Faxing without a fax machine

I just changed my fax number. Why? Well…

I bought my first fax machine in 1989 when I started my consulting business. It cost me over a thousand dollars!

And to be viewed as a “real” business, I needed a separate fax phone number, including long distance service. My phone bill was over $30 a month — every month.

This continued for nearly 20 years.

I did upgrade my fax machine a couple of times, switching from the old fashioned thermal paper rolls to plain paper. The last fax machine I bought cost less than $100 dollars. But I was still paying $30+ per month for the individual phone line — which really bothered me every time the Verizon bill arrived in the mail.

Three things happened over time that caused me to rethink my faxing setup.

1. I was sending/receiving fewer and fewer faxes.
2. Most of the faxes I received were junk — companies trying to sell me something. (Who responds to these offers anyway??  – that’s a topic for another post)
3. My fax machine was taking up valuable space in my office. I wanted to get rid of it, yet I couldn’t quite bring myself to tell my clients that they were no longer fax-worthy.

What to do? Rent a virtual fax service.

I researched many plans like RingCentral, TrustFax, RapidFax, eFax, Send2Fax and Fax.com. I finally decided on MyFax.com and have been very happy with my choice. Here’s what I get for $10 a month:

• I can receive up to 200 pages of faxes a month
• I can fax up to 100 pages a month
• If I go over the limit, I pay an additional charge. But it doesn’t really matter to me — I’ll never come close to hitting the max.
• I get a toll-free fax phone number. It’s a different number from my original  fax number I had for 18 years, but I’m very happy to tell people my new number.
• An added benefit of a new fax number is that my junk faxes have stopped.

Downsides? Only one for me: I have to scan any physical pages I want to send fax. But that’s not such a big deal since I send very few pages this way — and PDFs can be sent directly! It’s as simple as sending an email message.

When someone sends me a fax, it comes in as an email message attachment. Clean and easy!

So instead of spending $30 a month, keeping a legacy fax machine cluttering my office and receiving junk faxes — I’m only spending $10 a month and can send and receive faxes on demand. My faxing life is good again!