Sometimes you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do, and like many of you, I’ve done the whole “free trial and cancel” thing way too many times. That’s why I’ve scoured the internet to find all of the best ways to send a fax, completely free of charge. Faxes were sent, but not a penny was spent in the making of this article.
The good news is that there are ways to send a free fax. The bad news: it’s hard, and it took a lot of looking—there are many apps that include tricks like saying “ad free” or “free download” in the title—plenty of apps look “free” on the app store, until you download them and realize it’s not a free fax app at all; you need to sign up and pay once you’ve installed it.
Read on to discover how to send a fax completely free!
What Does “Free Faxing” Mean?
I found a few different ways to send a “free” fax, which can be broken down into the two categories below:
- “Subscribe for a free trial and cancel” – this is where you have to sign up for something and provide your payment details, and can then cancel during the free trial before you get charged. This is still basically free, but some people might forget to cancel, or just not feel comfortable giving their credit card details over. Typically, these services are better because they give you free access to a top service for a short time.
- “No subscription, it really is just totally free to use” – there are some services where you don’t even have to commit to a subscription to be able to send a free fax – you can just start faxing. This is what most people would prefer, since you don’t need to sign up for anything. However, these options are generally a bit worse than the ‘free trial’ faxing options.
As we go through each free fax service, I’ll tell you which category each one falls into.
For the test, we used each service to fax a sample PDF document we found online – it has a good mix of text, graphics and color, so we’ll be able to see and compare how well each fax sends. I sent the exact same file using each free fax service.
Before I begin, as a disclaimer – it is not recommended to use a free fax online service to send and receive faxes containing sensitive information or confidential data. If you are dealing with taxes, insurance, healthcare, or anything else which is very important – I recommend signing up with a more premium paid service which can offer more customer support and security features than a free fax service.
GotFreeFax – Free Online Fax Service
- Free trial subscription, or totally free to use? Totally Free
- Any payment details required? No
- App or website? Website
- Send and receive faxes? Both
- My overall score: 9/10
Overview
GotFreeFax is a free online fax service which allows users to send a limited number of free faxes per day within the US and Canada. You get 2 free faxes per day, and 3 pages per fax, but you can send more with some paid plans.
The website gets straight to the point – you simply fill in your details, the details of the fax recipient, type a message for a cover page if you like, and then upload files straight from your device. Click send, and you’re done! This is a quick way to send a short free fax online, without signing up for anything at all.
What I Like
- There’s absolutely no sign-up or details from your credit card required – all that you need to do is verify your email account to send faxes online using GotFreeFax. Very hassle free.
- After accessing the website, a minute later I had already uploaded my fax documents, entered my details and the recipient’s fax number, and sent my fax. It arrived one minute later. This is a very fast service, great for quick occasional faxing.
- You get great email updates with the status of your fax, including a delivery confirmation email once it has arrived.
- I tried my fax number in a variety of different formats and it recognised them all.
- You can receive faxes without having to commit to your own fax number – there’s a simple verification system which enables GotFreeFax to receive faxes on your behalf.
- No watermarks, branding or adverts included anywhere on your fax.
- You can upload your own custom cover page, or use theirs.
- The quality of the fax we sent was good – the file lost some clarity in the graphics and a few of the lighter images were lost, but it was very readable, and excellent for a free service with no login or payment details required. The resulting image is below:
What I Don’t Like
- Firstly, there’s quite a lot of ads. You can’t really complain since it’s a free service, but you will notice all the ads, they’re even on the email updates you receive.
- GotFreeFax doesn’t support many file formats – only 5, which means you might have to convert your files before sending them as faxes.
Score: 9/10
GotFreeFax ticks all the boxes as a quick, free and easy online fax service you can use from your computer or phone. Unless you’re faxing sensitive information or need more pages than the free service offers, then this is a really good free fax option, and it gets a strong recommendation.
