There is no special hardware or software needed for sending and receiving faxes, only a Fax printer driver which can be downloaded from the Onefax web interface, from the Downloads section. After installing the Print-to-Fax driver, you can send faxes directly from the program in which you compose the file. Otherwise, the Online Control Panel works like your personal fax machine, and you only need to login to your Onefax account to use it for your faxing needs.

Onefax offers two pricing plans. Onefax Local offers users a free local fax number and is available for $8.95 a month. Onefax Toll-Free includes a toll-free fax number and costs $12.95 per month. Both plans feature a free setup fee, free unlimited incoming and outgoing faxing, as well as international outbound faxing at different rates. The two plans also include auto resend (failed fax transmissions are sent again 5 times) and delivery confirmation via email. The service supports 22 popular document types which you can send from your Onefax Online Control Panel, such as Adobe PDF, TIFF, or PostScript.

Onefax provides users with the ability to send or forward a single fax to as many as 5,000 recipients via the Fax Broadcast option. With the free online reporting, you can view your fax usage by logging onto the Onefax web interface, while usage reports can be downloaded into Excel spreadsheets for cost analysis. With Onefax you can also manage all your contacts from one central location, by uploading or downloading contact lists in CSV format. The two pricing plans further include the option to add personalized cover pages and to archive faxes. However, the service does not allow users to attach more than one file to their outgoing faxes. Customer support is available via email, but the web interface of the service also provides extensive Help Topics and FAQ sections, as well as a Feedback section.

FaxFreedom provides users a convenient and highly functional control panel, called WebLINK Personal Internet Control Panel. Using this control panel, members can send, receive and forward faxes, print, archive and label documents, customize fax settings, access send or receive reports, and perform different account maintenance activities. As this is a web based service, there are never busy signals for incoming faxes. FaxFreedom also offers unlimited fax storage capacity and caller ID capture on every incoming fax. Despite the excellent features provided by this service, it cannot schedule fax send times and it doesn’t have the ability to include multiple documents in one fax.

The service differs from other services in the respect that it doesn’t offer a certain number of pages faxed. Instead, FaxFreedom offers minutes, just like GreenFax. The basic price for 100 free minutes per month is $9.95. However, if you want a vanity number, you have to pay a one time fee of $30. For an 800 number the charge is $15, while for a local fax number it is $10 per month. Subscriptions are on a month to month basis and there is no contractual agreement.

For non prepaid plans, the customer has to pay first and last month’s rental, and first month only for prepaid plans. For instance, FaxFreedom without prepaid minutes costs $19.90 ($9.95*2) the first month and then $9.95 plus call charges every month after that. FaxFreedom 250 costs $23.70 each month. In addition, there is a one time activation fee on all non prepaid and prepaid plans. The customer can start with a non prepaid plan and upgrade to a prepaid one at a later time. The service also offers one month credit on the customers’ monthly rental for every new customer referred. Customer support is available via phone and email from 6am to 6pm PST or 9am to 9pm EST.

The lowest pricing plan is SmartFax Pro, which provides free unlimited inbound and 5 cents per page outbound faxing for $6.95/per month. With SmartFax Unlimited Local for $9.95 a month you receive unlimited inbound and outbound faxing. For both of these plans the customer can choose a preferred local number and check its availability online. SmartFax Toll Free and SmartFax Unlimited Toll Free include a random toll free fax number and a vanity toll free number for $9.95 per month and $12.95 per month, respectively. While SmartFax Toll Free includes free unlimited inbound and 5 cents/page outbound faxing, SmartFax Unlimited Toll Free features unlimited sent and received pages. There is no setup fee for any of the four pricing plans. International destinations and rates can be checked on the SmartFax web page.

If you already have a toll free number and you want to switch to SmartFax, you can download a transfer form onsite and fax it to the customer support. SmartFax also provides a broadcasting service which allows you to send hundreds of faxes simultaneously to multiple recipients. For the SmartFax Pro and SmartFax Toll Free pricing plans, fax broadcasting is available to a maximum of 5000 numbers, while for the other two plans only 200 numbers are included. SmartFax Pro and SmartFax Toll Free also include a $50 spending limit and cover page removal. For the SmartFax Pro plan, there is a 30-day free trial period.

SmartFax is completely integrated with Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express and Windows Messaging. The service also includes a fax editor which allows you to select, edit or annotate various pre-defined cover pages and use your electronic signature. SmartFax allows customers to send faxes online directly only in PDF format. For Microsoft application documents such as Word, SmartFax created a printer driver which can be downloaded from the online interface. Customer service is available via email, live chat with a SmartFax representative or by requesting a call back. There are also a FAQ section and several guides in PDF format available.

