Virtual PBX Services That Include Online Fax

If you’re planning to get an online fax service for your business, you might want to consider a virtual PBX that includes online fax functionality instead.

Question: Should I just get an online fax service or should I get a virtual PBX service that includes online fax features?Answer: If you are a business and you don’t already have a phone system with call routing features, you should at least consider getting a virtual PBX with an online fax service built-in. Virtual PBX services aren't much more expensive than internet fax services ($8 to $15/ month for virtual PBX versus $5-$10/ month for internet fax), and they include voice features that are useful to most businesses.

Advantages:

• In most cases, it is less expensive to get a virtual PBX service that includes an online fax service than it is to get both separately, and certainly less expensive than using any other business phone system.
• Easier to manage. You’ll have one interface and one bill for all of your business voice and fax communications.
• You get all the features of a professional business phone system that can be used with your mobile phones or other existing phones in addition to internet fax capabilities.

Best options for virtual PBX services that include online fax:

• Phone.com: Phone.com offers one of the most feature rich virtual PBX services at a great price, and their entry level product, Virtual Office ($9.99/month), provides you with two phone numbers (local or toll free), so you can use one for phone and the other for fax. Phone.com also has the added advantage of including a free conference call bridge for up to 500 participants (and the minutes don’t count against your plan)

• RingCentral Professional: RingCentral Professional is also a great option for virtual PBX combined with internet fax. Their entry level plan doesn’t include a dedicate fax number, but it will automatically recognize incoming faxes to the main number and route them accordingly. If you want a dedicated fax number for the entry level plan (Pro, $9.99/month or $8.29/month if paid annually) you will need to purchase an additional number for $4.99/month. All of the “business level” RingCentral plans (starting at $19.99/month or $16.29 if paid annually) include a dedicated fax number.

• VirtualPBX.com: VirtualPBX.com is also a high quality virtual PBX service that will manage incoming faxes to the main number in the same way that RingCentral does. You can also purchase an additional number and designate it to be your fax number, but it is an additional $10/month. If you want a dedicated fax number, VirtualPBX.com is actually more expensive than getting separate virtual PBX and online fax services.