Did you know that you can send and receive faxes without having to invest on a fax machine? More and more businesses are throwing away their machines in favor of online fax services, companies that let you send and receive fax digitally, using nothing but an Internet connection and your email.
But services come with different prices and features. It can be a little daunting to choose one for a person that has been faxing traditionally for years. Here we want to share with you some of the factors you need to keep in mind and evaluate before you start paying for a subscription.
File Compatibility
A good service must be able to convert different file types into fax format. This will ensure that you don’t spend extra time converting your documents to be compatible with your service. Currently all fax services provide compatibility with known file formats such as BMP, JPG, PDF, XLS, DOC; TXT and others. Always check for your preferred service’s file compatibility FAQ.
Every file you sent to be faxed goes through a super-fast conversion process, to ensure your documents can be received by traditional fax machines as well.
Plans and Packages
A good service must give you different plans so you can choose the one that best accommodates the needs of your company. Most services offer a basic plan which can include between 150-300 pages per month. But for some companies this amount of faxes is too small, and once you go over your limit you need to start paying for overage fees.
Some services also offer corporate plans, which are tailor made for companies that handle a big faxing volume per month. This helps them take full advantage of digital fax technology without having to invest on a fax server and IT teams.
Fax Number Availability
In order to help you receive faxes, services provide you a virtual fax number at the moment of signing up with them. This number is linked to your email address, so all incoming fax transmissions are sent to your inbox after being converted into a digital file, more specifically a PDF.
You should be able to pick between a local and toll-free number for your account with no extra cost. Number availability depends on each service, there are some that only provide numbers in select cities in the USA, and others that are able to give you numbers all over the World.
Your virtual fax line remains active all day to receive faxes automatically, you don’t have to do anything extra besides checking your inbox for new faxes.
Free Trial Accounts
The best way to know if an online fax service is right for you is to test it out. And the best way to do so is by creating a free trial account. This account comes with all the perks of a paid account, including a Google fax number, but only remains active for 30 days. However, that is more than enough time to fully test the service’s features and speed.
Free trials can be cancelled at any time, and you won’t be charged unless you go over the free trial period, so if you find that a certain service is not useful, be sure to cancel your subscription and try another one. If you are happy with the trail, you can keep your fax number for the future.
