Who Has the Best Online Fax for 2021?

If sending and receiving faxes is a crucial part of your business, all you need is an online fax service. This new technology will save you from dealing with a fax machine along with the papers, inks, and a landline phone. Not to mention the time you spend scanning, printing, signing documents physically and the costs of the equipment.  

The good news, the market is already overwhelmed with online fax services. Almost every year, a new company is introduced. So, who has the best services for 2021? We will unveil the top five best online faxes we currently have in the market and features to look for when selecting the right one for your business.  But before that, let us dive deep into what online fax is and how it works. 

Online fax or cloud-based fax is a technology that uses internet protocol (IP) to send and receive faxes online. IP is used for transmission, and users get access to their faxes from almost any internet-enabled device.  

 This technology will enable you to use different ways of sending and receiving faxes online, including mobile fax, web fax, email fax as well as fax API. Not all the services support all these mediums the same way. Thankfully, we are here to unveil the services that will offer you all these. 

This will require a desktop or web-based application and a stable internet to do all your faxing. Once you have that, sending and receiving faxes via the web is very straightforward. You only need to log in with your Google credentials or any means your provider requires and subscribe. Your service will then offer you a toll-free or regular number that you will key in as the sender’s number.   

Through web faxing, you can include a cover page and attachments. However, the file size varies, and only a few services will allow you to preview attachments before you send them.   

Accessing the received faxes is just by a click on the document sent. Usually, you will receive a notification via email or push when there is a new fax message in your inbox. 

With this method, sending and receiving faxes is as easy as sending and receiving email. The service converts emails to faxes and faxes to emails for you. That way, you get to send faxes from any email server, including Yahoo, Gmail, and Outlook, to any internet supported device or fax machine. Consequently, you can find your received faxes in your email.  

The process doesn’t vary much from service to service. You start by typing the fax number, and then the country and area code, into the address line. This is followed by a ‘@’ and an email domain-specific to the fax service.  

The subject line and the body text appear on the fax cover page, while any attachment appears as a separate page. Your fax number will appear as the sender, so there is no confusion about the message's origin. 

You can turn your Android or iOS phone/Tablet into a fully functioning mobile fax machine. This comes with all the conveniences since you can receive and send faxes from anywhere. You can use your mobile phone/tablet camera to capture and scan physical images and turn them into documents ready to be sent as a fax.  

All you need in order to enjoy these is the device, internet connectivity, and a subscription to online fax service. Once you have these in place, you send and receive faxes the same way you would with your PC.  

Mobile fax will also enable you to print documents from a nearby fax machine. You simply attach the document you intend to print to an email then send it to the closest fax machine’s fax number and have it printed within seconds.  

This technology will help you get more value from any provider that you settle on. It allows easy integration with virtually any system, software, or application.  

There are plenty of online fax services out of which you are sure to find one that works for your home and office needs. When choosing an online fax provider, here are some of the most vital features that it should never miss. 

Web Interface 

All the online fax services offer a web interface or portal from which you can send and receive faxes. However, their utilities vary widely. A well-designed user interface can inspire user’s confidence, whereas an archaic interface can just as easily undermine it. A provider should have a well designed and highly functional interface that doesn't inhibit your workflow.  

Portability and Integration 

This is an online faxing service, and therefore, demanding for a designated mobile or desktop application is not too much. The good news is, many online fax services now offer these features. The apps should allow access to all services' capabilities from as basic as sending and receiving faxes to accessing all the possibilities enabled by integration. 

Security 

It would help if you opted for a provider that invests more in security so that the whole faxing activities are perfectly encrypted. Even better, the provider should offer a password to protect your incoming faxes. Lastly, it would be better if the provider protects their servers physically and is HIPAA compliant for more privacy.  

Number Option 

In the number option, consider local number option coverage, availability of toll-free numbers, international number option, additional number option and as well as the availability of number portability and charges involved.  

