Plans are paid yearly and never renew automatically. We email the account holder (the person who pays for the plan) 30 and 7 days before the plan ends. If it is not renewed, the journal goes through these stages:

Grace period

For the first 14 days after the expiry date everything works as normal. You get an email, and a yellow bar appears in the dashboard. Renew during this time and nobody notices anything.

Read-only

From day 14 the journal is read-only:

the public website, published articles and DOIs stay online, so readers and indexes are not affected;
the journal accepts no new submissions, and editors, reviewers and authors cannot make changes;
you can still renew, pay and export.

Offline

From day 90 the website is replaced by a short "temporarily unavailable" notice. The account holder can still renew, and the team can sign in and download an export.

Deletion

From day 180 the journal's content — articles, submissions, reviews, files and user access — can be permanently deleted. We email you 30 days and 7 days before. Your tax invoices and records of accepted terms are always kept.

Renewing restores everything

At any stage before deletion, the account holder opens Journal settings → Plan & billing and renews. The journal goes back to normal as soon as the payment is confirmed; nothing is lost. The new year runs from the day you pay.

Journals with DOIs

If your journal registers DOIs, the journal (or its publisher) is the Crossref member and must keep them working. Before the journal goes offline on day 90, either renew, or move the articles to another website and update the DOI links in Crossref. Ask us through the help desk and we will help.

Other cases

Previews never paid for are deleted after 12 months without any activity (with warnings first).
Orders we could not set up are removed after 90 days.

The exact periods are part of the Terms of Service, section 9A.

What happens if a plan is not renewed