eFax Online Fax Service Review

Efax

COMPARE EFAX AGAINST TOP COMPETITORS

eFax is one of the most feature rich and well-known online fax services on the market and includes features like mobile apps, e-signature capabilities, HIPAA compliance and unlimited fax storage BUT the service is more expensive than the competition. Take a look at the comparison below and read on for our detailed review.

Exclusive FC DiscountThis icon indicates that the price or included pages of that particular plan are only available through the links on FaxCompare.com

ONLINE FAX SERVICE
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Online Fax Plan Review Summary
  • Reviewed Plan
  • Monthly Fees
  • Annual Payment Discount
  • Hidden Fees
  • Start Up Fee
  • Free Trial Period
  • Free Incoming Pages
  • Free Outgoing Pages
  • Users in Plan
  • HIPAA Compliant
  • Online Fax Storage
  • Customer Support
  • Send Faxes by email
  • Incoming Overage Pages
  • Outgoing Overage Pages
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Expensive, but has everything
  • eFax Plus
  • $18.99
  • $15.83/ month
  • No
  • Free
  • 7 Days
  • 170
  • 170
  • 1
  • No
  • Unlimited
  • 24/7
  • Yes
  • $0.10
  • $0.10
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Cheapest, but no free trial option
  • Essential
  • $9.95
  • $7.95/ month
  • No
  • Free
  • None
  • 500 Total
  • Combined
  • 5
  • No
  • 6 Months
  • 6-6 MST
  • Yes
  • $0.03
  • $0.03
EXCLUSIVE FC DISCOUNT
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Great for healthcare; HIPAA Compliant
  • Healthcare Basic
  • $16.05
  • $13.65/ month
  • No
  • Free
  • None
  • 500 Total
  • Combined
  • Unlimited
  • Yes
  • Unlimited
  • M-F 6-5 EST
  • Yes
  • $0.05
  • $0.05
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Versatile: Jack of all trades
  • Essential
  • $11.95
  • $9.96/ month
  • No
  • Free
  • 3 Days
  • 550 Total
  • Combined
  • 5
  • No
  • Unlimited
  • M-F 8-9 EST
  • Yes
  • $0.03
  • $0.03
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Similar to MetroFax, but fewer pages
  • Home Office User
  • $12.00
  • $10/ month
  • No
  • Free
  • 3 Days
  • 100
  • 100
  • 5
  • No
  • Unlimited
  • 24/7
  • Yes
  • $0.10
  • $0.10
  • Online Fax Plan Review Summary

    Good for high volume faxing needs
  • Fax 3000
  • $27.99
  • $22.99/ month
  • No
  • Free
  • 30 Days
  • 3,000 Total
  • Combined
  • 30
  • Yes
  • 200 Msgs
  • Phone & Web
  • Yes
  • $0.049
  • $0.049
Service Name
eFax Plus
Monthly Fee
$18.99
Annual Payment Discount
$15.83/ month
Hidden Fees
No
Start Up Fee
Free
800 Number
Yes
866, 877 or 888 Number
Yes
Free Trial Period
7 Days
Free Incoming Pages
170
Free Outgoing Pages
170
Users in plan
1
Online fax storage
Unlimited
Customer Support
24/7
Premium Upgrades
Yes
Corporate Packages
Yes
Send faxes by email
Yes
Incoming Overage Pages
$0.10
Outgoing Overage Pages
$0.10

Plan Reviewed: eFax Plus

eFax Pros

  • Save 16.6% when you prepay yearly
  • Unlimited online fax storage
  • 24/7 phone customer support

eFax Cons

  • Pages in plan aren’t combined
  • High monthly fee for number of pages included
  • Have to upgrade to eFax Protect for HIPAA compliance ($49.99/ month)

eFax Conclusion

eFax has the most subscribers of any online fax service, but its pricing is on the high end. Compared to our Market Standard of $10 per month for 300 free combined pages, eFax Plus is more expensive at $18.99 per month for 170 incoming and 170 outgoing pages. However, eFax does offer the most features of any online fax service including e-signing, iOS and Android mobile apps, international faxing capability and 24/7 phone support. Also, eFax added a large file sharing option that allows users to upload large files (up to 3GB) and send the link to up to 20 email addresses, where recipients can download the files. For users needing these features, eFax is worth the higher price tag.

