License Management and author billing

The business of yes

The commercial side of post-acceptance should be simpler. The rest of the world handles signing and payment flows without thinking. But publishing still runs on heavy spreadsheets and email chains.

ChronosHub License Management and Author Billing brings licenses, agreements, and author billing into one modern e-commerce experience. Authors get timely prompts at every stage. Your team oversees it via the back end, so revenue gets captured and requirements are met.

Close the gap between acceptance and revenue

Every accepted manuscript represents an opportunity. Keep the commercial side of publication moving, realize revenue faster and with greater confidence.

Support every publishing model

Open, closed, hybrid, transformative. License Management and Author Billing adapts to the commercial models you run today and tomorrow.

Give authors a clearer path

Guide authors through licensing and payment with the simplicity they expect everywhere else online. Fewer questions, less confusion.

ChronosHub delivers a consistent, intuitive author experience while letting us plug and play new tools, experiment more, and work flexibly on the back end.

Teodoro Pulvirenti
Vice President Global Editorial Strategy, ACS Publications

Powered by the ChronosHub platform 

Agreement data connects to licensing. Licensing connects to payment. Everything feeds into one immutable record, visible across your team. 

What’s inside?

Standard and optional capabilities to support every step of the journey.

Manage license changes with ease

Agreement manager

Track and manage your agreements in one place.

  • Full visibility of agreement coverage across your entire portfolio.
  • Automatic eligibility checks against author affiliation and article type.
  • Routes eligible articles to the right agreement without manual checking.

Checkout and payment

A smooth, branded payment experience that fits your workflow.

  • Configurable article processing charge pricing by journal, article type, and agreement.
  • Automatic application of waivers, discounts, and vouchers.
  • Integrates with your finance systems for clean reconciliation.
Automate pricing with rule-based logic
Offer retrospective open access

Funding and grants

Set funder requirements once, and the options follow.

  • Checks funding statements against funder policy requirements.
  • Presents authors with funder-compliant options only, based on your agreements.  
  • Connected to major funder databases for up-to-date policy tracking. 

License and signing

Guide authors to the right license and collect their agreement digitally.

  • License recommendations pulled from your agreements.  
  • Digital signing of copyright transfer or license to publish agreements.
  • Immutable record of every signed agreement, linked to the article.
Streamline author interactions

Get started with ChronosHub

We’re here to help

Have a question about your agreement, need help getting started, or just want to talk through your options? We’re here.

Drop us a message and we’ll get back to you.

License Management one-pager

Fast forward the signing of licenses. Once a paper is accepted in your peer review system, ChronosHub takes over. The author gets a magic link, signs the right license digitally, and everyone moves on. It takes minutes.

License Management

Get started

Our most popular modules

Submissions

Speed up and verify submissions

Make every step of the process, from manuscript upload to peer review handoff, easier for your authors. And get cleaner metadata at the end of it.

Journal Guide

Help authors find the right journal

With a branded, searchable Journal Guide, you make all your publications’ charges, agreements, and compliance details clear from the jump.

Author Billing

Put an end to billing bottlenecks 

From article processing charges (APCs) to value-added services, manage every fee in one place. The Author Billing module automates and simplifies that chaos.

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