See What Your Submission Fees Are Actually Buying — Free
Paste your submission fees with the outcomes, and read what each acceptance has cost you this cycle.
The proof surface
The number that changes behaviour is not submissions, it is cost per acceptance per venue. Fee-heavy venues that never convert show up immediately on the stubs.
Why the flat version breaks
Counting submissions, not cost
Eleven entries feel productive until the fees add to $412 against a single acceptance, which is the number a working writer budgets against.
Fee-blind venue lists
Advice lists rank venues by prestige; nothing in them tells you what a venue has actually cost you across a cycle.
Paying to enter everything
Free and low-fee venues usually convert at similar rates, so the expensive entries are the ones to drop first when the cycle tightens.
How to work the submission audit
Venue, fee and outcome per line — pending is an outcome too, and it keeps the maths honest.
Months and the value you place on a placement, in your own terms.
Each entry is a stub; the foot totals fees against outcomes and prints cost per acceptance.
Next cycle, replace the two dearest non-converting venues with low-fee ones and re-run the audit.
What the audit replaces
| Question | Before | On the stubs |
|---|---|---|
| What submissions cost | add fees in a note | running fee total with outcomes |
| Which venues convert | remember which ones replied | cost per acceptance printed at the foot |
| What to drop next cycle | guess | the two dearest venues with no outcome named |
The audit reads your own log; it makes no judgement about the quality of a venue and knows nothing about acceptance rates.
Run it on the samples, right here
FIRST-LOAD
Data note: Everything runs in this browser tab on the submission audit: your submission log and fees stays on this device, nothing is uploaded, and the reading is rebuilt only when you press run.
Go deeper: the companion app files the same reading as a punched ticket stubs
The article demo above runs without limits. The companion app keeps a local history, exports the rows as CSV, prints the ready-to-mail packet, and holds your drafts on this device — one free run, then $ 5 one-time for the layer that keeps filing.
The audit and cost per acceptance are free. The paid layer keeps three cycles and prints the venue shortlist for next year.
Open the submission fee audit companionBoundary
This submission audit works only on the submission entries and fees you paste you paste. It does not rank venues by prestige, does not estimate acceptance rates, and does not submit anything for you. The figures describe what you supplied, not what is true in the world. Confirm anything you plan to act on with your writing group, when deciding where a piece is worth sending before you rely on it.
What this is built on
- Every figure comes from the submission entries and fees you paste you paste; nothing is looked up, scraped or asserted as verified.
- Method: cost per acceptance = total fees ÷ acceptances, with cost lines and outcome lines kept separate
- Sample values are labelled samples — illustrative by design, not your data and not a quotation of any organisation's policy.
Before: the reader counted submissions. After: they can see eleven entries costing $412 and one acceptance, with the fee-heavy venues named.