The lowest pricing plan is Prestige User, at $4.95 per month or $54.95 discounted rate per year. The package features 50 inbound and outbound fax pages a month, with additional pages starting at $0.10 within the United States. Prestige User also includes a 15.0 MB storage limit for moderate fax and storage needs, which goes up to 30.0 MB for the year plan. The Power User plan is the equivalent of a $2.50 monthly fee, yet it is available only as a yearly plan for $29.95. It includes 150 sent and received fax pages per year and a 15.0 MB storage limit, being more suitable for infrequent fax users.

The TrustFax Pro User plan starts at $9.95 monthly or $99.95 per year, including 120 fax pages per month. The monthly storage limit is 20.0 MB for the monthly plan or 40.0 MB for the yearly one. This package is the best option for small and medium businesses or mobile users with regular fax needs. For businesses with heavy faxing needs, TrustFax offers the Premium plan, with a monthly fee of $18.95 or a yearly fee of $199.95. TrustFax Premium allows for 240 incoming and outgoing fax pages per month and 100.0 MB storage limit (150.0 MB for the yearly plan).

TrustFax has no storage time limit, and with any of the plans documents can be stored for as long as you want. Among the extra features, there are spam free and toll-free numbers, a filing cabinet for virtual storage, a control panel, a secured mailbox and international faxing. In the filing cabinet you can store anything from documents to photos to music, and you can use TrustFax to send faxes to more than 250 countries at very low rates. However, unlike MyFax, TrustFax does not feature a fax forwarding option or the ability to send faxes at a scheduled time.

Customer support can be reached 24/7 and live support is also available through a chat system. Other contact options include email and telephone. TrustFax also provides a support manual in PDF format for download, a FAQ page and a glossary with helpful information.

With Fax.com, you can send faxes from your email account to any fax machine in the world, quickly and easy. Inbound faxes sent to your Fax.com number arrive in your email inbox securely, as PDF or TIFF attachments. You can also use the Fax.com web interface for sending, receiving and composing faxes. The service gives you the ability to add customized cover pages and headers, control advanced faxing options, and manage an online address book.

The service includes 300 sent and received fax pages per month to and from anywhere within the United States and Canada for a $9.99 monthly fee. Fax.com also charges a one time setup fee of $9.99 at the start of the service. Additional pages are charged $0.12 each. International faxes outside of Canada are billed according to Fax.com’s price list are billed in one-minute increments. The services also include a free storage limit of 30 days, after which faxes are charged $0.05 per fax per month. Members can set automatic 30-day fax deletion options through their user account settings.

Fax.com also offers users the ability to share you account with as many people as you want. You can add multiple email address and let more people send faxes from a single paid account. The service supports nearly all popular file formats, so you can choose any file from your personal computer or email account and fax it in a simple one step. Users also can adjust advanced settings and features such as time zone stamping, auto-resend, fax forwarding, online reporting and so on. Customer support is available via email, but a comprehensive FAQ section and a step-by-step demonstration of how the service works are available on the web interface of Fax.com.

The cheapest plan offered by RingCentral is Fax 300, which starts at a $9.99 monthly fee or $7.99 per month discounted fee if paid for a year in advance. The Fax 300 plan includes 300 free pages per month, with $0.059 for each additional page. The plan also includes a toll free or local number for voice and fax, as well as the option to receive faxes in both your email and online accounts.

With RingCentral’s Fax 300 plan you can also send faxes from any Microsoft Windows application. All you need to do is click on the RingCentral Fax icon on the application toolbar or select it from the File menu. With RingCentral you can also receive fax alerts on your cell phone or PDA and block junk faxes. All faxes are sent through a secure, encrypted connection, and you can choose to store them in a password-protected online account. Included in every package is also a free FaxEditor tool which allows you to sign and edit your faxes electronically. Using this software you can preview your faxes before printing, design cover sheets or annotate the pages you are sending.

For businesses with faxing in volume needs, RingCentral offers the possibility to upgrade to Fax 1000 or Fax 2500. The Fax 1000 plan comes with a $24.99 monthly fee or $19.99 per month discounted fee for one year advanced payment. The price for each additional pages besides the 1,000 send and receive limit is $0.049. For the Fax 2500 plan, the monthly fee is $59.99 or $44.99 if paid for a year in advance. RingCentral Fax charges users $0.039 for each faxed page over the 2,500 allowed monthly.

RingCentral Fax does not offer a free plan, however there is a free trial period associated with each of the three plans. If you already have a toll free number, the transfer to Ring Central is free. A true -800 number special is also free with any of the plans, while for a Vanity Number there is a $30 one time setup fee. The additional fax numbers for any of the plans is $4.99. RingCentral also provides web-based account management options, a comprehensive FAQ section and US customer support.

