How much sending a fax actually costs
Sending a fax online can cost nothing at all, or it can cost a few pounds for a single page, and the difference usually comes down to which of three pricing shapes you have landed on.
The three ways you end up paying
An online fax service (a website that turns your document into a fax signal and sends it down the phone line for you) tends to charge in one of these ways.
- Free tier: a small number of pages included, usually only after you create an account, with a limit that resets or runs out.
- Pay per fax: one charge for one send, with nothing ongoing to remember or cancel.
- Subscription: a monthly charge covering a set number of pages, built for someone sending faxes regularly.
Which shape actually suits you
If you only need to send one fax, a free tier or a pay-per-fax option will almost always beat a subscription, because a subscription bills you for months you were never going to use. A subscription only earns its keep if you expect to send more than one fax over the coming weeks, and even then it is worth checking whether the free allowance on offer would have covered you anyway.
Before any of this pricing matters, it is worth checking whether you need to send a fax at all. Some of the institutions asking for one will accept a signed PDF by email or a secure portal upload instead, and that guidance is set out in Do I Actually Need to Send a Fax?. If a fax genuinely is required, the steps for sending one from a phone or a computer are covered in How to Send a Fax from Your Phone (UK) and How to Send a Fax from Your Computer (UK).
How online fax services charge you
These are the pricing shapes you'll meet when you look at online fax services. The right one for you depends on whether you're sending a single fax or expect to send more than one.
| Pricing model | How it charges | Free option | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free tier with an accountOften the cheapest way to send one short fax, provided you fit inside the limit | No charge within a set page allowance | Genuine, but limited to a handful of pages | The allowance usually needs an email address to activate, and it can reset or expire |
| Pay-per-fax, no subscriptionSuits someone sending a single document who doesn't want an ongoing account | A charge per page or per fax sent, with nothing recurring | Rare, sometimes a first-fax discount | The cost rises if the fax fails partway and has to be resent |
| Subscription with a free trialWorth avoiding altogether if you only ever need to send one fax | A monthly fee that begins once the trial period ends | The trial covers a small number of pages | Card details are taken upfront, and the charge continues unless you cancel before the trial ends |
| Fax bureau via emailUseful if you already send other paperwork this way | You attach the document to an email addressed to the recipient's fax number | Rarely free | It depends on getting the email-to-fax address format exactly right |
This sets out common pricing patterns. Free allowances and trial terms change, so check a service's own pricing page before you send anything.
How free trials turn into a monthly charge
A lot of online fax services offer something free upfront: a trial fax, a handful of free pages, or a short free period. The catch usually sits in how you sign up for it.
Why a free trial asks for your card at all
Most of these services ask for payment details before they let you send anything, even the free fax. That is not necessarily a trick. It is how the service confirms you are a real person and sets up billing for afterwards. The part worth noticing is what happens next: once the trial or free allowance ends, the card on file is usually charged automatically, on a rolling monthly basis, unless you cancel first.
What to check before you enter your card details
- Whether the free fax genuinely requires no card, or whether a card is needed to unlock it
- How long the free period or free allowance lasts, in days or number of pages
- Whether the plan renews automatically once that period ends, and what it renews into
- Where in your account settings you would go to cancel, before you need to use that option
If a service does not make these terms easy to find on the page where you sign up, that is worth treating as information in itself.
If you have already signed up by accident
Look for an account or billing section on the service's own site first. Most let you cancel a subscription from there directly, and cancelling stops the next charge. If you cannot find that option, or the service has already taken a payment you did not expect, your bank can tell you what a chargeback or dispute involves for that transaction.
Checking your bank statement a day or two after any free trial ends is a simple habit that catches most of these before they repeat a second month.
If it turns out you only needed to send one fax, it is worth working out first whether a fax was actually required at all, since a signed PDF by email or a secure portal upload is accepted by some organisations in place of one. That question is covered in Do I Actually Need to Send a Fax?, and the steps for sending a single fax without opening an ongoing account are set out in How to Send a Fax from Your Phone (UK).
Fax pricing questions
Is a free online fax service actually free?
Often only for a small number of pages, and usually only after you create an account. Some services ask for card details even on the free tier, then start charging once the free pages run out or a trial period ends. Read the terms before you upload anything.
What happens if a fax fails to send?
Most online fax services will retry the number automatically a few times before giving up. You should get a transmission confirmation, a message telling you whether the fax was delivered, once it stops trying. If it never confirms delivery, check the fax number itself before trying again, since a wrong digit is the most common cause.
Do you get charged if a fax fails to go through?
It depends on how the service charges, and this is worth checking before you pay. A pay-per-fax service should only charge for pages that actually reach the other end, according to its own terms. A subscription service is different: it usually counts a failed attempt against your monthly page allowance whether or not the fax arrived, so a run of failed attempts can eat into pages you have already paid for.
How do you know a fax has actually arrived?
The transmission confirmation is the thing to look for. It is generated once the service has finished trying to send the document, and it will say whether the fax was delivered or not. It does not tell you whether anyone has read it, only that it reached the machine or number on the other end.