Many small businesses still rely on faxing for secure document transmission, but traditional fax machines can be inefficient and outdated. Online fax services offer a modern solution to this challenge.
At WPBeginner, we’ve seen how the right online fax service can significantly improve efficiency and security for various industries, from legal firms to healthcare providers.
In this guide, we’ll introduce you to the 6 best online fax services for small businesses in 2024. We’ve carefully selected options that cater to different needs and budgets, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur or managing a growing team.
Quick Overview: Best Online Fax Services
Online Fax Service | Best For | Price | |
🥇 | Nextiva | Small business faxing | Starts at $7.95/mo |
🥈 | RingCentral | Large volumes of faxes | Starts at $22.99/mo |
🥉 | SRFax | HIPAA-compliant faxes | Starts at $11.45/mo |
4 | Fax.Plus | Small volumes of faxes | Starts at $6.99/mo |
5 | eFax | Advanced storage | Starts at $5/mo |
6 | MyFax | Basic faxing | Starts at $12/mo |
How We Chose the Best Online Fax Services
Our team at WPBeginner carefully evaluated each online fax service using the following criteria:
- Ease of use – We assessed how user-friendly each service is for small businesses.
- Features – We examined key capabilities like mobile access, electronic signatures, and file storage.
- Security – We evaluated the level of encryption and compliance with regulations like HIPAA.
- Integration – We considered how well each service integrates with other business tools and software.
- Pricing – We analyzed the value for money, looking at page limits and additional features included in each plan.
- Customer support – We looked at the quality and availability of customer service.
Why Trust WPBeginner?
Our team’s expertise in WordPress and online business tools allows us to provide practical, unbiased advice tailored to small business needs. Our recommendations come from hands-on experience and thorough testing.
For more details on how we evaluate and recommend products, check out our complete editorial process.
1. Nextiva
Nextiva is the best online fax service for most businesses. It has affordable pricing, flexible plans, and an extensive set of features.
It’s commonly known for its suite of business communication tools and business phone services.
However, Nextiva also offers an excellent online faxing service that’s an excellent fit for most small business owners.
Note: We use the Nextiva business phone service and communication platform on WPBeginner. Their service is always reliable, and they have incredible customer support.
What we really like about Nextiva vFax is that it’s perfect for remote teams. You can send and receive fax documents via mobile, desktop, and tablet without being in the office.
If you have a traditional fax machine, Nextiva can also integrate with that as well. They allow you to migrate your existing fax number to their platform.
With that said, a free toll-free number and local phone number are included when you sign up.
If your company is growing and you need additional numbers, you can add numbers from your dashboard with a couple of clicks.
Online storage is automated as well. Nextiva will save all of your incoming and outgoing faxes for 6 months, including all large files. They also have file sharing built-in, so you can easily download and share your faxes with other members of your team.
Nextiva is used by organizations like Taco Bell, Stanley Steemer, and the Buffalo Bills. However, the plans are well-suited for small businesses as well.
We recommend getting the unified communication platform that starts at $18.95 per month, and it includes unlimited fax, unlimited voice & video calling, auto-attendant, toll-free numbers, and more.
If you only need an occasional fax service, then you can also purchase vFax separately, starting at $7.95 per month, which includes 500 pages. This is a cost-effective solution, but this plan is limited and doesn’t let you use the full power of Nextiva.
Overall, it’s the best business phone & fax app for growing businesses.
Expert Review: We believe Nextiva is the best online fax service for small business owners. Along with fax, you also get their full business communication platform.
2. RingCentral
RingCentral is another great online fax service for small and growing businesses.
RingCentral is a leader in providing business communication services like phone lines, instant messaging, video conferencing, and, of course, online faxes.
RingCentral Fax can work as a standalone service or integrate with the business VoIP and communication platform.
This fax service is best suited for businesses that send a high volume of faxes, like legal offices or universities. If your company uses outdated physical fax machines, RingCentral can integrate and upgrade your existing fax system.
It offers standard fax features right out of the box, like custom fax cover pages, cloud storage service integration, encryption, and the ability to add unlimited dedicated fax numbers.
There are many workflow integration options available, including Dropbox, Google Drive, Google Docs, Microsoft Outlook, Amazon, and more.
It’s also a truly mobile solution. You can set up text messages to alert you of incoming faxes. Or use the mobile app to send, receive, view, and store faxes.
There’s even a built-in option to block spam faxes and reduce the total number of junk faxes you receive.
