Find Elsevier journals for your paper

The finder does not use an AI model. It compares the words in your title, abstract and keywords with 4,516 research topics from OpenAlex, each described by a name, a list of keywords and a short description. Words that are rare across topics, such as “zebrafish” or “cathode”, count for more than common ones, and a keyword phrase that appears in your text counts extra.

Each journal is then scored by how much of its recent output, the articles and reviews it published from 2021 to 2024, falls in the topics your text matches. A specialist journal that publishes mostly on your topic ranks above a large journal that publishes a little of everything, and a specific word from your title in a journal’s name, such as “Spine”, adds a small boost.

The “Topics we matched” line shows how your text was read. If it looks wrong, add a few field-specific keywords. Each result also lists the topics that earned it a place.

Match

How well the journal’s output fits your text, relative to the best match for the same search. It is a ranking aid, not a probability of acceptance.

Quartile

The journal’s best quartile across the subfields it publishes in, where Q1 is the top 25% of a subfield by Journal Metrics Score. See Q1 vs Q2 journals.

Score

The Journal Metrics Score: two-year mean citedness from OpenAlex.

Access and APC

Whether the journal is fully open access, and the indicative article processing charge in US dollars reported to OpenAlex. Subscription and hybrid journals let you publish without a fee; the “OA option” is what they charge to make one article open access.

Time to acceptance

The median number of days from submission to acceptance in PubMed records from 2024 and 2025, available for 4,188 journals where enough articles report both dates. Where a publisher reports its acceptance rate, it is shown underneath. See journal acceptance times.

Publisher tools only suggest their own journals. This finder covers every publisher in the catalog, and these pages open it with one publisher selected. Switch the publisher filter to “Any publisher” at any time to compare across publishers. Here, Elsevier means journals OpenAlex lists under Elsevier and Cell Press.

• All publishers · 22,270 journals
• Springer journal finder · 2,467 journals
• Wiley journal finder · 1,654 journals
• Taylor & Francis journal finder · 2,089 journals
• SAGE journal finder · 982 journals

For a side-by-side look at the publisher tools, JANE and AI options, read journal finder tools compared.

1. Read the aims and scope and a few recent articles of your top three to five matches.
2. Check the fee, open access options and author guidelines on the journal’s own site.
3. Confirm the indexing the journal claims in the database itself, not only on the journal’s website.
4. Rule out predatory journals. See predatory journal lists compared.
5. Plan a second and third choice in case of desk rejection, and prepare a cover letter for each.

How do I find the right Elsevier journal for my paper?

Paste your title and abstract above. The finder compares your text with about 4,500 OpenAlex research topics and ranks the 2,603 Elsevier journals in the catalog by how much of their recent output falls in your topics. Open a journal to check its scope, quartile, fees and timing, then read its author guidelines on the publisher’s site.

Which journals count as Elsevier here?

Journals whose publisher OpenAlex lists as Elsevier and Cell Press. Journals that Elsevier publishes on behalf of a society are included when OpenAlex credits Elsevier as the publisher.

How is this different from the official Elsevier journal finder?

Elsevier JournalFinder is Elsevier’s own tool and only suggests Elsevier journals. This finder is independent and not affiliated with Elsevier. It shows each journal’s quartile, Journal Metrics Score, APC and PubMed time to acceptance side by side, and the publisher filter can be switched off to compare Elsevier journals with every other publisher.

Is it free, and is my abstract stored?

Searches are free with no sign-up. Your text is used only to run the search and is not saved, logged or sent to any other service, and no AI model reads it.

Are the APC and acceptance times official?

No. The APC is the indicative fee reported to OpenAlex and the time to acceptance is the median from PubMed records from 2024 and 2025. Fees and timelines change, so confirm both on the journal’s own website before you submit.

• Journal rankings: rank journals in a field by score, quartile and output.
• Journal explorer: browse journals by subject area.
• Citation generator: format a reference from a DOI or PubMed ID.
• CRediT author statement generator: write the contribution statement journals ask for.

• OpenAlex (CC0): research topics and their keywords, journal topic output for 2021 to 2024, publisher, open access status and APC.
• PubMed: received and accepted dates for articles published in 2024 and 2025.
• Acceptance rates: the publisher pages credited on each journal’s record.

Content updated November 1, 2026. See the methodology for how the journal data is built.