What is the cost of quality in open access (OA) publishing? And who should profit from open access? At this point in the OA-transformation, the position of scholar-led journals is mostly precarious. But there are many reasons, argue Max Bergmann, Kathrin Ganz, Maike Neufend and HIIG researcher Marcel Wrzesinski, that lead us to believe that the timing is right for pushing new forms of collaborative publishing practices forward.