The email to fax option ensures that faxes sent to multiple machines arrive easily and quickly. Text, graphics and spreadsheets can be included from most applications, such as Word, Excel, or Outlook. Web-based email clients like Yahoo and Hotmail are also compatible with Send2Fax, and you can simply type in the fax number followed by @fax.send2fax.com. Searching and retrieving a fax online is also easy with the document storage option. The service also integrates within Microsoft Outlook a simple script which allows you to personalize and broadcast faxes using each recipient’s name.
However, the service does not provide members the possibility to select a vanity fax number or add signatures to faxes.

Send2Fax offers three pricing plans which match the needs of individual and small business, executive and corporate members. Each of the three plans include a personal fax number, Fax2Email, Email2Fax and Web2Fax options, and Office 2003 integrated install script. The lowest pricing plan, Send2Fax Individual/Small Business, includes 200 sent or received pages within the United States and Canada for a setup fee and monthly fee of $11.95 each. The Send2Fax Executive pricing plan offers 500 inbound and/or outbound pages within the US and Canada for $39.95 a month a $39.95 setup fee. At the same time, Send2Fax Corporate plan increases to 1000 pages per month to US and Canada for $79.95 per month and the same amount as a one-time setup fee.

For any of these three plans, each additional page can be sent or received at a $0.12 charge. Faxes stored within the Send2Fax online interface are charged $0.01 each/per month. International rates can be consulted on the company’s website. Customer support is available only through the online interface via email. However, Send2Fax provides several comprehensive instructions sets and an extensive FAQ section.

The free version of the service, eFaxFree, allows you to receive 20 faxes for 30 days at no cost. It also includes a unique fax number and the possibility to access faxes anywhere. eFaxFree also has a 30-day storage limit and customer support through email only. However, it does not include a send option, for which you need to upgrade to a paid service.

The least expensive of the paid packages is eFaxPlus, which for $12.95 per month provides you with a large choice of local and toll-free numbers. While the monthly fee is higher than what Send2Fax and MyFax charge their members, it still does not cover all expenses. Every time you send a fax with EfaxPlus, you must pay $0.10 a page, while received pages are free as long as you choose a local number. With the toll-free number, the fee per page doubles - $0.20 for every page you receive.

The eFaxPlus package also includes 5 authorized receive emails, online fax storage for one year and 24/7 customer service by phone or email. The fax file formats feature PDF, TIF, or EFX for both eFaxPlus and eFaxPro. However, with eFaxPlus the user does not get to receive voicemail by email, nor the free fax management software that come with the more expensive eFaxPro package.

One good thing about eFax’s paid services is that they offer a free desktop app, named eFax Messenger, which works both with PC and Mac. eFax Messenger allows you to compose cover sheets and faxes from your personal computer desktop. You can also select various email clients beside Outlook or even take fax numbers directly from your Outlook Contacts agenda and fill the cover page automatically. For printing to fax, eFax has a printer icon. Contrary to Send2Fax and MyFax, eFax also offers an electronic signature which you can use again and again.

If you want to use the Web interface, you will find it quite neatly designed and easy to use. However, it only offers one cover-page template, unlike eFax Messenger, which offers 14 of them. You can also save time by right-clicking on any document on your desktop and select Send to Fax Recipient. eFax Messenger also allows you to fax any  document you are working on by click Fax This from the taskbar icon.

Designed to meet the needs of home and small offices, RapidFAX is operated by EasyLink, a company which provides messaging and e-commerce services to more than half of the Fortune 100. To individuals and small business, though, RapidFAX offers different packages and price plans to match everything from home to office use, with faxing in volume options. RapidFAX also has a policy clearly stating the monthly costs, with no hidden fees, complemented by a comprehensive set of help pages.

Basically, RapidFAX allows its members to send and receive fax services directly from their emails for a $9.95 monthly fee. The package also includes a toll free number and 30-day free trial period with the possibility to send and receive multiple faxes at one time. The RapidFAX user can send and receive faxes through their email or using the web interface, after they have logged onto their accounts. The service is compatible with Hotmail, Yahoo, Google, and all other major web based email clients.

Whenever a fax is sent, RapidFAX sends a confirmation message to your email address. It also notifies you via email when you receive a fax and you can open the document and read it using Acrobat Reader from your email, or log onto the web interface and read it through your browser. RapidFAX allows you to use multiple names and numbers with a single user account. RapidFAX provides a toll free number at no extra cost.

As for pricing, RapidFAX charges a single tariff for individuals and small businesses, which includes 100 sent and 200 received pages per month. After this monthly allowance, charges are $0.08 within the United States, while prices for international faxes vary from one country to another. Corporate faxing is also available for large amounts of faxing, and RapidFAX gives customers the option of integrating the faxes within Lotus notes. Information and pricing about corporate faxing packages are given via telephone inquiries.

The customer support service can be reached online, via a chat system, or by telephone. RapidFAX offers a manual in PDF format for download, which explains the service. It also has a comprehensive FAQ page that provides answers to most common questions about the service, including billing, account information, spam, and problems sending and receiving faxes.