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Sometimes, you need to send a fax. The odds are good, though, that you don’t have a fax machine. Even if you do have access to one at your workplace, chances are good that you’re working from home and can’t get to it during the pandemic. You could always pay to use a physical fax machine at your local office supply store, but they’re not cheap to use and are generally a pain to figure out. Plus, you have to make sure that your intended recipient actually receives a legible copy of your fax, which involves waiting around to get a confirmation, too.
(Editors’ Note: eFax, MetroFax, MyFax, and SRFax are owned by J2 Global, the parent company of PCMag’s publisher, Ziff Davis.)
Although all-in-one printers have largely replaced standalone fax machines, online fax services let you break free from the machine altogether. These services provide a fax number you can use to send or receive faxes through a web portal, by email, or even via mobile and desktop apps. Faxing is still a pain, but these services help modernize the experience.
Fax From the Web
All the fax services we tested offer a web interface, but their utility varies wildly. Well-designed software can inspire user confidence, while archaic services can just as easily undermine it. If you use a service frequently, you want one that doesn’t cause unnecessary friction.
HelloFax and mFax lead the pack when it comes to having well-designed and highly functional web interfaces that don’t inhibit your workflow. eFax, MetroFax, and MyFax have identical interfaces that look like webmail inboxes from decades ago. Still, while these interfaces may be nonintuitive, they do send faxes reliably. Biscom 1-2-3’s interface is notably bad, since you can’t actually send or receive faxes from it.
Sending a fax from an online portal is usually simple: All you need to do is enter a telephone number. Most fax services provide an online address book, too, which makes it much easier to send faxes to the same contact in the future. You can also include a cover page with your fax in most cases. In terms of attachments (all of which are sent as images), all the fax services we tested support a generous range of file types, though the file size limit varies. The majority of the services we tested allow you to preview attachments before you send them. Some services, such as Biscom 1-2-3, HelloFax, Fax.Plus, and eFax, include tools for creating and applying digital signatures either via their web interfaces, desktop apps, or mobile apps. For a more streamlined list of options, check out our feature on how to send and receive a fax online.
Mobile Faxing
The majority of online fax services offer Android apps and iPhone apps, which are helpful for those times you don’t have a scanner at hand or want to bother logging in to your computer. With a mobile faxing app, you can just take a picture of a document and send it on its way. Of the services we tested, Biscom 1-2-3, eFax, Fax.Plus, iFax, MetroFax, MyFax, and RingCentral offer mobile apps. We much prefer online fax services with a dedicated mobile app, but at the very least, their web interface should have a responsive design that resizes well for mobile screens. FaxZero, mFax, and SRFax all have sites that are very usable via mobile browsers.
Good mobile faxing apps must have a few standard features, such as a contact book, a sortable fax inbox, and a way to preview attachments. A clean and intuitive design is also vital. This is true of every app, of course; in the case of fax apps it may also serve to help users forget about the ancient underlying technology.
Email to Fax, Fax to Email
Modern businesses and workers are familiar with email workflows, and most of the fax services we’ve tested offer similar fax-to-email capabilities. In practical terms, fax services convert received faxes into email attachments, and conversely, transmute email fields and attachments into their fax equivalent. As you can email from anywhere, this approach makes a fax service more universally available.
The process of sending a fax via email is fairly straightforward and doesn’t vary much from service to service. Basically, you type the fax number—including country and area code—into the address line, followed by an email domain specific to the fax service (for example 12345678910@samplefax.com). The subject line and body text appear on the fax cover page, while any attachments appear as separate pages. Your fax number appears as the sender, so there’s no confusion about where the message originated.
How Much Does Sending Online Faxes Cost?
Most of the fax services we’ve reviewed charge a monthly fee. What you get in return is an allotment of pages to use for that month. Some companies distinguish between how many pages you can receive and how many you can send, which seems needlessly restrictive to us. Other services offer a pool of pages—a more flexible approach. With a pool of fax pages, you don’t end up paying for, say, received pages you never use. Pooled-page plans also make it easier to avoid paying overage fees, which are per-page fees assessed when you exceed your monthly allocation. These fees ranges are between 3 and 12 cents per page, depending on the service.
Depending on your service, your plan likely does not include international faxing, though faxes to Canada and the UK sometimes do not incur extra costs. Most companies have users pay an additional fee—sometimes on a graduated scale depending on the recipient’s location, and usually per page. We prefer services that deduct an equivalent number of pages from your monthly allotment, rather than those that charge you an extra fee per page.
Setup fees are annoying, and thankfully they are a rarity in the world of online fax services. Only one of the services we tested, eFax, charges one ($10).
Send a Fax for Free
HelloFax and Fax.Plus both offer one-time allotments of free pages to send, but FaxZero’s free tier is your best option, because your allotment of fax pages to send replenishes every day. FaxZero enables you to send up to five faxes per day (each fax can be up to three pages and can include a cover page). There’s simply no reason to opt for a paid service if all you need to do is send a fax once in a while. If receiving faxes is a requirement for you, then a free service isn’t an option.
Your Fax Number
Most services let you select an area code and either assign you an available phone number for receiving and sending faxes or let you choose from a list of available numbers. Most also let you port over an existing fax number if you have one. If you don’t want people to have to pay to fax you, consider getting a toll-free fax number.
Most fax services offer toll-free numbers free of charge. Other services, such as RingCentral Fax and iFax offer vanity numbers. For example, 1-800-DOG-WLKR would be appropriate for a new dog-walking startup that needs a fax number.
Some services are better than others when it comes to signing up for an international number. For example, eFax and MyFax let you select a fax number with the country code of your choice at no extra cost.
Online Fax Performance
Most online fax services adequately perform the basic function of faxing. In the past we made sure an actual fax machine was involved in our testing, considering it important for a digital replacement to work with the device it is intended to replace. However, we no longer have any fax machines in our office.
As far as our testing of online fax services is concerned, this was a minor issue. Instead of sending faxes between a physical machine and an online service, we simply sent faxes between two different online services.
Hit Send
The prospect of buying a fax machine and paying for a dedicated landline to send the occasional fax probably seems ridiculous to most people—and for good reason. Unless your recipient absolutely needs you to send information by fax, other tools, including email and file-sharing services, can accomplish the job. For those rare cases when you have no other choice, an online fax service is far more convenient than a traditional fax machine. With plenty of capable services to choose from, you’re sure to find one that works for all your home and office faxing needs.
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