Fax by email or Internet Protocol (IP) is becoming more popular due to the increasing digitization of communication methods. Sign up for one of the many online fax services to save money on paper costs and the cost of buying and running a fax machine.

Each fax over IP service has different price plans and features. The pricing and costs of email fax vary according to the following factors:

1. The quantity of faxes you want to send or receive each month;

2. The type of phone number you want, whether you want a toll-free fax phone number or a local number;

3. And the extra fax email features you want, such as file conversion.

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Find free or low-cost IP fax for small quantities

If you only plan to use a fax to email service occasionally, look for a service that is free or very low cost. Free services are often ad-supported, so read the fine print to see if the host will include an ad on the cover page. Since the company would need to assign a phone number to you in order for you to receive a fax, most of the low-cost services are send-only services.

I recommend: Send up to two faxes per day with a maximum of three pages each for free using the ad-supported service of FaxZero. Sign up for a free trial of the Fax1 low-cost email fax service to be able to send faxes for a low per-page fee.

Choose moderately-priced email to fax services for 200-300 faxes per month

Most plans have two price components, similar to cell phone plans. You pay a monthly fee that gets you a certain number of pages each month. Some companies with really low monthly fees bill annually instead of monthly. If you go over the monthly page allotment, there is a per-page charge for each page over the limit.

I recommend: Send 100 pages and receive 200 pages each month for one low monthly fee at MyFax. Choose from several low-price plans, billed on an annual basis, from the TrustFax website by Comodo.

Get a low per-page price on fax from computer in higher quantities

For power faxers, free and limited monthly plans won't do simply because of the limited quantity. Add up the overage charges to determine how much you'd pay for any given amount of faxes per month. If you send a lot of faxes, look for plans with the lowest over-limit per-page fee and the highest quantity of included pages each month.

I recommend: Pick one of three plans for online fax services that allows 300 or more faxes a month from RingCentral, which has a low price for page quantities that go over your maximum monthly allotment. Pay a monthly fee to be able to send or receive up to 1,000 pages each month at Metro Hi Speed.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Some email fax services charge extra for toll-free incoming fax numbers, and some include this feature for no extra cost. Read the pricing plans thoroughly before choosing the right plan for your business.

Your PC can double as a fax, sending and receiving paperless fax messages over the Internet. Sending a fax over IP (for Internet Protocol) can be less expensive and more effective than faxing as a phone call because:

1. You are not paying phone charges – your Internet service fee covers your faxing.
2. There's less equipment to buy and maintain. Faxes can be sent via an e-mail program as an attachment. Use a scanner to convert hard-copy to digital files.
3. It can grow with your business with little intervention. The service can easily scale from 20 people using it to 20,000.

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Do it yourself on your own systems

One way to set up fax over IP is to buy the software yourself. This can cut or reduce monthly fees or per-fax charges.

I recommend: WinFax Pro 10 is a highly rated solution by Symantec, maker of Norton security software. Buy it at Amazon or many other online vendors.

Outsource the process

You also can outsource your IP faxing for a fee, which can be based on a period of time or on the number of faxes.

I recommend: Compare services from On Call, Fax Micro and LaunchFax.

Combine with VoIP

If you're considering replacing your land-line phone system with voice over IP, take a look at devices that combine VoIP with fax over IP.

I recommend: MultiTech promises substantial savings for long distance, inter-office communication by using its gateway device that connects your fax, phone and data network.

Get a free trial

Some Internet fax companies offer free trials. This is a great way to get to know the service.

I recommend: RapidFax, Faxback and Snappy Fax give you 30 days to try their products.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  E-mail might still be your best bet for most business-to-business communication, but faxes can work if anti-spam software blocks outgoing e-mails or if the information doesn't translate well in an e-mail.
• •  Be sure to comply with the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, the Junk Fax Prevention Act of 2005 (JFPA), and any state or local laws concerning faxing.
• •  When you can, ask clients how they prefer to receive information. Don't assume fax is better just because you offer the service.

Internet fax services, sometimes called fax over IP (Internet Protocol) services, take advantage of the ability to convert visual documents into a digital form and back again. This allows you to send and receive faxes over the Internet, either attached to an email or uploaded to a website. You may not need to print most faxes, but will simply view them on your computer screen.

Each service has different features and price structures, but email fax basics are similar across all providers. While each service will vary slightly, follow these steps when using IP fax services to send a fax:

1. Scan a paper document into your computer using a scanner or multi-function printer with scanning capability to fax a paper document;

2. Create a document on your computer and send it by attaching it to the email faxing website, after ensuring that it's the correct format;

3. And check for incoming faxes that arrive in your email box with the fax document attached.

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Choose a service that offers send-only email fax service

To send an occasional fax, choose a service that offers only sending. Save time by sending right from your desktop and not having to walk to a machine in another office. This is also a good option if you are starting a business and want to save the initial cost of buying a machine specifically for faxes.

I recommend: Buy FaxIt Credit for the Sending Only plan at FaxIt Nice. It offers a free trial and several send-and-receive plans to choose from. Opt for the GreenFax.com send-only plan that lets you prepay to send faxes at a low price per page.

Look for email fax services that offer receive-only options

Since receiving digital faxes is similar to receiving voicemail, many companies offer a service that lets you receive faxes and voicemail attached to email. The faxes are an image file, usually viewable in your email application, and voicemails come in sound files you can play on your computer.

I recommend: Packetel offers a receive-only plan with a low monthly charge that lets you receive an unlimited number of faxes by email. Kall8 combines fax and voicemail, both of which you can receive in your email box.

Send a large amount of business faxes with a broadcast fax by email service

Whether you want to send faxes for marketing purposes or send or receive a large quantity of fax pages for your business, look for a plan that offers a large number of pages. The benefits of this type of service over using a traditional fax service include saving paper and the convenience of being able to send faxes without leaving your desk.

I recommend: The Fax Blasters program from Data Fabrication lets you send thousands of faxes in just a few minutes and has many price plans to fit your budget. The Fax Broadcast service from Protus offers many useful features, including support of popular file formats and scheduling capabilities.

Tips & Tactics

Helpful advice for making the most of this Guide

• •  Many fax to email services offer a free trial period when you sign up. One good reason to try before you buy is to make sure you are comfortable converting the files to the type of file required to send over the Internet, usually PDF or TIFF formats.

Email fax refers to services allowing you to send faxes that the recipient receives as email attachments. With this service, you can also send emails or upload files that people send to your fax machine. Many websites provide this type of service, and software also exists to automate such things from your desktop.

When combining email and fax transmissions, file formats are important to know about, including ASCII text for editable faxes, and PDF and TIFF files as the standard formats used to send or receive documents. It's also important to know the rules that exist regarding broadcast faxing and junk faxes. Email fax key terms can help you do this.

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ASCII text

An ASCII text file is plain text with no extra coding or formatting information. Fax machines normally generate faxes as an image, rather than text. In order to make a fax into a document that you can edit in a word processor or email client, you need to scan and convert it to ASCII text.

I recommend: Get an explanation of how you can convert fax text into ASCII text to be editable at PC Magazine.

PDF file format

PDF stands for portable document format, a format developed by Adobe Systems to standardize document storage and transmission on the Internet. Many people download documents in the PDF format and usually have built-in software that will read this type of file, so it's a good choice to use when sending faxes by email. Software exists to allow you to create a PDF file, if you need to send documents this way.

I recommend: Adobe Systems explains its PDF format and includes a history on it.

TIFF file format

TIFF stands for tagged image file format, and it's a common image format for documents where detail and resolution are important, especially images that are black and white. Most scanning applications are able to create and read TIFF files, and you can also open a TIFF file in your browser or other image viewing software on your computer.

I recommend: View a description of AsterFax, including the file formats supported, at Asterisk I.T. Find an explanation of what a TIFF file is at the Knowledge Base website of Indiana University.

CSV format

Many people like to keep a list of contacts in an email application. You can keep this same type of list in computer fax software, which allows you to quickly send a fax to those on the list. If you want to convert your email contact list into a format that you can use in fax software, you may choose the CSV format.

I recommend: Get a tutorial at Sendblaster, a division of eDisplay, detailing how to export contacts from Gmail into a CSV format that you can import with many email fax programs.

Broadcast fax

Broadcast fax is the practice of sending the same fax document to multiple recipients. You might do this to communicate with a group or for marketing purposes. Software exists to make this task automated and effortless.

I recommend: Find an explanation of broadcast fax services at Global Fax Network.

Junk fax

A junk fax is any unsolicited fax. There are laws about sending these types of faxes, and if you plan to use broadcast fax as a marketing tool, you should familiarize yourself with these laws before proceeding.

I recommend: Read information about the laws concerning the sending of junk faxes at the website for the Federal Communications Commission.