With RingCentral, you can get a large number of pages at an affordable price. The Fax 3000 plan is $22.99 per month for 3000 pages, which breaks down to $0.007 per page.
But the best value is their Advanced bundled plan for $25 per month. This plan lets you fax an unlimited number of pages per month, plus it bundles business phone calls, video meetings, audio conferencing, business text messages, and more.
The only real downside is that their fax storage is limited to the last 200 faxes. You’ll either need to delete existing faxes or store them externally.
Expert Review: We believe RingCentral Fax is best for companies who need to send a high volume of faxes or want to bundle business communications together. It’s often a top pick among enterprise customers due to its strong security features like two-factor authentication, user-friendly access control, and more.
3. SRFax
SRFax is another online fax service that offers the highest levels of security, privacy, and compliance.
SRFax is fully HIPAA compliant for US-based healthcare practitioners and PHIPA compliant for those based in Canada.
Many internet fax services offer HIPAA compliance, but usually, these services deliver the bare minimum. The security features that SRFax provides end up exceeding HIPAA regulations.
For example, you’ll find application security, hardware and organizational safeguards, user authentication, backups, and around-the-clock physical security.
Plus, faxes are sent using 2048-bit encryption, while the industry standard is 256-bit.
Beyond security, you’ll find standard features like unlimited storage and cross-platform integration.
There are also Windows and Mac-specific clients that let you send and receive faxes from your preferred programs.
The pricing plans are a little higher, starting with the Basic Plus plan for $11.45 per month for 200 pages. However, if you need strong security, the price is worth it.
You can also send international faxes. The international fax rates are based on the country you’re sending or receiving faxes from.
Expert Review: We believe SRFax is the best online fax service for businesses that need the highest levels of security.
4. Fax.Plus
Fax.Plus is one of the best online fax services for small teams. It’s simple to use, and the goal of the service is to save you as much time as possible.
If you’re looking for a way to upgrade your existing fax process while keeping things affordable, this is a great option.
You can even keep your existing fax number for free or add new local and toll-free fax numbers.
There are dozens of integrations to manage your faxes within the platforms you’re already using. This means no complicated setup process or wasting time learning the ins and outs of new software.
For example, it integrates with platforms like Microsoft Office, Google Chrome, Slack, Google Drive, Google Workspace apps, other APIs, and more.
You’ll also find a bundled iOS and Android app so you can read, download, and send faxes on the go. The mobile app is as easy to use as the web portal.
It lets you scan documents from your phone, add digital signatures, add notes, organize your archives, send faxes, and more.
You can also optimize faxes with a single click, which makes them easier to read and will send faster.
If you have simple needs and only need to send a handful of faxes every month, then there’s a free plan you can use. This plan lets you send up to 10 pages per month. However, you can’t receive faxes, only send them.
Although Fax.Plus is well suited for very small businesses, you’ll find a variety of fax plans to cater to all types of business needs. The Basic plan is $6.99 per month and lets you send up to 200 pages.
If you’re looking for the best deal, the Business plan lets you send 1000 pages every month for $27.99.
Expert Review: We believe Fax.Plus is the best online fax solution for small teams.
5. eFax
eFax is a well-known name in the online fax services space. It’s feature-rich, easy to use, and places a focus on fax archiving and storage.
This makes it a great choice for organizations that need to store faxes for a long time, like financial and legal institutions, universities, real estate offices, accountants, charities and activism groups, and more.
Although other fax providers offer fax storage and archiving, none go as deep as eFax. This provider offers unlimited storage for your faxes, plus in-depth fax archiving and organization features.
When faxes are saved, additional information is stored, like the transmission time and date, the recipient and sender name, and more. This makes it easy to sort and find the exact information you’re looking for.
Your faxes are stored automatically, plus older faxes won’t be deleted to make room for new incoming faxes.
Basically, with eFax, you’ll never lose a fax ever again.
It includes an intuitive mobile app that’s available for both iPhones and Android devices. It lets you archive, search, download, and forward directly from your phone.
Another great mobile feature is the ability to take pictures of documents and send them as a fax, all while you’re away from the office.
You’ll also find standard functionality like support for electronic signatures, multiple users, cloud storage integrations, email inbox notifications, and the ability to send a fax to up to 20 recipients.
Plus, there’s support for international faxing, and every fax is sent through an encrypted SSL connection.
eFax’s plans start at $5 per month for 170 inbound and 170 outbound faxes.
The best value plan is the Pro plan, which costs $10 per month and lets you send 275 fax pages and receive 275 pages every month.
Expert Review: We believe eFax is a great choice for businesses that need advanced search, storage, and archive features.
