GotFreeFax Review
GotFreeFax is our 2020 pick for the best pay-per-use online fax solution for small businesses, because it's easy to use and only charges you for the faxes you send – there are no monthly fees. Pay-per-use services like this one make sense for small businesses that send just a few faxes each month. But if you send a lot of faxes each month, this type of service may end up costing you more than a monthly subscription would.
The service allows you to send PDFs and JPGs, with up to 10 files per fax (up to 30MB). You can add your own cover page or use the service's standard option. GotFreeFax is a send-only service; if you also need to receive faxes, there are many other providers, including some free ones.
GotFreeFax Summary
| Pricing | $0.98 - $2.98 |
| Email support | Send and receive |
| Mobile app | No |
Pricing
Along with the company's free version, GotFreeFax's pay-per-use model can be chosen to fit a business's needs. While most vendors limit the number of pages you can send per fax, GotFreeFax lets you send up to 30 pages in a single document.
Here is the cost breakdown for GotFreeFax's pay-per-use model:
- To send a fax with up to 10 pages costs 98 cents.
- To send a fax with up to 20 pages costs $1.98.
- To send a fax with up to 30 pages costs $2.98.
So, if you were to send two faxes in a month that had fewer than 10 pages each, your total cost would be $1.96. There are no monthly plans that even come close to that low a price.
GotFreeFax also offers a prepaid fax service, which lets businesses purchase non-expiring page credits. This service has no monthly fees, instead opting to charge you per page sent. Each page costs a single credit, so this model breaks down as such:
- 100 page credits: $9.95
- 300 page credits: $19.95
- 1,000 page credits: $49.95
Fax broadcasting is also available in this service tier, allowing you to send faxes to up to 50 fax numbers at once. Paid transmissions also get priority delivery and access to some technical support.
Features
To say that GotFreeFax's website is a stripped-down version of other vendors' offerings would be putting it lightly. Everything is upfront and accessible to anyone willing to give the company a try. GotFreeFax offers several features for free that other competitors charge for.
- Simple interface: GotFreeFax's website has an immediately understandable layout, with clear instructions for each step of the process. Uploading and sending files is quick and simple.
- Easy formatting: If you're sending a cover letter with your fax, you can copy and paste your text directly into the company's form. If you want to control how it looks, GotFreeFax's rich text editing field allows you to adjust the font and format of your message. Not every free outgoing fax service has this feature.
- Secure messaging: With servers secured by Gateway AntiVirus software and manned by certified engineers, GotFreeFax provides reliable security measures for the faxes it sends out. Faxes are transferred over an encrypted connection to secure fax data as it's sent.
Pros of GotFreeFax
Among the vendors we researched, GotFreeFax definitely stood out for how simple it is. When you visit the main page, you get everything the company has to offer right there. Along with its very limited free version of the service, GotFreeFax's pay-per-use model is easily understood on the page and free to use within seconds. That kind of accessibility without having to sign up for an account or immediately need to provide payment information is refreshing, given how most vendors onboard new users.
Though the site looks rather sparse compared to other online fax companies, GotFreeFax allows its users to send a variety of popular file types, including PDFs, JPEGs and DOC files. GotFreeFax also allows you to affix a cover letter to your fax, either through the company's provided ad-free page or with its rich text editing tools.
GotFreeFax's pay-per-use variant gets additional consideration from the company over its free offerings. Not only are the faxes transferred over an encrypted connection and protected with Gateway AntiVirus, paid faxes also get priority delivery over their free counterparts, getting to their destinations sooner.
Cons of GotFreeFax
Skipping a monthly subscription to a service usually means missing out on some major features, and that's very much the case here. If you need document storage, a mobile app, integrations with other business software or any other nice features generally associated with high-end online fax services, you should consider another service.
The other major roadblock for this service is the fact that you can't receive faxes with the pay-per-use system. It's a one-sided solution that ultimately requires you to sign up for either a free incoming online fax service or a paid service that allows you to both send and receive faxes.
Customer Service
If you need help with GotFreeFax's pay-per-use service, you'll be disappointed to find that its customer service is pretty limited. Phone support is nonexistent, though the company has a form on its contact page, allowing you to send a message via email with any concerns you have.
In our testing, it took several hours before we received a response to our issue, so if your faxes are time-sensitive and you need an answer quickly, you may want to look elsewhere. That being said, the service is so simple that you probably won't need help often.
Ready to choose an online fax service? Here's a breakdown of our complete coverage: