The Best Online Fax Services of 2020

Standard plans range from the Basic plan, which comes with 25 pages of faxes for $3.29 per month, to the Standard Professional plan, which comes with 2,500 pages per month and costs $45.95 per month. Each of those plans also includes multiple individual user accounts and unlimited online storage. Only some of those plans include unlimited authorized email addresses, however.

These are the healthcare-specific plans, which offer additional security measures and optional PGP encryption:

• Healthcare Lite: This HIPAA-compliant plan includes 200 pages and costs $7.95 per month (or $6.50 per month with annual payment).
• Healthcare Basic: This plan includes 500 pages and costs $10.95 per month (or $9 per month with annual payment).
• Healthcare Basic Plus: This plan includes 800 pages and costs $16.95 per month (or $14 per month with annual payment).
• Healthcare Standard: This plan includes 1,500 pages and costs $30.95 per month (or $26.20 per month with annual payment).
• Healthcare Standard Plus: This plan includes 2,500 pages and costs $49.95 per month (or $42.50 per month with annual payment).
• Healthcare Professional: This plan includes 5,000 pages and costs $92.95 per month (or $83 per month with annual payment).
• Healthcare Professional Plus: This plan includes 10,000 pages and costs $185 per month (or $165 per month with annual payment). Each additional page costs 3 cents.
• Healthcare Professional Premium: This plan includes 20,000 pages and costs $395 per month (or $360 per month with annual payment). Each additional page costs 2.5 cents.

By now, everyone should be aware that there are people on the internet who try to obtain sensitive data for personal gain. Without proper safeguards, that data can put customers at risk. SRFax has implemented safeguards to help keep that from happening. SRFax has 2048-bit SSL certification, 2048-bit RSA public keys, PGP encryption and conventional password protection for its transmissions. In addition, each user gets an encrypted session ID cookie that detects when they're logged in to the system. Once they're online, their communications are encrypted.

The safety precautions don't stop there. SRFax keeps its production equipment outside of its employees' reach; only its team of approved engineers and security specialists has access to it. The facility housing SRFax's equipment is under guard 24/7 and has generators and other backup equipment to ensure continual security and uptime. The company's dedication to encryption and data security is among the most impressive of the companies we researched.

While SRFax has an intuitive interface and supports both sending and receiving faxes, it does not have its own mobile app for either iOS or Android. However, the service is accessible from any internet browser.

Though SRFax is certainly impressive when it comes to data protection, we were a little let down by not being able to digitally sign or update faxes prior to transmission. This may not be a major problem for most businesses, but medical practitioners may need this feature if they and their patients prefer not to print and scan documents that require signatures.

• Fax 750: With support for up to 750 pages sent and/or received in a given month, this plan costs $12.99 per month with an annual subscription and $14.99 for a monthly subscription. Each page sent or received above the monthly allotment costs an additional 5.9 cents. Customer support over the phone is not available for this tier.
  
  
• Fax 1500: For $17.99 per month with an annual subscription or $22.99 for a monthly subscription, this plan supports up to 1,500 pages and charges 4.9 cents per additional page.
  
  
• Fax 2500: Under this plan, you can send and receive up to 2,500 pages in a month for $49.99 per month with an annual subscription or $59.99 for a monthly subscription. Each page above 2,500 costs an additional 3.9 cents.
  
  
• Fax Unlimited: Listed as the "corporate plan," this tier includes unlimited faxing, unlimited video meetings with screen sharing, unlimited team messaging with file sharing, and unlimited calls, texts and conference calling. You get all of that for $39.99 per month with an annual subscription or $49.99 for a monthly subscription.

Unlike some of its competitors, RingCentral doesn't offer a free service, though it does have a 30-day free trial. Also, each page is considered equal to one minute of service, meaning your internet connection's speed can impact what counts as a page in the company's calculations. If you have a speedy connection, your allotments will stretch a little further.

During setup, you can either keep your existing fax number or choose one from a list of toll-free, local and vanity numbers, with custom caller ID information available for free. You can then access faxes through the company's browser-based dashboard, a supported email client, or RingCentral's iOS and Android apps. RingCentral can integrate with many major business software suites, including Windows Office, Dropbox and Google Drive.

If your outgoing faxes require a signature beforehand, RingCentral's platform allows you to create an electronic signature to add to documents. You can also add digital annotations and create custom cover pages. Each fax you send and receive is converted into a PDF for easy reading on most machines, with the RingCentral platform able to support most common file formats.

While there's a lot to like about RingCentral, a few things about it may be a problem for some small businesses. The most glaring issue is that the company doesn't have a particularly low-volume option. Most small businesses don't need to send 750 pages in a month, so even the lowest tier might be overkill for some. It's also unfortunate that the company doesn't calculate pages on a 1-to-1 scale, since internet connectivity varies so much throughout the country. Any disparity can result in an uneven pricing system, which may turn off some users.

Companies looking to take advantage of mFax's multi-user functionality will have to eschew the Solo tier. Though it's the cheapest option at $9 per month (or $84 per year), it does not allow for more than one user at a time, as the name suggests. Those who want multiple users on the same account need to sign up for the Team tier or higher. Along with a complimentary toll-free number, you can have additional fax numbers for an extra monthly fee.

If your small business needs to accommodate multiple users on the same account, you will need one of these plans:

• Team: This plan costs $25 per month, or $20 per month with an annual subscription, for 500 pages and up to five users. Additional pages cost 8 cents each. Additional toll-free numbers cost $4 each per month.
  
  
• Business: This plan costs $50 per month, or $40 per month with an annual subscription, for 1,000 pages and up to 15 users. Additional pages cost 6 cents each. Additional toll-free numbers cost $3 each per month.
  
  
• Infinity: This plan costs $95 per month, or $80 per month with an annual subscription, for 2,500 pages. It supports up to 50 users, and you can add even more users for $2 each per month. Additional pages cost 4 cents each, and additional toll-free numbers cost $2 each per month.

With its intuitive web-based interface, mFax allows you to both send and receive messages. It gives all member accounts a toll-free fax number to use and has full fax-to-email functionality. If you'd rather send faxes through your computer's word processor, mFax provides a free print-to-fax driver that gives any program with printing capabilities the ability to send faxes.

The overall interface is reminiscent of most web-based email clients. All incoming and outgoing faxes are stored in the system, while all saved files are stored and encrypted in the cloud. You can add tags to each fax to allow simple categorizing and easy searching later.

While we found plenty to appreciate about mFax's online fax solution, we were a little concerned that the company's international faxing capabilities remain in beta. With global business being so inextricably connected through the internet, it's not a stretch to consider a situation where mFax's limited overseas scope could be an issue. In its current form, mFax can only send messages to 23 countries other than the U.S. and Canada.

Another point of concern is the inability to digitally edit or sign faxes before you send them. Anyone interested in the convenience of a digital signature feature and its potential paper waste reduction should keep this omission in mind.

Once you go over the 20-page allotment, a paid option of $9.95 per month (with automatic renewal) becomes available. The price goes down if you opt for an annual or biannual subscription at $95.40 or $142.80 respectively. Through this paid account, you get 500 pages per month to work with and can send faxes as well. The paid account also comes with unlimited lifetime storage.

FaxBetter is a fax-to-email service, meaning incoming faxes are treated similarly to any type of email you may receive. This company's interface is very similar to any email application you may have used, with incoming faxes arriving in a virtual inbox like the one you would find in Gmail or Microsoft Outlook. FaxBetter lets you manage your inbox, sort faxes and apply labels to faxes for better searchability.

FaxBetter's free incoming fax plan gives your business a dedicated toll-free number to use and enough digital storage to file away up to 1,000 pages for the life of the account. That last part is important, since you only get 60 days to retrieve any files you want once your account is deactivated. After that window, everything is permanently deleted.

Bringing up the potential for account deactivation highlights a major downside to FaxBetter's free service. To maintain your account, you must use it at a fairly regular pace. If you do not receive any faxes within seven days, you will lose the free fax number the company gave you. That can obviously cause problems for your business if you gave that number out to clients and leads. If your company receives faxes infrequently, you will either need to ensure you receive a fax at least once a week with your existing free account and fax number or get accustomed to signing up for a new account (and number) anytime you need to receive a fax.

