Do I have to post a preprint before submitting to eLife?

Yes. eLife only peer reviews submissions that are available as preprints.

When does eLife charge the publication fee?

When the preprint is sent for peer review — not on acceptance. The fee is $3,750 for submissions from 1 July 2026.

Can I get the fee waived?

Yes. eLife grants full waivers for labs under financial pressure, and editors have no knowledge of waiver requests.

What happens if the reviews are negative?

The reviews and eLife Assessment are published regardless. Whether the paper becomes a Version of Record depends on meeting quality thresholds.

Is there a word limit for eLife Research Articles?

No maximum, though around 5,000 words of main text is suggested, excluding Methods, References and figure legends.

How many figures can I include?

No limit for Research Articles, including figure supplements. Short Reports are limited to three or four main display items.

eLife Submission Guide 2026: Preprint First, $3,750 Fee

eLife only reviews preprints, and charges its $3,750 fee when review starts — not on acceptance.

Submitting to eLife works differently enough from a conventional journal that the usual checklist does not transfer. There is no accept/reject decision in the traditional sense, the fee is charged before you know the outcome, and the reviews are published whether or not the paper becomes a Version of Record.

None of that is hidden — but it does mean the decision to submit is a different decision than it looks.

The checklist below assumes your manuscript and every scientific figure in it are already prepared to the journal's specification.

Key numbers before you submit


Publication fee	$3,750 for submissions from 1 July 2026
When it's charged	When the preprint is sent for peer review — not on acceptance
VAT	20% added if invoiced to an individual rather than a business
Waivers	Full waiver available on request
Preprint	Required — eLife only reviews preprints
Research Article length	No maximum; ~5,000 words suggested for main text
Display items	No limit
Payment methods	Wire transfer, credit card, or cheque (USD drawn on a US bank)

How eLife's process actually works

Horizontal workflow diagram of eLife's publish-review-curate process from preprint through public review to versioned records (illustration generated with SciFig)

eLife runs a publish-review-curate model:

You post a preprint to a preprint server. This is not optional — eLife only peer-reviews submissions that are available as preprints.
You submit to eLife. Editors decide which submissions to send for review, selecting papers where the reviews will be of greatest public value.
The fee is charged at this point — when the preprint goes out for review, before any outcome is known.
Reviews are published. The paper appears as a Reviewed Preprint with the public reviews and an eLife Assessment attached.
You respond and revise. Subsequent versions of the Reviewed Preprint are published, and a Version of Record follows at the authors' request.

The fee covers the whole chain: initial evaluation, staff checks, peer review, publication of the Reviewed Preprint, re-review, publication of subsequent versions, and the Version of Record.

The critical difference from a conventional journal: the reviews are published regardless of whether the paper ultimately becomes a Version of Record. There is no version of this process where an unfavourable review stays private.

What "no accept/reject" means in practice

An open manuscript with review comments permanently attached alongside it inside a transparency frame, illustrating eLife's public review record (illustration generated with SciFig)

Under the reviewed preprint model, every reviewed paper receives a public assessment. Whether a paper is formally published by eLife as a Version of Record depends on meeting quality thresholds — but the review and the assessment are published either way.

For authors, this converts a familiar risk into an unfamiliar one. At a conventional journal, a bad review costs you time and you submit elsewhere with the review invisible. At eLife, a bad review is part of the permanent public record attached to your preprint.

Your Author Response is published too. It is worth writing as a document that colleagues, reviewers of your next grant, and search engines will read — not as correspondence with an editor.

Because the accept/reject step is gone, the number that actually decides your paper's fate is the share of submissions eLife sends out for review at all — 35% in 2025, with declines returned at a median of eight days. Our breakdown of eLife's acceptance rate works through what that gate means for a paper like yours, and why a rising percentage does not mean the bar has dropped.

At eLife your figures become public with the reviews

The reviewed version is the version readers see. Build the figures to specification before that record is permanent.

Explore the Tool

Article types and length limits

Type	Main text	Display items
Research Article	No maximum; ≤ 5,000 words suggested (excluding Methods, References, figure legends)	No limit
Short Report	≤ 1,500 words	3–4 main items
Research Advance	Any length	Any number; minimal introduction needed
Review Article	No restriction; 2–3,000 words (short) to 10,000 words (long)	Up to 8 figures
Feature Article	No strict limit; stay below 2,000 words advised	2 display items advised
Scientific Correspondence	≤ 1,500 words	≤ 4 main items

Replication Studies are titled "Replication Study: 'Title of original article'", with the abstract stating which parts of the original are the focus and why. Comments are titled "Comment on 'Title of original article'".

