How IEEE Access Became One of the World's Largest Open Access Journals — and What It Earned Along the Way

A Journal That Grew at Startup Speed

When IEEE launched IEEE Access in 2013 as its first fully open access journal, few could have anticipated the scale of what was to come. In that inaugural year, just 71 papers were accepted — a modest start for what would become one of the highest-volume academic journals on the planet.

What followed over the next six years was a growth curve more commonly associated with technology companies than scholarly publishing. The journal doubled, tripled, and at times quintupled its output year after year, riding the global wave of open access mandates, institutional agreements, and rising researcher awareness of fee-based publishing models.

Phase One: The Hyper-Growth Years (2013–2019)

The journal's early trajectory is striking by any measure. From 71 accepted papers in 2013, output reached 822 by 2016 and then exploded to 6,624 in 2018 — a tenfold increase in just two years. By 2019, the count stood at 15,347, representing a cumulative growth of more than 21,500% from launch.

Several forces drove this expansion. The global open access movement was gaining institutional momentum, with funding bodies in Europe, North America, and Asia increasingly requiring researchers to publish in freely accessible venues. IEEE Access, with its broad engineering and technology scope and the prestige of the IEEE brand, was exceptionally well-positioned to absorb that demand.

Phase Two: The Peak and the Correction (2020–2022)

The year 2020 brought a different kind of growth. As the COVID-19 pandemic drove researchers indoors and laboratory work slowed across disciplines, manuscript output surged globally. IEEE Access saw its highest-ever volume in 2020: 17,931 accepted papers — a jump of nearly 17% on an already enormous 2019 total.

But the correction that followed was sharp. By 2022, acceptance figures had fallen to 9,626 — a 46% contraction from the peak. This decline was not simply a post-pandemic normalisation. It reflected a broader editorial reckoning. Critics within the academic community had raised concerns about quality controls at high-volume open access journals, and IEEE was not immune to that scrutiny.

The pattern mirrors what has been observed at other mega-journals: rapid expansion creates reputational risk, and journals that grow too fast often face pressure — from authors, institutions, and indexing bodies — to demonstrate rigorous peer review standards.

Three distinct phases of development

The APC Revenue Story: A $276 Million Upper Bound

At $2,160 USD per article processing charge (APC), and applying this rate uniformly to every accepted paper across the full 2013–2026 period with no waivers, discounts, or fee-assistance deductions, the maximum theoretical revenue stands at $276.2 million USD.

That figure demands context. It represents an absolute ceiling — the total that would have been earned if every accepted author paid the standard APC in full. In practice, IEEE operates waiver programmes for researchers from low-income countries, and institutional agreements often provide discounts. The actual realised revenue would be materially lower. Nevertheless, the number illustrates why large-scale open access publishing has become a significant commercial enterprise.

The 2019 year alone — at 15,347 accepted papers — would have generated over $33.1 million in APC revenue at the standard rate. The peak year of 2020 represents a potential $38.7 million in a single calendar year. These figures put IEEE Access in the same commercial conversation as some of the largest for-profit publishing operations in the world.

Year-on-Year Growth: Reading the Volatility

The year-on-year growth chart tells a story of three distinct arcs. The first arc (2014–2018) shows relentlessly positive growth, with several years exceeding 100% or even 150% annual increase. The second arc (2020–2022) is the correction: three consecutive years of contraction after the pandemic peak. The third arc (2023–2025) is the recovery, with modest but consistent positive growth returning.

Full Data: Year by Year

The table below presents the complete dataset with accepted papers, estimated submissions at the 27% maximum acceptance rate, year-on-year growth, and both annual and cumulative APC revenue potential.

What This Tells Us About Open Access Publishing

The story of IEEE Access is, in many ways, the story of the open access transition in engineering and technology research. It grew explosively because the demand was real — researchers needed compliant, credible venues for their work, and IEEE provided exactly that.

The correction phase is equally instructive. Volume alone does not build a journal's reputation; editorial rigour does. The fact that IEEE Access pulled back from its 2020 peak rather than continuing to grow suggests an organisation prioritising long-term standing over short-term revenue maximisation.

The stabilisation at roughly 13,000–14,000 papers per year may represent the natural equilibrium for a broad-scope engineering journal operating at high quality standards in a competitive open access landscape. Whether that level holds — or whether a new growth phase begins — will depend on how the broader open access funding environment evolves in coming years.