Through GotFreeFax's paid offerings, you gain access to more features and the ability to send more faxes. Both paid service tiers eschew the monthly subscription fee that GotFreeFax's competitors regularly charge, charging instead by the number of pages being sent at any given time. For example, this is the normal pay-per-use model's pricing structure:

• Up to 10 pages: 98 cents
• Up to 20 pages: $1.98
• Up to 30 pages: $2.98

Under the business prepaid service, you can purchase page credits that never expire and can be used at any time. Businesses that choose this plan also get access to the fax broadcasting feature, allowing one fax to be sent to multiple recipients. This arrangement makes sense for companies that only have occasional faxing needs but know they will fax documents in the future. This tier's pricing structure deals in the hundreds and thousands of pages, so your potential volume makes a difference.

• 100 page credits: $9.95
• 300 page credits: $19.95
• 1,000 page credits: $49.95

While GotFreeFax has competitive prices for its pay-per-use and business prepaid services, it would be natural to wonder if the company skimps on any features. We found that GotFreeFax still offers some basic features along with its simple, single-page interface and apparent disinterest in forcing people to sign up for an account. You can edit the body of your fax in a simple HTML-enabled text box, which has rich text formatting options to enhance the visual flair of your message. You can also create cover pages in the text field; upload one as a separate PDF, JPEG or DOC file; or use GotFreeFax's ad-free option.

As for data security measures, GotFreeFax sends its messages through its servers that are managed by certified engineers, secured by Gateway AntiVirus software and sent over an encrypted connection.

While free or nearly free is always better than paying too much for a service, those low costs often have a caveat. In GotFreeFax's case, that caveat is no inbound fax services. While GotFreeFax recommends either RingCentral or Faxage for that service, we also suggest you consider FaxBetter, our best pick for free incoming fax service.

Of course, you get what you pay for with GotFreeFax, so you should temper your expectations for the features and functionality. This service doesn't have many of the nice features that come with paid plans, such as document storage, a mobile app and software integration.

Through GotFreeFax's paid offerings, you gain access to more features and the ability to send more faxes. Both paid service tiers eschew the monthly subscription fee that GotFreeFax's competitors regularly charge, charging instead by the number of pages being sent at any given time. For example, this is the normal pay-per-use model's pricing structure:

• Up to 10 pages: 98 cents
• Up to 20 pages: $1.98
• Up to 30 pages: $2.98

Under the business prepaid service, you can purchase page credits that never expire and can be used at any time. Businesses that choose this plan also get access to the fax broadcasting feature, allowing one fax to be sent to multiple recipients. This arrangement makes sense for companies that only have occasional faxing needs but know they will fax documents in the future. This tier's pricing structure deals in the hundreds and thousands of pages, so your potential volume makes a difference.

• 100 page credits: $9.95
• 300 page credits: $19.95
• 1,000 page credits: $49.95

While GotFreeFax has competitive prices for its pay-per-use and business prepaid services, it would be natural to wonder if the company skimps on any features. We found that GotFreeFax still offers some basic features along with its simple, single-page interface and apparent disinterest in forcing people to sign up for an account. You can edit the body of your fax in a simple HTML-enabled text box, which has rich text formatting options to enhance the visual flair of your message. You can also create cover pages in the text field; upload one as a separate PDF, JPEG or DOC file; or use GotFreeFax's ad-free option.

As for data security measures, GotFreeFax sends its messages through its servers that are managed by certified engineers, secured by Gateway AntiVirus software and sent over an encrypted connection.

While free or nearly free is always better than paying too much for a service, those low costs often have a caveat. In GotFreeFax's case, that caveat is no inbound fax services. While GotFreeFax recommends either RingCentral or Faxage for that service, we also suggest you consider FaxBetter, our best pick for free incoming fax service.

Of course, you get what you pay for with GotFreeFax, so you should temper your expectations for the features and functionality. This service doesn't have many of the nice features that come with paid plans, such as document storage, a mobile app and software integration.