FaxZero – Free Online Fax Service
- Free trial subscription, or totally free to use? Totally Free
- Any payment details required? No
- App or website? Website
- Send and receive faxes? Only send
- My overall score: 7/10
Overview
FaxZero is a free online fax service which can be used on a computer or mobile device. This is a totally free service which requires none of your personal information, or payment details – just verify your email address and you’re good to go. FaxZero offers 5 free faxes per day, with a 3-pages limit on each fax, as well as an ‘almost free’ option which allows you to buy more faxes and send larger faxes.
What I Like
- FaxZero supports a variety of file formats, over double the amount supported by GotFreeFax.
- The free fax limits are also bigger than GotFreeFax, with 5 faxes per day instead of 3 for regular users.
- FaxZero is designed to support political engagement – the website encourages you to fax your congressperson, governor or senator, with resources to help you identify and get in touch with those people.
What I Don’t Like
- FaxZero failed to recognize the format of my fax number at first—which meant my first attempt to send a fax failed. The FAQs section promises that it can recognize parentheses in fax numbers, but this didn’t happen for me. This could make it harder to send faxes and especially international faxes.
- There is no option to receive faxes with FaxZero.
- My fax took a little longer to send – 3 minutes.
- The email updates from FaxZero were slower than other services and went through to my spam folder—FaxZero warns you that its emails are blocked on certain services, which means they may not arrive at all, if, for example, you have an Outlook account.
- I wasn’t impressed with the cover page under FaxZero—it is automatically branded, which can look unprofessional, plus my name (as the sender) was distorted and hard to read.
- The quality of the file sent was not good—the lighter-shaded graphics disappeared entirely, and GotFreeFax generally sent a clearer image—the pictures below show the detail that was lost, compared to other fax services.
Score: 7/10
FaxZero is a good alternative to GotFreeFax, standing out for offering more free faxes, and for encouraging people to participate in politics. However, I wouldn’t recommend it above GotFreeFax as an all-round fax service, due to the fax quality, branding, the inability to receive faxes, and some other factors. That said, it’s very useful as a free fax service if you need to quickly fire off a fax to a friend! I’d recommend using it.
eFax – Free Trial
- Free trial subscription, or totally free to use? Free trial for a week
- Any payment details required? Yes
- App or website? Website and mobile apps for Android and iPhone
- Send and receive faxes? Both
- My overall score: 9/10
eFax is a well-established fax services provider founded in the 1990s, which has been at the forefront of digital faxing ever since. eFax’s free trial period allows users to test the capability of eFax and send faxes completely free. eFax offers a website with a faxing portal, but also mobile fax apps for Android and iPhone—giving you a good amount of flexibility with your free trial.
What I Like
- The flexibility of being able to use the website service, an Android or iPhone app offers more ways of faxing than any of the ‘totally free’ options, which are just website services.
- You can receive free faxes as part of your free trial.
- Easy cancellation process – I didn’t have to call or contact anybody, I just clicked a few buttons and I had arranged for my subscription to be cancelled.
- eFax is the best service on this list in terms of fax quality – all graphics were captured perfectly, and when zooming in, there was excellent detail and clarity in the faxes. The quality is leagues higher a ‘totally free’ option listed above.
- eFax is a secure way of faxing sensitive information – so a free trial option to a service like eFax may be the best way to send important faxes with personal data. However, keep in mind that you’d still have to subscribe if you need to use the service again which only makes this a free option for one-time faxers.
Here’s the image quality of the fax I’ve received from eFax:
What I Don’t Like
- Under my subscription plan, I would be limited to 30 faxes a month for both sending and receiving – and if I were to send or receive any international faxes, I would be charged extra – so this is not a free way to fax internationally, and overall not an excellent value proposition. For one month, you can send 150 faxes with a totally free service like FaxZero, without the need to sign up.
- eFax was out of fax numbers for a lot of the area codes I tried to sign up with. This could be a problem for people and businesses who need to be located in a certain area code – this was disappointing for such a premium service.
