They charge $5000 if you want to make your article public access (i.e. they won't put it behind paywall). So that's a ballpark value of how much it costs +their

They charge $5000 if you want to make your article public access (i.e. they won't put it behind paywall). So that's a ballpark value of how much it costs +their profits. Whatever they may claim their costs are, the money does not add meaningful contribution. The meaningful contribution (writing and reviewing) is done by scientists themselves, almost 100% independently of elsevier. Elsevier employs some senior editors who decide which reviewer gets to review which paper, and that's about their entire contribution to scientific process. The rest is their website costs, PR and fluff which is not relevant to the science itself.