eFax’s monthly fee is $18.99 with no startup or hidden fees. Unfortunately, unlike other services, eFax does not combine the pages in its plan and allots 170 incoming and 170 outgoing pages per month. The Market Standard is 300 combined pages. eFax has a free trial period of 7 days. Faxing with eFax is very easy, as you only need to fill in one field and click once to send. You can send up to five documents through eFax, as long as you keep the total file size under 5 MB, but eFax does not offer a preview of a fax before you send. You can only fax one person/email address at a time, but you can send and receive faxes on five email addresses with eFax. You have free, unlimited online fax storage, which greatly exceeds the Market Standard of 30 days of free fax storage. eFax offers local numbers in 48 states and Washington D.C. They also offer (800), (866), (877), and (888) toll-free numbers for no extra fee. eFax’s phone support hours are 24/7. * eFax is owned by Consensus Cloud Solutions along with MetroFax, MyFax, SFax, and SRFax.

WHAT IS EFAX

eFax is Consensus Cloud Solutions’ flagship online fax. It is available in 49 countries on 6 continents and offers local numbers in over 4,100 cities. The company claims over 11 million customers worldwide. eFax offers two primary levels of service, eFax Plus and eFax Pro. eFax Corporate is the company’s custom service level that caters to larger businesses willing to pay more for custom plans and better service. The company also offers eFax Developer for companies with very specific faxing needs.

EFAX’S PRIMARY SERVICES IN DETAIL

eFax Plus: eFax Plus is eFax’s least expensive paid service level. The service costs $18.99 per month or $189.99 per year ($15.83 per month equivalent) and includes 170 inbound and 170 outbound fax pages per month. eFax Plus is substantially more expensive and offers far fewer pages than much of the competition. Like well established brands in other industries, eFax charges a premium. They do offer some unique features as well as the largest database of local fax numbers in the world, but for most U.S. customers, eFax is the equivalent of a luxury brand. From our experience, price and number of included pages per month are two of the biggest factors that people consider when choosing which fax company to use. On the other hand, eFax offers the most feature-rich services available. eFax Plus (as well as eFax Pro) offer more features than any of the 36 other plans reviewed by FaxCompare. For Mac users, eFax capabilities are considerably reduced. Although all the basic faxing capabilities are available through eFax’s online interface, advanced options are only available through eFax Messenger, which is not Mac compatible. Without access to eFax Messenger Mac users will not be able to customize their cover page or preview a fax. Two things that are worrisome about eFax’s service are related to terminating the service. Over the years, many consumers have complained about difficulty cancelling service. You cannot cancel your eFax service through their website. You have to either cancel through a special live chat link or after-hours via phone. Furthermore, they state that your account is not officially cancelled until you have received written confirmation from Customer Service. There are numerous complaints online from people who thought they cancelled their account, but continued being billed. The practice of requiring people to cancel online services via phone rather than online is actually becoming more common practice.On the Better Business Bureau website, eFax’s rating recently moved up from a C to a B- but is not accredited. The other issue relates to number porting. If you port a number you already have into eFax, you will be able to port that number out when you cancel the service. However, if you received your number from eFax and want to port that number out at some point, you will not be able to. This is actually pretty common amongst online fax providers, because they are not governed by the number portability laws that apply to traditional phone service providers. The thing that is unusual is that their Terms and Conditions state that they will charge you $500 for attempting to port your number out (item 20, “Rules Regarding eFax Numbers”). This is unique to Consensus Cloud Communications fax companies and seems a bit excessive, considering the service only costs $17/month.

