There are a lot of long term costs associated with a fax machine other then the initial cost of purchasing it. These costs will vary from fax machine to fax machine, but there is one thing in common with every single fax machine and that is that every single time you receive a fax it costs you money. This article will cover the major costs associated with fax machines, and how internet faxing can save you money.



Fax Ink and Film

With traditional fax machines every single fax that you receive is printed as it is received by the fax machine. There are several Ink delivery methods which are Ink Film (most expensive), ink cartridge (cheapest for low volume faxing), and laser printer faxes (cheapest for volume).

Fax Paper

As mentioned above every single fax that you receive is printed at the time of receiving so additionally there is the cost of paper for every single fax. If you publicize your fax number you are likely to receive unsolicited faxes. With internet faxing your faxes are delivered to your inbox and deleting a spam fax is as easy as deleting a spam email.

Fax Machine Maintenance

Any devices that have moving parts are bound to require maintenance due to daily usage. Maintenance can involve something as simple as lubricating a moving part such as the paper feeder to something considerably more expensive such as replacing individual parts and having them installed.

Phone Line

Some telephone companies require people to have special fax lines in order to receive faxes. With internet faxes the price is inclusive of an incoming phone number as well as the service that delivers the fax directly to your email inbox. Email fax providers have several features that traditional phone lines don't have such as having a fax number that is never busy no matter how many faxes you are receiving at once.

Time

Just about everyone is busy and no one likes waiting around to make sure a machine performs a simple task such a sending a fax. With traditional fax machines there is a lot of room for error such as the paper feeding incorrectly, sending faxes timing out because the destination number is busy, running out of ink while receiving a fax, and more. With internet faxes all you have to do is send a fax through your inbox and your fax provider takes care of it all with confirmation logs.

Archive and Storage Space

Whether you're using your fax machine to receive employee or client contracts, or receiving incoming orders, most companies will archive their faxes for future reference such as accounts payables, receivables and even legal disputes. With email faxes because the faxes arrive in your inbox you can easily sort clients into their own folders, by fax type, or however your company prefers to archive them. Just remember to backup your inbox every so often, and to increase your redundancy consider a RAID array for your business data.

Conclusion

In this article we have identified six different reasons that identify the long term fax machine costs. With pricing for internet fax machines starting at $7.99 if you send and receive under 300 fax pages per month then you're probably paying too much for your current fax machine service. Not only are internet fax machines cheaper but there are additional advantages such as being able to receive multiple faxes concurrently from multiple senders.