The Executive Suite: Best Online Fax Service

In today’s article we review the top online fax service providers based on features, price, reliability, and customer service.

Best Online Fax Service: RingCentral

If you want a standalone online fax service then we recommend RingCentral Fax. It costs $95.88 per year or $9.99 a month for 500 pages ($0.059 for each page over 500).
At $59.40 per year or $8.95 a month, NextivaFax is priced lower and is a close second. However, unlike RingCentral, Nextiva fax does not offer the ability to sign faxes electronically or international faxing.

If you are already using VoIP for your phone service then many VoIP phone providers (including our recommended VoIP phone provider Nextiva) include unlimited Faxing at no extra cost. If you are interested in learning more about VoIP phone service with unlimited faxing, go here.

Looking for Free Online Faxing?

If you just need to send a fax, FaxZero allows you to send up to 5 free faxes a day. However, they do include their logo advertisement on your fax cover page when using the free option. If you don’t want the ad included then you have to pay $1.99 per fax. HelloFax allows you to send 5 pages for free 1 time without including an advertisement.

Because you need a number to use, there is no free option for RECEIVING faxes, other than using the free trial option of one of the paid providers below.

Best Online Fax Summary Table

	Nextiva	RingCentral	FaxZero	Efax
Basic Plan Price	$59.40 Per year or $8.95 a month.	$95.88 per year or $9.99 per month.	Free to send (ad included on cover page) $1.99 per fax without ad.	$169.56 per year or $16.95 per month.
Send/Receive?	Yes.	Yes.	Send Only.	Yes.
Basic Plan Pages Allowed	500/month send or receive ($.03 per page overage)	500/month send or receive ($.03 per page overage)	Max 3 Pages + Cover a max of 5 times per day.	Send 150 pages a month and receive 150 pages a month ($.10 per page overage).
Free Trial	Yes.	Yes.	Not applicable.	Yes.
Customer Service	Phone, Email, and Live Chat.	Web only under basic plan.	None.	Phone, Email, and Live Chat.
Mobile Faxing	Yes.	Yes.	No.	Yes.
Digitized Signature?	No.	Yes.	No.	Yes.
Sent/Recieved Fax Alerts	Text and Email	Text and Email.	Not applicable.	Email.
Keep Existing Fax Number?	Yes.	Yes.	Not applicable.	Yes.
	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More	Learn More

Nextiva, vs. RingCentral vs. Efax Detailed Overview

The three major paid online fax providers that we reviewed all allow you to send and receive faxes via both desktop and mobile, offer a free trial, and allow you to keep your existing fax number.
The main differences were price, customer service, and whether or not they offer a digitized signature. While RingCentral is more expensive than Nextiva, they offer the ability to sign documents digitally, so you do not have to print them out. This is a major time saver, which is the primary reason we chose RingCentral over Nextiva as the best online fax service.

Ring Central

Ringcentral has 4 different plans, the prices for which vary depending on how many faxes you want to send.

500 Pages Per Month: $95.88 per year or $9.99 per month. Faxes above 500 are charged at $0.059 per page.
1000 Pages Per Month: $155.88 per year or $17.99 per month. Faxes above 1000 are charged at $0.049 per page.
2500 Pages Per Month: $599.88 per year or $59.99 per month. Faxes above 2500 are charged at $0.039 per page. *There is no reason to choose this plan as unlimited faxing is cheaper.
Fax Unlimited: 479.88 per year or $49.99 per month. Includes unlimited faxing and 2 fax numbers.

Other Costs:

$4.99 for additional fax numbers under any plan.
International faxes will be charged at international rates found here.

Nextiva

Nextiva has 3 different price plans that vary depending on the number of faxes that you want to send and receive.

500 Pages Per month: $59.40 per year or $8.95 per month. $0.03 per page above 500.
1000 Pages per month: $155.40 per year or $17.95 per month. $0.03 per page above 500.
3000 pages per month: $359.40 per year or $34.95 per month. $0.03 per page above 500.

If you are going to be doing more than 3000 pages per month then you should purchase a VoIP phone line that comes with unlimited faxing.

Other costs:
Additional lines must be purchased at standard pricing.
No international faxing

Efax

Efax is the most expensive option by far. They offer two plans:

150 Pages Per Month: $169.56 per year or $16.95 per month. There is also a $10 setup fee. $0.10 for each page over 150.
200 Pages per month: $199.56 per year or $19.95 per month. There is also a $19.95 setup fee. $0.10 for each page over 200.

There is nothing listed on their site about international faxes or cost for additional lines. As their basic service is around double the price for half the number of faxes, we didn’t feel the need to look any further.

Customer Service

Ringcentral

Ringcentral offers web support as part of their basic plan. This means you can create a support ticket or post to their online community. All other plans also include phone support Monday Through Friday from 8am to 9pm Eastern Time. Ringcentral uses a mix of US based and overseas support.

Nextiva

Nextiva offers US based support via email, live chat, and phone from 8am to 9pm eastern time Monday through Friday, and on Saturday from 12pm to 4pm eastern.

Efax

Efax claims to offer 24/7 Canadian based customer service. However when we emailed asking simple questions we were told to use the online chat service. When we went to use the chat service it was offline and we were told to call. When we called we were able to get a rep who was able to answer basic questions.

Alerts

Both RingCentral and Nextiva offer the ability to be alerted when new faxes arrive and are sent successfully (or alerts if a send is not successful) by email and text. There is no text alert with Efax, only email.

Sorting

Both NextivaFax and Efax allow you to setup folders where you can organize faxes once they are received. RingCentral does not offer this functionality.

Formats

Faxes come in as PDF’s with all three services, however you can also choose to have them as image files. Faxes can be sent using a wide variety of formats including Images, MS Office File Types, PDF, and Text.

Digital Signature

Both Ringcentral and Efax offer the ability to sign your faxes electronically so you do not have to print them out. To get setup you need to scan a copy of your signature and turn it into an image using a program like MS Paint. Then you add it to the RingCentral or Efax console and can sign your documents online with the click of a mouse.

Nextiva does not offer this option which is the primary reason we recommend Ringcentral.