this charge could be directed.
Each states a fact and stops. None argues the paper is good; that belongs in the cover letter.
One line to send any publisher, us included
Two things are checkable from outside. Does the publisher charge at any point before formal acceptance — a submission, review or handling fee? And does it publish who is eligible and how to request a waiver, or mention waivers only in passing?
And a question you can put in writing to any publisher:
Please confirm in writing that a waiver request is assessed separately from the editorial evaluation of the manuscript.
Send it to us as readily as to anyone else. Restating a published policy in writing costs nothing if the policy is real.
The routes and the request address are on Fee Waivers & Discounts, the charge itself on Publication Charges. See also writing a cover letter to the editor, the message this request travels beside, the corresponding author's responsibilities, and handling a rejection — where, if it comes to that, nothing is owed.