Open Access means free online access to scientific and scholarly information. This inevitably leads to the shifting of the financial burden from the end-users of scholarly information, such as readers and libraries, to the authors, libraries and research organisations who make the information available. After all, it still costs money to publish scholarly information and make it available online.

There is a list of business models and revenue sources for Open Access journals available.

Read more about business models:

• Author-Pays model, author pays publishing fee
• Research funder subsidises, funding organisations pay author fees
• Institutional membership, author fees are paid as a lump sum
• Publishing support funds, institutions reserve funds for author fees
• Hybrid business model, journals mix subscription based and author pays content
• Community-fee model, societies fund journals by both subscriptions and membership fees
• Institutional subsidies, institutions support their own university presses
• Consortium business model: the SCOAP3 initiative
• Other financing options.