Are indexing, metrics and the article processing charges (APC) of Hindawi open access journals linked?

UK-based Hindawi (now part of Wiley) is one of the larger open access (OA) publishers that levies article processing charges (APCs) for publication in its 220 OA journals. The APCs range between US$650 and US$2300, with a median of US$950. We assessed if there is a link between the APC of Hindawi journals and two metrics, Elsevier’s Scopus CiteScore, and Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor (JIF). Whereas 163 journals have a CiteScore (median APC = US$1000), 71 have a JIF (median APC = US$1950), while others with neither a CiteScore nor a JIF (NCNJ) have a median APC of US$650. The APC of journals with a CiteScore differed significantly from those with a JIF. We found a significant positive correlation between CiteScore and AFPC (r = 0.223, p < 0.01), but a weak non-significant positive correlation between JIF and APC (r = 0.162, p = 0.177). The Kruskal Wallis test showed that the medians of three groups (CiteScore, JIT and NCNJ) differed significantly from each other at p < 0.05.