Send Online Fax

Guide to Choosing an Online Fax Service

There are now lots of different online fax providers operating competitively priced services, and it can be difficult deciding which plan will be most suitable for your own individual needs.

Monthly Page Limitations

The most important thing to check before signing up to an online faxing account is the monthly page limitations. All online fax providers impose page restrictions on each account, and this is an important feature that helps to maintain the integrity of the online faxing system and prevent it from becoming overloaded, causing disruption to users. You must ensure that the plan you are signing up to has sufficient page limits to meet your needs, so if you are a low level fax user then a standard account with RingCentral can be ideal as you will get a 300 page monthly limit for just $7.99. If you are a high level fax user this will most likely be too low for you, so you would be better off with a service like MetroFax, which offers $12.95 for 1000 pages of fax per month.

Storage Limitations

Storage is another issue that you will need to check carefully before you sign up to an account, and most online fax providers will offer you free 30 days online storage for your faxes. However if you do not have much storage space on your computer, or do not want to have to print off those faxes you want to keep some online providers do offer up to a years worth on online storage with business fax accounts, and so this might be a better option for you.

International Charges

International charges for online faxing are generally much cheaper than comparative services with conventional faxing, but you will need to check each account carefully if you intend to fax a lot to overseas numbers as prices can vary across the different online providers.

Failed Fax Refunds

Both conventional and online fax providers can charge you for ‘failed’ transmissions, which is when your fax does not reach its intended destination for some reason. However there are several online providers who offer free resend features on your account which will automatically send failed faxes again up to three or five times without a charge, and this is important not only to save you time and hassle, but it will also avoid using up your valuable monthly page quotas with lots of wasted failed faxes.

Reliability and Security

Some of the cheaper online fax services are actually some of the most reliable and secure, so it is important to check feedback from other users on review websites to make sure the service you are choosing is as good as it claims to be. Security is also an important issue as you could be sending and receiving some private or confidential documents at times, and so you do need to check that your online fax provider has up to date SSL encryption web interface protection in place.