Delayed open access journals are traditional subscription-based journals that provide open access or free access after an embargo period from the initial publication date. A subscription or an article purchase would be required to read the materials before this embargo period ends. These journals may additionally deposit their publications in open repositories. Many scholarly society journals have adopted this model. While this model increases access to scholarly research literature for many, libraries that continue subscriptions end up paying for access to a rolling file of the most recent material of the embargo period. The embargo periods vary widely, for example Journal of the Physical Society of Japan has a fifteen year embargo period and Molecular Biology of the Cell has a one month embargo. While paper and microform formats of these journals may be published, the open access applies only to electronic versions of these journals. Such journals are not included in the lists of fully open access journals, such as the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ). Additionally, unlike the journals listed in DOAJ the free access to back issues of the journal is provided as a courtesy by the publisher not necessarily by legal agreement between the publishers and the authors.

The purpose of this delay is to permit access to the general public, while still providing incentive to researchers—and especially research libraries – to continue their subscriptions as a result the journal publisher stands not to lose money. This rationale assumes that researchers will want the most recent papers in their subject immediately after publication and will therefore will pay the necessary subscription cost or article purchase costs to read these articles. This model further assumes that students and others affiliated at smaller non-research institutions do not generally need to see the article as quickly, for they will be using it for a term paper or similar project, not for original research. The libraries serving such colleges will not typically have subscriptions to the journal and researchers at this institutions may be expected to use interlibrary loan services or direct purchases to obtain articles of relevance to their research interests. The marginal costs of distributing an electronic journal to additional users are trivial in comparison to distributing printed copies of the publication. The publishers will therefore spend little or no additional funds while marketing their publications to a broader population than those with personal subscriptions or those affiliated with institutions that have institutional subscriptions or other forms of institutional access.

While this model increases access to scholarly research literature for many, libraries and scholars that continue subscriptions end up paying for access to an often very small rolling file of the most recent material of the embargo period.