6. MyFax
MyFax is an excellent online fax service for small businesses and work-from-home businesses that send and receive a low volume of faxes.
You could use a free fax service to send faxes every once in a while. However, free services can be unprofessional since you can’t change the cover sheet, and you usually can’t receive faxes either.
We recommend using an affordable service like MyFax instead. MyFax is very simple and can also be used to send faxes anywhere in the world.
All plans come with unlimited fax storage, a free fax number, and a library of pre-built cover templates you can customize to match your brand. You can even search through your fax archives.
There are also Android and iOS apps to take your faxes on the go.
Smaller teams can take advantage of the Home Office plan for $12 per month, which lets you send 100 pages and receive 100 pages every month.
There are also more expensive plans if you need to send or receive additional pages. If you go over the page limits, there’s an overage fee of $0.10 per page.
It also offers a free trial period, but you do need to provide your credit card information to sign up.
Expert Review: We believe MyFax is the best online fax service for businesses on a budget.
Which Is the Best Online Fax Service for You?
After researching all of the top online fax service providers, we believe that Nextiva is the best online fax provider in the market.
You can send a high volume of faxes at a low cost. Plus, it comes with powerful features like business phone, video calls, and other collaboration tools.
Those reasons and more are why Nextiva is the best online fax service and business communication platform in the market. This is also why WPBeginner uses Nextiva.
In our research, RingCentral came in a very close second. The online fax service offers a lot of the same features as Nextiva for a great price. However, you don’t have the same level of flexibility.
You really can’t go wrong with either of these two online fax services.
We also looked at other fax service providers like MetroFax, HelloFax, FaxZero, GotFreeFax, J2 Global, mFax, and more.
However, our goal is to make it easy for you to choose the best online fax provider without causing choice paralysis, so we didn’t review them all here.
Online Fax Services FAQs
After helping hundreds of business owners find the best online fax services for their needs, we’ve come across a lot of questions.
Below are some of the most frequently asked questions we’ve received about online fax service providers.
How does online faxing work?
Online faxing turns your documents into a file format that’s readable by a fax machine and vice versa.
If you’re sending a document to a fax machine, you’ll enter your recipient’s fax number in your online fax dashboard and attach your file.
The online faxing services translate the document into a file type the fax machine can read and sends it to the recipient over a phone line.
The document is then printed and read as a standard fax or viewed with their online fax service provider.
What is the best free online fax service?
We don’t generally recommend using a free fax service provider, especially in a business setting. Free online fax services allow you to send faxes, but you generally can’t receive faxes or customize the cover sheet.
If you only need to send up to 10 pages a month, then we recommend the Fax.Plus free tier.
This also gives you the ability to upgrade if your faxing needs increase.
What is the safest fax app?
All fax apps are incredibly safe and use encryption to ensure your transmissions are protected. Faxing is one of the most secure forms of communication.
However, SRFax has the highest security protocols out of any online fax app. Their primary focus is providing a secure fax service for healthcare professionals, which needs to comply with HIPAA.
SRFax has strong encryption, spam blocking, user authentication, automatic fax deletion, and more. Basically everything you would expect in an enterprise plan.
Can I fax without a fax machine?
Yes, you can fax without a fax machine. Online faxing services like Nextiva and RingCentral allow you to send faxes via the internet, tablets, and even mobile devices.
You can also send online faxes to a traditional fax machine with an online fax service.
We hope that this guide helped you choose the best online fax service for your small business. You may also want to see our comparison of the best email marketing services, and best AI chatbot software for small business.
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Moinuddin Waheed says
Back in the days when internet and other innovative technologies were not so popular, fax was very much in practice.
in my country India, I don’t see much use of it now as it used to be.
I am not aware of western countries whether it’s use is still prevalent there or it is no more in use as it used to be.
WPBeginner Support says
Faxes are normally used in legal situations where a signature is required or certain types of businesses.
Admin
Moinuddin Waheed says
Thanks for the reply.
here in India as well, faxes were mainly a job of the legality and of official purposes lately.
I have not witnessed fax here for the last several years including in the legal arena as well.
it is good to know that the west still continues with the fax legacy in some way or the other.
fenbri lie says
I switched to online faxing last year and tested out Nextiva, MyFax, eFax and SRFax. All four systems are fairly easy to use, but I ended up choosing eFax. I’ve been pretty happy so far, and you are definitely right when you say that the fax storage and archiving features are a lifesaver.
WPBeginner Support says
Glad you found our recommendations helpful
Admin