[2][3] The access to the full-text requires subscription, while the bibliographic metadata are free to read.

[4] The journals are grouped into four main sections: Article abstracts are freely available, and access to their full texts (in PDF and, for newer publications, also HTML) generally requires a subscription or pay-per-view purchase unless the content is freely available in open access.

Subscriptions to the overall content hosted on ScienceDirect, rather than to specific titles, are usually acquired through what is called a big deal.

ScienceDirect also competes for audience with other large aggregators and hosts of scholarly communication content such as academic social network ResearchGate and open access repository arXiv, as well as with fully open access publishing venues and mega journals like PLOS.

For better search capabilities Elsevier provides via internet a paid-access database Scopus.