A pre-submission review is a second opinion you commission before an editor ever sees your paper. An expert in your field reads the manuscript and tells you what a referee is likely to raise, while you can still do something about it.
What it is, and what it is not
A pre-submission review is not refereeing. CitePep has no relationship with any journal, sends nothing to any editor, and has no influence over an editorial decision. What you buy is an expert reading, delivered to you and nobody else.
That distinction matters for a practical reason as well as an ethical one. Paid refereeing is treated as a conflict of interest across academic publishing, and a journal that outsourced its refereeing would put its indexing at risk. Reviewing a manuscript before submission carries none of that, because no gatekeeping decision is being bought.
| Pre-submission review | Journal peer review |
|---|---|
| You commission it | The editor commissions it |
| Delivered to you alone | Feeds an editorial decision |
| Before you submit | After you submit |
| You choose what to change | Revisions are required |
| No journal is involved | Run by the journal |
The steps
You submit the manuscript with its abstract, the fields it belongs to, and the language the review should be written in. You can also say what you want looked at hardest: the statistics, the framing of the contribution, the fit with a target journal.
CitePep matches reviewers who work in those fields and can write in that language, and who are not at your institution. You see who is available before you pay. Once you buy the review, up to three of them are invited and the first to accept takes it.
The review comes back as a list of findings rather than an essay. Each one is marked major, minor or a note, quotes the passage it refers to, and says what to change. You also get an overall summary and the reviewer’s honest read on whether the paper is ready.
What it costs, and how that compares
Review tiers start at 300 US dollars for a standard read and rise for faster turnaround or a close statistical review. The price is shown before you commit and settles in US dollars.
The comparison that matters is not against an article processing charge. Most authors never pay one: subscription journals charge the author nothing, and where an open-access charge applies it is billed on acceptance, later and separately. The real comparison is against a desk rejection or a major-revision round trip, which costs months.
Who reviews your work
Every reviewer has a profile showing their institution, fields, methods, languages, completed reviews and on-time record. You see that before anyone is invited.
A reviewer at your own institution is never offered your manuscript, and neither is anyone sharing your ORCID or your email domain. Because author and reviewer accounts are separate on CitePep even when the same person holds both, that check is structural rather than a rule someone has to remember.
Common questions
Is this the same as peer review at a journal?
No. Journal peer review is part of an editorial decision. A pre-submission review is a second opinion you commission for yourself, before you submit. CitePep sends nothing to any journal and has no influence over any editorial decision.
Will a journal know I used this?
Only if you tell them. Many authors do mention that a manuscript was reviewed before submission, and some choose to publish the trust record, but nothing is disclosed by CitePep.
What if no reviewer matches my field?
You are told before you pay. The match preview runs on your field and language, so if the pool does not currently cover your subject you see an empty result rather than paying and waiting.
Can I get the review in a language other than English?
Yes. You choose the language the review is written in, and only reviewers who work in that language are matched. This is a filter, not a preference.