HelloFax Review: Online Faxing Made Simple
Our Verdict
HelloFax makes faxing simple, while leveraging deject storage. However, its lack of organized fax tracking and indexing makes this a poor choice for high-book users.
For
- Pleasing, attractive interface
- Supports basic annotations and signatures
- Connects with common cloud storage services
Against
- More pricey than contest (though free version is better than competing costless services)
- Poor fax storage organisation and indexing
- No customizable cover sheets
Tom's Guide Verdict
HelloFax makes faxing simple, while leveraging cloud storage. However, its lack of organized fax tracking and indexing makes this a poor selection for high-book users.
Pros
- +
Pleasing, attractive interface
- +
Supports basic annotations and signatures
- +
Connects with common cloud storage services
Cons
- -
More pricey than competition (though free version is meliorate than competing free services)
- -
Poor fax storage organisation and indexing
- -
No customizable comprehend sheets
HelloFax keeps things clean and elementary. This online fax service'southward options are adequately basic compared with the best online fax services similar MetroFax or Fax.Plus, simply information technology's too simpler to sign up for and utilise the service. Even better, it has the best complimentary tier among the faxing services nosotros've tested if you only need to send a fax one time in a while.
User beware, though: The creators of HelloFax have built in enough of gamification, too, which will be frustrating to professionals more interested in features and services that piece of work now, and less interested in a rewards system based on sharing with friends or doing specific tasks.
HelloFax review: Pricing
The service has a limited costless offering for sending faxes, but information technology's probably the reason you should pay attending to HelloFax. Using the service, you can send up to five pages for free. That's not a lot — GotFreeFax and FaxZero are more generous with their limits. Simply their service isn't as adept as what HelloFax offers.
Once you use up your five gratis pages, HelloFax charges a very reasonable charge per unit for per-folio faxes. You'll pay 99 cents per fax for up to ten pages with additional pages later on that costing twenty cents each. That ways if yous just have to send a fax every now and over again, that HelloFax is more than affordable and doesn't require you lot to sign up for one of its service plans.
If you need to receive faxes, you lot volition need to sign up for a paid programme, which also includes support for multiple recipients and other features not available on the free tier. Paid options start at $nine.99 per month (good for 300 pages sent, for v team members — the cost is $99.99 when billed annually). The Professional plan costs $19.99 per calendar month (500 pages sent, for x team members; or $199.99 when billed annually). The team component is unusual amid faxing services, which more often than not only conform ane user. This feature allows team members send and receive faxes from that account.
Free Trial: HelloFax's paid plans all feature 30-day free trials.
HelloFax review: Setup
To set up a HelloFax account, you can log in using an email address. When you sign up, you'll get a fax number in the expanse code of your choosing. You can transfer your current number, but to do so you need to contact the visitor. You can too add additional fax lines to your account, for $four.99 each.
HelloFax review: User interface
HelloFax's interface is very clean and friendly to use — by and large. It looks beautiful, simply gets bogged downward in confusing classification. For case, a left navigation bar makes it piece of cake to send faxes, but finding your annal requires y'all to select Documents.
The left navigation pane too has options for signing documents using the eSignature HelloSign service, adjusting the service's settings and administering the Team settings. Yous can create a squad and invite additional users, by e-mail address, to the team. As the administrator, you control these settings, but those you designate for the team can then access and send faxes for that team's number, too.
You can invite users with any electronic mail accost domain, a benefaction compared to some team-based software; if an invitee doesn't already have a HelloFax account, an invitation to a team will create an account for that person.
As the proper noun of the department implies, Documents simply shows a running list of all documents you've sent. The problem is that it only shows the file name, if it was a fax sent or received, and the date. This arroyo is not very organized, and will get very messy and unwieldy if you lot have a loftier volume of entering and outbound faxes. Searching is limited to email address or document championship, while the filters are of limited usefulness due to their lack of specificity (for example, you can sort on faxes sent or received, merely not by date, too).
I found the lack of document tracking, tagging and organization peculiarly surprising considering that HelloFax is the only service I tested that aims for teams and workgroups. Even the basic Dwelling house Office plan lets y'all invite up to four other users to access and utilise the aforementioned number.
HelloFax review: Cloud and file format support
HelloFax is the merely service I tested that integrates with Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, OneDrive and Evernote to store, access and receive files. Using the HelloFax add together-on for Google Docs makes it elementary to send a fax from within your document.
