The 5 Best Online Fax Services

Key Points

• The best overall choice for low to moderate faxing use is Fax.Plus.
• FaxZero is the only free provider listed.
• SRFax offers end-to-end encryption for security.
• HelloFax offers affordable plans for small to medium-sized businesses.
• RingCentral is the best for companies that fax in larger volumes.

What are the best online fax services? Believe it or not, much of the world still operates with fax machines in tow. However, the modern household has more often than not done away with having a household appliance dedicated to faxing.

That said, there are multiple online services that make it easy to send faxes to terrestrial landlines. If you’re a professional who still relies on faxing or a home user just in need of a quick document sent, then these five services might suit you.

It’s time to take something antiquated and bring it to the fore for the sake of modern convenience with five great online fax services you should try. Online faxing services are available to accommodate every user’s potential needs.

The average household user will likely not send more than a handful of faxes in a year. However, for businesses and medical offices, it is still just a fact of business.

Thankfully, online fax services are flexible and allow for sending faxes from your desktop, laptop, tablet, and smartphone. You don’t even need a landline to complete a fax these days, which is a massive benefit for users looking to keep costs down.

Best for General Use: Fax.Plus

Fax.Plus is the best online faxing service for home users. If you’re after a quick and flexible service that has affordable pricing, then Fax.Plus is certainly a great choice. The basic plan starts at $6.99 a month and allows for 200 pages.

The plans do scale according to need, with the Enterprise option allowing for 4,000 pages at $79.99 a month. However, it isn’t the best choice for businesses. It does work in a pinch and comes with a bevy of wonderful features in that regard.

You get access to allow access to team members and administrate the whole account. Fax.Plus also comes with a fairly generous free trial, which works great if you just need to send a document quickly. This is all capped off with an easy-to-use mobile app.

Best for Free Users: FaxZero

FaxZero is the best option for free online faxing. Not every user is going to need a monthly fax subscription. For users just looking to send a document every now and again, FaxZero is a great choice. There are some drawbacks to using FaxZero, but for most users, it won’t be an issue.

You don’t need to sign up for an account or carry a monthly subscription. The actual process just requires using a handy web form. Free users are limited to five faxes per day. Each fax can only have three pages and a cover page, but for most uses, this should be fine.

If you’re running a home office, you’d be better off with Fax.Plus or HelloFax. However, FaxZero is one of the best online fax services because it offers a reliable product for no cost. You can send up to 25 pages for $2.99, which is just fine in times of need.

Best for Medical Professionals: SRFax

SRFax is one of the best online fax services for medical users. Anyone in the medical industry knows there are certain degrees of compliance you need to adhere to when it comes to sending documentation. HIPAA violations can be very costly and are just an unnecessary headache.

If your medical office is sending a high volume of faxes monthly, SRFax is the way to go. SRFax is HIPAA compliant and encrypts all transmissions with SSL to provide secure end-to-end communications. Plans are relatively affordable as well, with its Healthcare Basic plan starting at $16.05 a month.

This includes 500 pages in the basic package, with an additional fee of $0.05 once those 500 are exceeded. The medical industry is built on trust between the patient and the organization supporting them, SRFax helps continue that line of trust when sending vital communications.

Best for Businesses: RingCentral

If you’re in enterprise and still sending a ton of faxes, RingCentral is the best option. What makes RingCentral one of the best online fax services is how much it bundles in with each plan. The Advanced plan from RingCentral comes with a unified communication system, handling phones, recording customer service calls, and unlimited faxing for $25 per user a month.

You can boost that up with Ultra, which still comes with unlimited internet faxing as well as voice and video conferencing support, unlimited file sharing between users, and enhanced analytics at $35 per user a month.

This isn’t going to be a great fit for a small business, but for larger organizations, it gives a flexible unified solution to all of your communication woes. RingCentral also integrates crucial productivity apps from the likes of Google and Microsoft into its plans, so all of the basic needs for your organization can be met.

Best Value for Small Business Users: HelloFax

HelloFax is a super flexible option for small business users. There is a basic free plan, which allows for five free fax pages per month. What makes HelloFax such an attractive option for small business users is the flexibility of its paid plans, however.

Its Professional plan comes with 500 fax pages a month which can be shared between ten individual users. You also get access to secure cloud storage and integration with popular file storage platforms like DropBox and Google Cloud.

If you’ve got a small business on the larger side of things, you can use the Small Business plan for $39.99 a month. This nets you 1,000 fax pages a month, 20 individual team members, and the aforementioned access to cloud storage and international coverage.

In short, it’s a super flexible plan that should fit most needs if you’re running a smaller office.

What to Know Before Choosing an Online Fax Service

Before opting for an online fax service, you first need to determine your needs. If you’re just looking to send a single faxed document every once in a blue moon, you don’t need a monthly subscription. Users who rely on this form of communication daily will likely want a flexible and affordable plan.

When looking at an online fax service, first calculate how many fax pages you need on a monthly basis. You can further divide this by individual users if you’re running a business. Obviously, a medical office’s needs are going to be far different than other sorts of businesses.

Then it comes down to figuring out what other services you might want to bundle with your faxing service. Providers like RingCentral offer a comprehensive business suite of products for handling all communications, which might be great for enterprise use.

However, if you’re in the medical profession, you’re likely going to seek out a fax service that provides secure faxing without being out of HIPAA compliance standards.

Using an Online Fax Service: What It’s Like

Using an online fax service is a lot more intuitive than running an old-fashioned fax machine. Most services offer up simple web forms or apps to get things rolling. You can also send documents and the like with your smartphone or tablet.

As such, sending an online fax can be a lot easier than having to deal with operating your typical fax machine. Once you factor in the lack of a landline, it’s easy to see why many users might opt for a fully online solution.

Summary Table

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