eFax Review
Sign up for eFax
Rating:
Bottom Line:
Quick and easy signup process; expensive monthly plans; limited monthly page allotment
Full Review:
eFax allows you to sign, send and receive faxes online using a computer, smartphone or tablet. It claims to be a good fit for small businesses and large enterprises alike, but its monthly plans are rather expensive.
eFax offers two different plans, the Plus plan and the Pro plan. The Plus plan allots 150 sent and 150 received pages per month and costs $14.13/month with an annual subscription or $16.95/month for the monthly option. There is a one-time setup fee of $10, and each additional page over the monthly limit costs 10¢/page. The Pro plan costs $16.63/month annually or $19.95/month for a month-to-month commitment. There is a setup fee of $19.95 with this plan and you are allowed 200 sent and 200 received pages per month, with each additional page costing 10¢/page. Both plans offer a free 30-day trial.
Registering an account with eFax is a quick and painless process. First, you choose your fax number by selecting your country, then decide on the state or zip code (or select the toll-free option) and pick from the list of available numbers with these preferences. Next, you'll be prompted to enter account information with an email address (for inbound faxes) and your first and last name, which is how your name will appear on any of your outbound faxes. To finish the process, you'll need to enter billing information, although you will not be charged until the 30-day trial period is up. After the payment information is processed, your fax number and temporary password are displayed alongside your plan type and plan details. We also received a friendly welcome email with this same information as well as quick how-to send/receive a fax with eFax.
Once you log into your account, you are presented with a clean, user-friendly dashboard that is identical to the dashboards on MetroFax and MyFax. The four main navigation icons are View Faxes, Send Faxes, Update Account and Help. View Faxes displays your inbox, sent and trash folders for faxes as well as your contacts, if you choose to add contacts to your eFax address book. The Update Account option allows you to edit things, such as your time and date preferences, send/receive email address, your billing and plan preferences and your customer profile information, including the name, number and email address on the account.
You can add up to five different email addresses to the send/receive email addresses under your account preferences; this is particularly useful if you're using it for a business matter and would like others to be notified of any incoming or outgoing faxes from the account. Send a Fax is eFax's websend feature and is very easy to use.
The Send a Fax feature with eFax is also identical to this same feature that is on MetroFax and MyFax. You can add recipients by entering the name and fax number manually or by selecting recipients from your eFax address book. There is a limit of 50 recipients per fax. Next, you choose whether you'd like to include a cover page or not, then upload any attachments. The limit for attachments is up to 18 MB per fax and it supports many different file types, including PDF, PS, PSD, GIF, IFF and BMP formats. A fax confirmation pop-up is displayed after your click send, which informs you that you will receive an email when the fax transmission is successful.
We were pleasantly surprised at the quickness of faxing with eFax. Sending a fax took a mere 51 seconds and receiving a fax only took 47 seconds. This is slightly faster than many of the other Internet fax services we've reviewed. You can also manage your faxes straight from your smartphone or tablet with its mobile app. It's available for iOS devices with 6.0 or later and Android devices with 2.2 and up.
eFax features a general FAQ page and one that is more detailed, where most questions and concerns are answered. Should you need further assistance, its customer supports representatives are available through email, 24/7 via phone and Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT for live chat. The response we received was very quick and helpful; we were not waiting on hold for more than one minute.
Overall, eFax can handle all of your faxing needs and its free mobile app take its services remote. However, it is the most expensive option out of all the Internet faxing services we reviewed, and it doesn't allot for many pages per month either. We suggest trying one of the other options out first.
Pricing
eFax offers two different plans, the Plus plan and the Pro plan. The Plus plan allots 150 sent and 150 received pages per month and costs $14.13/month with an annual subscription or $16.95/month for the monthly option. There is a one-time setup fee of $10, and each additional page over the monthly limit costs 10¢/page. The Pro plan costs $16.63/month annually or $19.95/month for a month-to-month commitment. There is a setup fee of $19.95 with this plan and you are allowed 200 sent and 200 received pages per month, with each additional page costing 10¢/page. Both plans offer a free 30-day trial.
Getting Started
Registering an account with eFax is a quick and painless process. First, you choose your fax number by selecting your country, then decide on the state or zip code (or select the toll-free option) and pick from the list of available numbers with these preferences. Next, you'll be prompted to enter account information with an email address (for inbound faxes) and your first and last name, which is how your name will appear on any of your outbound faxes. To finish the process, you'll need to enter billing information, although you will not be charged until the 30-day trial period is up. After the payment information is processed, your fax number and temporary password are displayed alongside your plan type and plan details. We also received a friendly welcome email with this same information as well as quick how-to send/receive a fax with eFax.
User Interface
Once you log into your account, you are presented with a clean, user-friendly dashboard that is identical to the dashboards on MetroFax and MyFax. The four main navigation icons are View Faxes, Send Faxes, Update Account and Help. View Faxes displays your inbox, sent and trash folders for faxes as well as your contacts, if you choose to add contacts to your eFax address book. The Update Account option allows you to edit things, such as your time and date preferences, send/receive email address, your billing and plan preferences and your customer profile information, including the name, number and email address on the account.
You can add up to five different email addresses to the send/receive email addresses under your account preferences; this is particularly useful if you're using it for a business matter and would like others to be notified of any incoming or outgoing faxes from the account. Send a Fax is eFax's websend feature and is very easy to use.
Sending/Receiving a Fax
The Send a Fax feature with eFax is also identical to this same feature that is on MetroFax and MyFax. You can add recipients by entering the name and fax number manually or by selecting recipients from your eFax address book. There is a limit of 50 recipients per fax. Next, you choose whether you'd like to include a cover page or not, then upload any attachments. The limit for attachments is up to 18 MB per fax and it supports many different file types, including PDF, PS, PSD, GIF, IFF and BMP formats. A fax confirmation pop-up is displayed after your click send, which informs you that you will receive an email when the fax transmission is successful.
We were pleasantly surprised at the quickness of faxing with eFax. Sending a fax took a mere 51 seconds and receiving a fax only took 47 seconds. This is slightly faster than many of the other Internet fax services we've reviewed. You can also manage your faxes straight from your smartphone or tablet with its mobile app. It's available for iOS devices with 6.0 or later and Android devices with 2.2 and up.
Customer Support
eFax features a general FAQ page and one that is more detailed, where most questions and concerns are answered. Should you need further assistance, its customer supports representatives are available through email, 24/7 via phone and Monday through Friday from 5 a.m. to 7 p.m. PT for live chat. The response we received was very quick and helpful; we were not waiting on hold for more than one minute.
Conclusion
Overall, eFax can handle all of your faxing needs and its free mobile app take its services remote. However, it is the most expensive option out of all the Internet faxing services we reviewed, and it doesn't allot for many pages per month either. We suggest trying one of the other options out first.
Sign up for eFax | Compare to Other Internet Fax
Service Details
| Plan Price: | $16.95/mo or $14.13/mo (w/annual plan) |
| Free Trial: | 30-day free trial |
| Pages Included: | 150 outbound and 150 inbound per month |
| Additional Pages: | 10¢ per page |
| Send/Receive Times: | 47s receive; 51s send |
| Toll Free Number: | Free |
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