eFax Pro: eFax Pro offers the same features as eFax Plus, but includes more incoming and outgoing pages at a slightly higher price. The Pro plan also increases the number of users from 1 to 5. The monthly fee is $24.99, or you can pay the annual fee at a discounted rate, which includes 275 inbound fax pages and 275 outbound fax pages. This number of included pages is a very poor value on the basis of cost/ page.

eFax Protect: eFax Protect is designed for healthcare users or other highly regulated industries, because it meets HIPAA compliance requirements including providing customers with a Business Associate Agreement. Sadly, the total number of pages included is lower than the Plus plan, including only 100 sent pages and 200 received pages per month. eFax Protect costs a whopping $49.99/ month when paid monthly and has an effective price of $41.66 when paid annually.

ADDITIONAL EFAX PLANS AND SERVICES

eFax Corporate Solutions: eFax Corporate Solutions are targeted to businesses that are sending and receiving hundreds to thousands of pages of faxes per day. This is an ideal fit for companies with hundreds of employees who need custom implementation, high security and a scalable system. eFax, like their competitors, provides custom quotes for businesses interested in this level of service. You can learn more about this service here: http://enterprise.efax.com/ eFax Corporate services include:

  • eFax SAP Connector
  • eFax Developer API
  • eFax Mobile for Corporate (apps to send, receive and sign faxes)
  • eFax Secure (keeps faxes secure and in compliance with HIPAA, GLB and other regulations)
  • eFax Compliance (also ensures corporate faxes are in compliance with federal regulations)
  • eFax Messenger
  • eFax MFD Integrate

eFax Developer eFax Developer is designed for companies with high-volume fax needs, who want to use eFax’s fax sending and receiving technology and security, but prefer to build a custom application to manage their interaction with the services. eFax offers a free trial of this service, and pricing is quoted on a price per page basis. Each customer is given their own price quote based on estimated volume.

CONTACT EFAX

People wanting to contact eFax have a number of options. Here are a few: eFax Customer Support:

  • Toll Free: 1 (800) 287-3499
  • US Local: 1 (323) 817-3205
  • Technical or Billing Questions: 1 (800) 958-2983
  • @eFaxCares: Customer service Twitter account

eFax Social Media:

  • Twitter: https://twitter.com/eFax
  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eFaxmarketing
  • Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/company/efax.com
  • Google+: https://plus.google.com/106122993332352864453/posts

Cancel eFax account:

  • Live Chat: http://www.efax.com/cancelLiveChat (6AM-6PM Pacific Time, M-F)
  • (323) 817-3205 (“after hours”)

Efax Latest Updates

eFax parent company, j2 Global, acquires another popular online fax brand, MaxEmail.

August 1, 2016

eFax parent company, j2 Global, acquires online fax competitor, UnityFax.

February 1, 2015

eFax parent company, j2 Global, acquires popular online fax brand, MetroFax.

May 18, 2013

eFax announces release of Android smartphone online fax app. Now (along with the iPhone app) eFax has covered over 70% of the smartphone market with mobile faxing capabilities.

October 5, 2011

eFax launches iPad app. Along with turning the iPad in to an on-the-go fax machine, it lets users to search and view faxes, access and use stored cover sheets and contact lists, and tag and archive faxes.

September 8, 2011

eFax adds digital signatures to their online faxing features. Sign documents directly from the eFax interface instead of having to print, sign, and scan back into the system.

August 9, 2011

eFax adds Large File Sharing to their internet fax service features. Allows sending of files up to 1 GB in size (later increased to 3GB).

May 10, 2011

eFax parent company, j2 Global, acquires rival online fax brand, MyFax.

December 1, 2010

eFax “puts a fax machine in your pocket” — releases iPhone App that allows users to scan and fax documents directly from their mobile phone.

November 9, 2010

Launches eFax Next™, a customer-focused initiative working with industry professionals, IT experts, and technology brands to continually improve the current feature offering.

September 16, 2010

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