Score: 8/10
eFax is an outstanding service which is relied upon by large businesses for its clear and reliable faxing. The free trial was easy to set up, and more importantly, easy to cancel, and it provided the best quality fax on this list. If you don’t mind handing over credit card information, this is a top recommendation.
Fax.Plus – Send 10 Free Fax Pages
- Free trial subscription, or totally free to use? Free to use, but limited to only 10 pages
- Any payment details required? No
- App or website? Website and mobile apps for Android and iPhone
- Send and receive faxes? Only send
- My overall score: 6/10
Fax.Plus is an online faxing service from Alohi, and one of the top faxing apps on the Apple and Google Play stores. As a paid subscription, Fax.Plus is a good choice, and they have a page on their website promising a simple process to send a free fax online.
What I Like
- The user experience on the website and in the apps is very good compared to eFax, which feels much more dated and ‘Windows 95’ style. Fax.Plus feels like a more modern service.
- You don’t need to provide any payment information to unlock your 10 free fax pages.
- The fax quality was excellent, with lots of detail retained, however ultimately not quite as clear as the fax from eFax.
Here’s the image quality for our Fax.Plus test:
What I Don’t Like
- The process is not as simple as the steps in the article on Fax.Plus’ website – you also need to provide your personal cell phone number in order to unlock 10 pages to send.
- You will need to pay money in order to receive faxes, as this is not offered under any free trial or plan – therefore, this cannot be considered a complete free fax service.
- You have no choice over the fax number your free fax comes from – mine came from a fax number registered in Switzerland.
- This is the least amount of “free” faxes you can get out of this list – only 10 pages in total before you need to pay money.
Score: 6/10
Ultimately, Fax.Plus is a good service if you’re paying for it, however as a free fax service it comes at the bottom of this list. You only get 10 pages in total, and the website does slightly trick you into thinking the free service is more simple and better than 10 pages, only revealing the details once you have signed up.
The Limits Of Free Faxing
As we can see, there are a few half-decent ways to send a fax for free online, whether it’s no-strings attached, or a free trial you need to cancel after the fact. However, there are pretty clear limitations on each choice we could find:
- GotFreeFax: Pretty bad quality, very limited number of free faxes.
- FaxZero: Very bad quality, limited number of free faxes.
- eFax: You need to remember to unsubscribe, lack of fax numbers in many area codes, and only 30 pages inbound and outbound for what is supposed to be a premium service.
- Fax.Plus: Only 10 pages in total, and you cannot receive any faxes.
There’s also a few limitations they all have in common, one being page numbers – they all have a limit. The other limitation seems silly to say, but well, they’re free. This means you’re not a paying customer, so how can you expect to be treated like one? Faxing usually involves very important, sensitive, and private information being sent in stressful times of life – filing your taxes, arranging healthcare, signing a will, etc., all still widely use faxing. You might be better off using a service which offers flexibility, security, and which treats its customers with the care they deserve.
The Best Way To Fax Anything
Ultimately, you get what you pay for – take a look below at a side-by-side zoom-in between the fax from GotFreeFax, and Municorn’s iPhone Fax App, a mainstay on the Apple business charts as the most popular and well-reviewed fax app on the app store, with a 4.8/5 average from over 326,000 reviews. You can see the difference in detail, and clarity of the scan – you risk losing this important quality when using a free service.
Whenever I fax anything remotely important (which is anything I fax!), I like to use Municorn because it gives you the following things that free services just can’t offer:
- Unlimited pages – sending and receiving
- Totally flexible, cancel-anytime subscriptions which can be weekly, monthly, or annually – no questions asked
- In-app customer support chat
- Your own fax number from any area code
- Perfect quality faxing for a huge number of file formats, or in-app document scanning
- Advanced data-encryption and privacy
- And much more
On top of that, Municorn’s app also gives you a free test fax so that you can see for yourself.
Whether you’re just faxing your local congressperson using a free fax service, or sending important information via fax with a top service like Municorn Fax, you should now know all the best ways you can start faxing today!