Research Articles have flexibility in structure — a combined Results and Discussion section is acceptable.

What has to be in the submission package

Exploded view of an eLife submission bundle showing the manuscript, separate figure files, source data and bibliography arranged around a central page (illustration generated with SciFig)

Manuscript file. For LaTeX submissions, supply the .bib bibliography file alongside, plus any .sty style packages used.

Figures uploaded individually — Figure 1, Figure 1—figure supplement 1, and so on. Multi-page figures are not supported. Full specifications are in eLife formatting requirements.

Statistics inside figure legends. eLife requires legends to carry the statistical treatment: which tests were applied, exact sample number, p values, and criteria for data inclusion or exclusion.

Raw gels and blots. For any figure containing gels or blots, you must supply both the original full unedited files and versions with uncropped gels showing the relevant bands clearly labelled.

Source data files where applicable — one per figure or table, under 100 MB each, labelled Figure 1—Source Data 1.

The fee question, answered directly

"I can't afford $3,750." eLife states that it will grant a waiver for labs under financial pressure — "whether because of the local economy, career stage, or a lack of funding." This is a stated policy, not an exception you have to argue for.

"Will requesting a waiver hurt my paper's chances?" eLife states that editors have no knowledge of waiver requests or financial arrangements.

"Does my institution already cover it?" eLife has publishing agreements with a number of institutions and funders under which fees are covered rather than billed to the author. Check eligibility before paying.

The timing is the part to plan around: because the fee lands when the preprint is sent for review, you need the funding available at submission rather than months later at acceptance. For grant-funded work approaching an end date, that difference can matter.

Before you upload: a checklist

Preprint posted to a preprint server
Funding confirmed, or waiver requested, for the fee at review time
Figures uploaded individually, each single-page, 300 dpi minimum and at least 10 cm wide
Scale bars on micrographs; molecular weight markers on gels and blots
Figure legends contain tests, exact n, p values, inclusion/exclusion criteria
Raw uncropped gel and blot files prepared
Tables supplied as tables, not as images
Colour scheme checked for accessibility (Colour Universal Design)
Author Response drafted as a public-facing document
LaTeX submissions include .bib and any .sty files

When eLife is the wrong choice

Your institution requires SCIE-listed venues — eLife is listed in Emerging Sources Citation Index rather than SCIE
You need a journal-level impact factor for a form that will not accept alternatives
You are not prepared for reviewer criticism to be permanently public
You need the fee to fall on acceptance rather than at review
Your evidence is not yet robust enough to withstand public expert scrutiny at the moment of submission

That last one deserves emphasis. At a conventional journal, submitting slightly early costs you a rejection. Here, it costs you a public review saying the evidence is incomplete.

Preparing figures for a public review

Because eLife's reviews are published alongside the paper, figure quality is unusually visible. A reviewer comment about unreadable axis labels or a missing scale bar becomes part of the permanent record.

The specifications are not demanding — 300 dpi, 10 cm minimum width, scale bars, statistics in the legend — but they are checked by readers as well as reviewers. If you are preparing figures against this list, building them to specification from the start avoids the revision round that public reviews make visible.

Prepare eLife figures to specification

300 dpi, 10 cm minimum width, scale bars and statistics in the legend — built to the spec the first time.

Try Free

Where to go next

"What are my chances of getting reviewed?" — 35% of 2025 submissions were sent out; the rest were declined at a median of eight days. eLife acceptance rate works through what that gate rewards.
"What exactly do the figures need?" — 300 dpi, 10 cm minimum width, no limit on figures or supplements. eLife formatting requirements.
"Can I use AI to make them?" — yes with disclosure, except for one image type. eLife AI policy.
"What do I write where a form asks for the impact factor?" — eLife has none, for a specific and citable reason. eLife impact factor gives a sentence you can paste.

Frequently asked questions

Sources

Every process detail, fee and limit here was read from eLife's own author instructions. Reviewed 2026.

eLife author instructions — editorial process, article types, length limits, figure preparation, publication fees and waivers
About eLife — organisation and publish-review-curate model

We have not submitted through eLife's system directly, so the sequence described here reflects eLife's published guidance rather than observed system behaviour. Fees and policies change — the $3,750 figure is stated for submissions from 1 July 2026 and should be confirmed against eLife's current pages before you budget for it. See our editorial standards for how these guides are researched and corrected.