Open access journals charge from authors, while subscription-based journals charge from readers. Whatever the publishing/business model they follow, we can understand their ultimate goal. That is profit. I do not see anything wrong of this approach, because they are doing a business as most of us. However, while they are doing their business, they also provide us a service. All non-predatory, genuine journals/publishers allow us either to publish good articles or to read good articles. What we forgot is they also have to cover their expenditure. I do not think that journals pay for reviewers, but they have to cover the printing cost, expenditure of editorial staff, expenditure of server maintenance, payments for abstracting and indexing services, cost for maintaining article managing platforms, and so on. Therefore, a fair fee for fair service can be justified in my point of view.

Noor Zaman

Attached is a link that provides some solid background on the topic from the UK JISC (formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee)

"There are several possible reasons for this variation in pricing. One may be that institutions have different budget caps for funding APCs. A second reason may be research patterns within institutions. APCs for science publications tend to be significantly higher than those for humanities and social science, so institutions with a strong scientific focus may spend more on average. Similarly, researchers from some institutions may be more likely to publish in prestigious journals that charge higher APCs. A third reason may be that certain institutions benefit from offsetting deals or discounts which reduce their APC expenditure. Increasing transparency around APCs will allow universities to investigate the reasons for these differences and to assess the value for money for their APC spend.

https://www.jisc.ac.uk/sites/default/files/apc-and-subscriptions-report.pdf

Good responses for Manjula and Leo. It is correct to identify that open access can only run against an appropriate business model. As with any business, different 'companies' will charge different fees. The best that we can hope for in academia is that each company is up-front about exactly what their APC covers - and then the consumer (us) can make valid decisions. It's obviously compounded by the fact that the academic poublishing industry is 'self-regulated' - so practices and prices will vary. In terms of 'predatory' journals - they are most likely to charge either very high fees (in that if they get very small numbers of submissions - they still make money) - or they may charge very low fees (in the hope that they get many submissions that still equates to profit).

To some extent I concur with @Dean Whitehead that journals charge differently based on their business model. However, I have also noted that some big journals at Elsevier database and even MDPI charge extremely high despite being very good journals. The logic it that the open access to info is infinite and their is high likelihood of being read which is good. This is reasonable compared to the limited access info journals where you pay to get it. However, what of those who can neither afford to buy a copy or even publish in expensive journals.

Joan Nyika agreed you are correct.