publishing is steadily growing but associated with high article processing charges that exacerbate disparities between funded and unfunded researchers. n Early-career and underrepresented researchers often are not eligible for waivers or discounts, thus resulting in either publishing barriers or financial hardship. n Journals should adopt equitable solutions that enable every author to pursue open access publishing regardless of one's funding status or affiliation. n Publishing companies should rethink open access publishing models to reduce the financial barriers for readers and authors alike.O pen access (OA) publishing is increasing, allowing articles to be read by anyone, anywhere. The publishing costs for these articles (article processing charges, APCs) are typically paid by the authors or their respective funders. 1 In global health, authors pay an average of US$2,732 per OA publication. 2 Articles that are freely accessible are more read, shared, and cited, ultimately benefitting scientific discourse and integration in public health, medicine, and other sciences. 1 In response to the growing interest in OA publishing, journals are increasingly adopting OA models: some adopt hybrid models that allow authors to choose whether or not to publish OA, some adopt full OA, and some simply create an entirely new sister journal as an OA alternative to their own. However, few create means to support authors who are not funded by research grants, their institutions, or institutional agreements. 3,4 Those that do should be commended for taking this step, especially given how rare such genuinely equitable OA models are.To date, a majority of journals remain hybrid, allowing both subscription-based publishing (i.e., not OA, no APCs to publish) and an OA option (i.e., freely accessible for readers, but APCs to publish). For example, in the fields of cardiology and cardiac surgery, 60.9% of journals are hybrid. 4 Although this may appear a sensible approach, hybrid journals rarely provide waivers or considerable discounts to authors who cannot afford such APCs, which typically range from a few thousand US dollars to a staggering US$11,000. 5 In addition, hybrid journals have median APCs of up to 50% higher compared to fully OA journals, as observed in cardiovascular journals