Guiding Principles for the new pricing plans

Establishing Fairness
Our goal is for like customers to pay like amounts for access around the world. The tier-based plans we have developed differentiate by market sector (academic, corporate, government). We have segmented our customers into four groups (1) Domestic Academic (2) International Academic (3) Corporate and (4) Government. The approach we have chosen utilizes objective criteria (Carnegie classifications, enrollment, and usage) to determine pricing levels. In the case of International Academic we have incorporated the World Bank index (GNI Codes) to determine a country's ability to pay.

Encouraging Participation and Use
It is important for our new plans to embrace the "ACS Cycle of Excellence" by encouraging usage of our products as well as by attracting the best editors, author, and reviewers. For the academic market, we have introduced volume discounts based on number of titles taken.

We will work with closely with our single-payer consortia partners (through which ACS sends one invoice to the consortium, and the consortium remits one payment to ACS) to maintain these mutually-beneficial and well-established relationships, so members continue to receive electronic access to all our journals.

Broadening Access
Over the past nine years we have been able to offer access through our consortia-based access approach to several thousand institutions worldwide including many small institutions. We will accomplish the same widespread access with our new plans.

Minimizing Disruption
Our decision to launch the new plans in 2008 arose from the need to provide as little disruption as possible to our institutional customer base. We have developed a migration strategy to ensure that our customers are able to plan their budgets accordingly over the next three to five years.

We also need to minimize disruption to our annual revenue contribution to the Society. Our new plans have been developed to offer a more systematized and rationale pathway for us to accomplish the same financial goals we have been able to achieve.