HelloFax doesn't specify the number of file types it supports, merely does say information technology handles "a wide range of files," and lists among them DOC, DOCX, PDF, PPSX, PPT, PPTX, TIF, JPG, PNG, XLS, XLSX, TXT, HTML and GIF.
HelloFax review: Gamification
The gamification element is readily evident when you go into HelloFax's Getting Started page. For case, if you lot add a password, you get five free pages. If you create a signature, yous get some other five free pages. Should you tweet or share on Facebook, or invite friends to join, you lot get even more pages. When y'all import contacts from Gmail or Yahoo, more than free pages are your reward.
If you're on the gratis plan where you pay as you lot get, perhaps these free pages will exist meaningful. Just if you're on a paid program, the gamification feels contemporary and unprofessional.
HelloFax review: E-signature support
HelloFax is one of two services I tested with electronic signature support (Sfax is the other). I constitute this feature incredibly compelling; even so, information technology remains an extra-toll option across your first free documents.
The e-signature component remains a work-in-progress that's disruptive to employ, even though HelloSign bankrupt out as a separate service a few years ago. The create-a-signature portion in the Getting Started department makes it piece of cake to add together a signature to the HelloFax organisation, either by drawing on-screen using your mouse or finger (for affect screens), or adding a signature by typing it in, uploading an image file, or using a smartphone to take a photograph of a signature and sending it to the system. The e-signature is legally binding, per U.Southward. and international law — the 2000 U.S. Electronic Signature in Global and National Commerce Act (ESIGN), the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act (UETA) and the European Directive (EC/1999/93).
While setting upwards a signature is surprisingly straightforward, using one is not.
While setting up a signature is surprisingly straightforward, using one isn't. Y'all tin can add together a signature during the editing of a fax. But if you lot tap on Sign Documents in the left navigation pane, it bounces yous to HelloFax's HelloSign service. The login is non only the aforementioned, information technology's seamless — merely the interface changes to reflect that yous're at present logged into HelloSign. But it'due south still confusing why you'd go to the HelloSign site to begin with. And to understand the difference, you'll take to olfactory organ around the HelloSign service to see that it's targeted at businesses who require workflow and want to circulate signed documents via email, not just fax.
Your first three documents signed are free, and that nevertheless gives you integration with Google Drive, and an audit trail to rail all activity, and by whom, on a given certificate. To get unlimited documents, you lot'll have to pay for the Pro program, which likewise gives wider support with Google apps and other deject services.
HelloFax review: Performance
Sending faxes is as simple as it gets with HelloFax. It'south broken into ii steps. First, you lot'll start upload files. To practice this, you can drag files, tap the upload button or select an upload from 1 of the deject-storage options. Afterwards the file is uploaded, you can choose to edit and sign the document before faxing. I specially liked that I could add initials or a checkmark to a specific spot on the fax, and cull to add a signature.
To complete the process, yous then enter the fax number or email address to ship to, and striking send at present. Off the fax goes. I saw no noticeable lag or filibuster. Y'all tin can also send a fax directly from email, by attaching a file to electronic mail and transport to 10-digit fax number (no "1" required), followed past @hellofax.com. Oddly, you don't get a confirmation that your fax transmitted. Nor are you allowed custom cover pages (though this feature is nether review by the company).
Inbound faxes are sent to you as a PDF, and can also exist viewed in the Documents area. The settings let you control whether to go a notification when you send a certificate, and choose whether to include a PDF copy in both incoming faxes and outbound notifications.
HelloFax review: Mobile apps
HelloFax lacks a defended mobile app (though if you type in HelloFax to either Apple'southward or Google's app stores, y'all'll go redirected to HelloSign). You tin send a fax via an e-mail attachment, but at that place's no dedicated app for viewing or storing faxes on your mobile.
HelloFax review: Verdict
I establish a lot to like about HelloFax, both in its ease-of-use and its features — two factors that will appeal to people who need a free service. I lament the lack of organization and searchability I'd expect, besides as the lack of confirmations and custom embrace pages. Merely HelloFax has a stiff foundation, and both its cloud storage integration for inbound and outbound faxes and its electronic signature capabilities are compelling benefits that put it alee of its contest.
Withal, the service'south disruptive integration with HelloSign and other interface oddities backbite from its appeal for paid users, equally does its lack of meaningful mobile apps and fax management. Plus, it'south more expensive than other paid services, delivering hundreds fewer pages for the monthly dollar than about of the contest. In these areas, our top pick, MetroFax, outpaces HelloFax in spades.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/hellofax-online-fax-service,review-5078.html
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