Readers can access open access articles for free, but authors or research funders pay article-processing charges to publish them. This requirement may deter authors in low-income countries from publishing in open access. This study investigates the choices that authors make among three types of open access journal and closed (subscription) journals in history, economics, science, and technology based on their countries’ income level. The sample comprises research articles published in journals in English in 2020 and indexed in Scopus. The results show that authors in low-income countries publish more in gold open access than do authors in lower-middle- and upper-middle-income countries, who tend not to publish in hybrid open access and to favour closed journals. Authors from high-income countries publish more in hybrid open access than do authors in the other groups of countries. Although major publishers waive their article-processing charges for authors in low-income countries, these authors amount to less than 1 per cent of the total. Improving the effectiveness of publishers’ waiver policies is necessary.