Effective December 31, 2024, JSTOR will retire its Publisher Sales Service, a program that enables publishers to sell, and individuals to buy, single articles and issues from the journals preserved and hosted by JSTOR. 

JSTOR began the Publisher Sales Service in the early 2000s to provide access to research to people finding articles on JSTOR through Google and other search engines but who did not have broader access to JSTOR’s Archive Journal Collections through a library. While JSTOR has the rights to make entire journal archives available online from publishers, it does not have the rights to sell individual articles or issues. The Publisher Sales Service allowed publishers to set the prices for their articles and issues and to sell them online with JSTOR managing the transaction.

“The Publisher Sales Service provided a way to respond to demand for research articles that helped users and publishers at a certain moment in time,” explained John Lenahan, vice president for content strategy and relationships for JSTOR. “But selling articles at different price points was never the best solution for users. Our mission is to expand access to knowledge as broadly as possible, a mission many academic publishers share, so we worked to develop more expansive and affordable offerings for individuals over time and those solutions are preferred by users.”

JSTOR’s free reading offering and JPASS plans, launched in 2012 and 2013 respectively, have served millions of people. More than 80% of the journal content on JSTOR is free to read.  Additionally, JSTOR’s JPASS plans provide individuals with unlimited reading access to the complete archives of more than 2,000 journals and up to 120 article downloads per year at a price equivalent to users paying $0.60 per downloaded article. In 2024 alone, 3.2 million individuals have read more than 9 million articles on JSTOR for free, and more than 32,000 individuals have active JPASS plans.

JSTOR continues to invest in these offerings to deliver on its mission, working closely with its participating publishers. With the retirement of the Publisher Sales Service, individuals that have purchased articles will retain access to them in their JSTOR accounts and are invited to explore JPASS to meet their future needs.

“Our goal has always been and continues to be to expand access to knowledge and education,” said Kevin Guthrie, president of ITHAKA, the nonprofit home of JSTOR. “We have pursued this by building relationships with more than 14,000 libraries in 180 countries, many of which have access to JSTOR for free or at steeply discounted rates. In addition, through our JPASS and free-to-read programs, and other initiatives like our JSTOR Access in Prison program, we have opened the door to scholarly research for millions of people outside traditional library and educational settings. We will continue to expand and evolve JSTOR to maximize the impact on our mission in ways that are financially sustainable. ”