  

Email Integration 

Most people are familiar with email workflows. For that reason, an online fax service should support email integration and convert email to fax and fax to email. This would be the best alternative for providers that don't offer a designated app for faxing.  

 

Page Allotment in Relation to Pricing 

Most of the online faxes come with monthly plans. Once you subscribe to any of the plans, what you get in return is a page allotment to use for that month. The number of pages offered should reflect what you are paying for.  

 

Some companies offer a pool of pages as combined send and receive faxes. Others distinguish between how many pages you can send and how many you can receive. This is also a very important factor to consider since some organizations don’t receive faxes as much as they send. Settle for what you feel will best suit your organization. 

Now it is time to answer your question; who has the best online fax 2021? Here we go... 

RingCentral offers a range of features at an affordable price. This is what makes it superior to other services. Despite cancelling and replacing their fax-500 plan fax-750 plan, it remains the cheapest you will find in the market. It only costs $15 monthly or $13/month with an annual commitment. 

In terms of performance, this provider allows sending very large faxes; up to 200 pages and 20 MB. This comes with no limitation of the number of recipients receiving a single fax and the possibility of up to 25 email addresses for an email to fax and fax to email option.   

With the service, you can get local numbers in 49 states and the District of Columbia. You also get two toll-free number options, unlimited additional numbers you can subscribe to, as well as the ability to port your existing fax number to RingCentral.

HelloFax is not one of the cost-effective providers you will find in the market but always outstanding when it comes to international faxing. There are no extra charges; instead, they compromise on the number of pages to be sent, which is appropriate. The best part, major industrial countries like the UK, Germany, or Spain have the same coefficient/rate as the US.  Although they are a bit more expensive, we did find in our review of HelloFax that there were times when the price did justify the quality and features they offered.

Other outstanding features are the availability of Google integration and a custom API for corporate users. It also offers a local number with options in 50 states and Washington and allows number porting as well. However, there is no toll-free number option as well as designated apps for mobile device

One outstanding feature of this provider is the friendly user interface. The provider was designed to make faxing activities a breeze. In addition, the whole infrastructure is based on the cloud, and there is absolutely no maintenance, updates, or downloads required. 

It comes with a toll-free number and a local number that can be placed in one of the 50 states. However, the provider holds the right to the numbers and you can't port them out. Like HelloFax and many others, it doesn't offer a designated mobile app, and email app integration would suffice.  

They only offer one plan charged at $13 with 300 combined pages, which is not pocket-friendly per se. However, given that they offer 30 days free trials, there is nothing to worry about whenever you want to give their services a test.  

Sfax is known for its high level of confidentiality of public health information. It is the only 100% HIPAA compliance provider and has signed a Business Association Agreement as well. It was not easy for a provider with a target organization to make it to our top pick, but we considered Sfax because it perfectly does what it was designed for. 

To begin with, it discourages email faxing and has developed fully functioning apps for desktop and mobile devices. According to the company, email faxing is insecure and the provider top priority is to secure users' medical information.  

Sfax pricing may not be the best, but the company offers six plans and you are sure to get what you can afford. The company doesn't offer international faxing either, but other features like local number or toll-free number are available.  

MyFax is rich in features, which is why it has made it into this list. It is not a better option for those who will require large faxing through, but for organizations that don’t fax regularly, this is one of the most reliable and well-equipped providers.  

To begin with, it has an app designated for faxing via Android and iOS mobile devices. Although there is no desktop app, the whole traffic is based on email, so such a feature is not a priority.  

File support is superb, and it can convert 178 file formats into a fax, that is the leading file versatility you will find in the market. It also offers integration with major enterprise resources such as accounting, planning, and customer relationship management software. 

The company that offers the best online fax services basically depends on your organization's needs. However, it is not likely that your organization’s needs will go beyond all the services we have reviewed so if, after reading all the reviews you are still not 100% sure we would suggest you read our reviews of the best online fax services as they are more in depth than these quick summaries.. You can give each of them a test to confirm and feel free to share with us your experience.