Table of Contents
- Introduction
- The Problem Subscribe to Open Tries to Solve
- The Mechanics of Subscribe to Open
- Financial and Equity Advantages
- Publisher Considerations and Implementation
- The Role of Libraries and Consortia
- Looking Ahead: Opportunities and Challenges
- Conclusion
Introduction
Academic publishing has been inching toward open access for decades. Researchers want their work to be freely available, libraries want relief from rising subscription prices, and publishers need a business model that keeps their journals alive. For a long time, the conversation centered on a few familiar models, including gold, green, and diamond open access.
Subscribe to Open stepped into this landscape as a clever workaround, introduced around 2017 by Annual Reviews, a nonprofit academic publisher. At its heart, Subscribe to Open is a psychological pivot. Instead of asking libraries to cancel subscriptions to force content to become open, it asks them to keep subscribing so the publisher can release the content openly for everyone. The trick is that it repurposes an old revenue stream to produce a new public benefit. It is both radical in its outcome and conservative in its mechanism, which is probably why it caught on.
The Problem Subscribe to Open Tries to Solve
The subscription model dominated scholarly publishing for decades. Libraries paid substantial fees, and their communities gained access to high-quality research. Straightforward, but increasingly unaffordable. Journal prices rose far faster than inflation, squeezing budgets worldwide and limiting access to knowledge that was often publicly funded.
The digital era removed the cost of distributing articles, yet the paywall survived as a kind of digital gatekeeper. Open access promised a better system, but the dominant gold open access model soon shifted costs to authors. Researchers without generous funding struggled to pay article processing charges, especially in the Global South. This created a new kind of barrier. Subscribe to Open set out to break this cycle by using subscription funding that already exists in the system to create open access without charging authors.
The Mechanics of Subscribe to Open
Subscribe to Open works like a collective pledge. A publisher sends renewal invoices to libraries as usual. Each invoice includes an offer. If enough subscribers renew for the upcoming year, that year’s content is released through open access for readers everywhere. The payment remains a standard subscription payment. Nothing about the library’s workflow changes.
Behind the scenes, the publisher calculates the revenue needed to operate the journal for a year. If renewals meet or exceed that threshold, the switch is flipped and the new volume becomes open access under an open license, often CC BY. Authors pay nothing. Libraries maintain guaranteed access, and the wider world gains free entry.
The Self-Interest and Collective Good Balance
Subscribe to Open solves the classic free rider problem through a simple realignment of incentives. In most community-funded models, once content is open, institutions are tempted to save money by cancelling. If everyone thinks this way, the model collapses.
Subscribe to Open avoids this collapse by ensuring that the only way for a library to guarantee access to the new volume is to pay the subscription. If too many institutions cancel, the journal remains closed for that year. Libraries that opted out lose access and may need to re-subscribe at a higher price. This creates a strong self-interest in continuing to pay. The collective benefit of open access becomes a bonus.
The Annual Renewal Tension
The Subscribe to Open system resets every year. Each renewal cycle is a fresh test of the community’s commitment. This is both a feature and a source of tension. Publishers experience the yearly anxiety of not knowing whether revenue targets will be met. Libraries face annual budget debates about whether others will renew in sufficient numbers to unlock open access.
It can feel like an annual cliffhanger, although that tension is precisely what keeps the model financially stable. Without the annual contingency, institutions might lose the incentive to continue paying, and the system could tilt back toward free riding.
Financial and Equity Advantages
From an equity standpoint, Subscribe to Open avoids many pitfalls of gold open access. Instead of shifting costs to authors, the financial responsibility remains with libraries that already have budgets for subscriptions. High-publishing institutions are not penalized, and low-publishing institutions do not free ride on others’ payments. Best of all, authors face zero fees.
This places Subscribe to Open close to the principles of diamond open access, where both reading and publishing are free. Diamond open access has long been considered the most equitable model, although it usually relies on institutional or philanthropic funding. Subscribe to Open offers a way to reach a similar outcome by redirecting existing subscription revenue rather than securing new money. Its growing adoption suggests that it is increasingly viewed as a realistic path toward a more equitable publishing ecosystem.
Publisher Considerations and Implementation
Implementing Subscribe to Open requires more than simply changing the wording on invoices. Publishers need a stable subscriber base and clear communication. Transparency is essential. Libraries must understand why their renewal preserves both their access and the journal’s financial viability.
Some publishers strengthen their Subscribe to Open offer by including guaranteed access to backfiles or offering small early-commitment discounts. Publishers must also model revenue scenarios, understand how many cancellations the journal can tolerate, and set clear thresholds for releasing content as open access. Trust and consistent messaging are crucial for success.
The Role of Libraries and Consortia
Libraries are the main drivers behind Subscribe to Open, using their existing budgets in a way that directly expands global access to knowledge. Many librarians appreciate that the model avoids the complexity of managing article processing charges or negotiating massive transformative agreements. It converts a traditional read-only budget into a read and open mechanism.
Library consortia are particularly influential. When consortia commit large groups of institutions, they provide stability and confidence. This collective action dramatically increases the likelihood that the revenue threshold will be reached each year. In practice, Subscribe to Open has encouraged cooperative behavior among libraries and has reshaped them into active partners in the open access movement.
Looking Ahead: Opportunities and Challenges
Still a young model, Subscribe to Open has nevertheless gained traction across scholarly societies, university presses, and other nonprofit publishers. It is endorsed by cOAlition S and increasingly recognized as a credible route to full open access. Several major publishers, including the Royal Society, have committed to using it as a primary mechanism for transitioning journals.
The biggest threat to the model is long-term financial sustainability. As more content becomes open access, libraries may face pressure from administrators to reallocate funds away from subscriptions entirely. Publishers that rely on Subscribe to Open need to innovate continually, offering clear subscriber benefits, transparent reporting, and possibly multi-year agreements to counter budget volatility. The future of Subscribe to Open depends on shared responsibility, consistent communication, and sustained community commitment.
Conclusion
Subscribe to Open stands out as one of the smartest publishing innovations in recent memory. By reusing the subscription system in a new way, it offers a clear route to open access while keeping the financial burden predictable and equitable. Libraries continue to secure access for their communities, authors publish without fees, and readers worldwide gain immediate access.
When a library pays its Subscribe to Open invoice, it is not simply renewing a subscription. It is investing in a global public good. The model’s success proves that collective benefit is achievable when individual and communal interests are aligned. If the community maintains its commitment, Subscribe to Open could turn much of the subscription-based scholarly world into a genuinely open, shared knowledge space, one renewal at a time.