Detailed Review of (blogging moms) eFax Internet Faxing Solution

September 5th, 2010 admin Posted in internet |

By Stephen McGovern

Introduction

eFax is owned by J2 Global Communications who additionaly own Fax.com, Send2Fax, DataOnCall, jConnect, RapidFAX and SmartFax amongst others. eFax is currently the biggest provider in the internet faxing niche with over 11 million subscribers. Their product is available in 42 countries around the planet with toll-free and local numbers in over 3 thousand cities and handles BILLIONS of faxes per annum.

eFax offers a excellent pack of features via their web portal and very good application integration via the desktop application called eFax Messanger.

Their standard package - eFax Plus - allows you to receive 130 and send 30 faxes a month. You are permitted up to 5 email addresses associated with your fax number for sending and receiveing and an unlimited amount of fax numbers (for example, one in each country / city you do business in) can be linked to an individual account. There are also free, pro and corporate packages available.

Unfortunately, overage is not cheap and customer support is really bad in some places. Some people also have reported occasional slow send times.

Overall eFax is a great product backed by a company that has been in the internet faxing industry for over 20 years.

Features

Both the desktop software and the online portal are easy to navigate and use. The client software sets up a ‘fax printer’ which allows sending of faxes from any program that has a print function. There is also an option to ‘Scan and Fax’ if you have a scanner attached to your computer.

Faxes are sent in monochrome and there are two grades: standard and fine. Fax receipts can be sent to any of the email addresses registered with the account. A cover page can be included and this can be amended and customized in the preferences. Up to 5 documents can also be attached to each fax. Inbound faxes can be viewed online, via the eFax Messenger client or via email. Faxes with the .EFX extension can only be read via eFax Messenger. Most faxes arrive in either PDF or TIFF format. The quality is very good. Inbound faxes can also be password protected.

Fax activity can be tracked online and faxes can be resent from the sent faxes log.

Multiple fax numbers and email addresses can be associated with each account which makes management of multiple fax numbers simple.

Pricing

- Plans: eFax Pro, eFax Plus, eFax Free

- Cost per Month:

eFax Pro: $19.95/month

eFax Plus: $16.95/month

eFax Free: free

- Faxes Stored For:

eFax Pro: 2 years

eFax Plus: 1 year

eFax Free: 30 days

- Pages Included in Plan:

eFax Pro: 200/month

eFax Plus: 130 / month (30 outbound)

eFax Free: 20 / mth (none outbound)

- Cost to Send Faxes:

eFax Pro and Plus: $0.10 / page

eFax Free: cannot send

- Fax File Formats:

eFax Pro and Plus: PDF, TIFF, EFX

eFax Free: EFX

- Overage Cost for Receiving Faxes:

eFax Pro and Plus: $0.10 / page

- Overage Cost for Sending Faxes:

eFax Pro and Plus: $0.15 / page

- Hidden Costs: If you choose a toll-free fax number then the cost to receive faxes is $0.20 per page.

- Corporate Plans: Yes

Ease Of Use

You can be setup in under 5 minutes by way of the web portal and almost as quick if you download and install the client software called eFax Messenger.

Both are very easy to install and use. Customizing a cover page is a little trickier and required a good rummage through the online documentation but there are loads of pre-prepared cover pages already available which can be used as templates. Fax traffic tracking is simply managed via the web logs and faxes can even be resent from the sent log.

Customer Support

There have been reports of bad customer service from eFax. However, our experience of them has been really good. The live chat was useful and the telephone support was good. In both cases they answered all our questions. . The online documentation and FAQ sections are informative and reasonably expansive. It would be nice to see some tutorials or webinars but that is more a ‘nice to have’ rather than a major omission.

Even the cancellation process - via a toll-free call - was pleasant and the operator offered us an additional 2 months free service if we stayed with them.

Conclusion

eFax offers an excellent service. The coverage is second-to-none with more locales covered than any other product currently reviewed. The interface is straightforward and easy to use from the beginning. The ability to have multiple fax numbers and emails on a single account is also great. However, eFax has the most expensive packages we have reviewed and gives the lowest included pages. It is a shame that the largest supplier in the internet faxing arena could not provide more attractive pricing for their users. That being said, if you want to use the best service that has the greatest coverage and largest customer base then eFax is for you.

Need More Information? Visit the author’s website for the best internet faxing solutions and internet faxing comparisons.

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