FaxZero has offered free faxing since 2006. It lets you send a short fax to any US or Canada number without an account, which is genuinely useful when you need to send a fax once or twice and do not want to pay anything.
The free tier has limits: three pages per fax, five free faxes a day, and a cover page with FaxZero’s logo and slogan. A premium fax removes those limits for a flat fee. If you would rather pay only when a fax arrives, with no daily count to track, PayPerFax is a pay-as-you-go alternative that works from any browser.
When FaxZero is the right choice
FaxZero is built for an occasional sender faxing a US or Canada number who can fit inside the daily free limit and does not mind a branded cover page.
FaxZero makes sense if you:
- Are sending a short fax (three pages or fewer) to a US or Canada number
- Can wait a few minutes for the email-confirmation step on the free tier
- Are fine with FaxZero’s logo on the cover page, or will pay for a premium fax to remove it
- Are happy to pay through PayPal when you do need a paid fax
For senders in that profile, FaxZero is hard to beat on price: it is free.
What FaxZero actually offers
The free tier sends up to three pages plus a cover page, up to five times a day, to US and Canada numbers. The cover page carries the FaxZero logo and slogan, and each free fax waits until you click a link in a confirmation email.
The premium fax costs $3.29 per fax to the US or Canada, paid through PayPal. It allows up to 25 pages, has no daily limit, drops the FaxZero branding, lets you skip the cover page, and goes ahead of free faxes in the queue. If a premium fax fails, FaxZero refunds it in full.
International faxes are paid only. Most countries cost $2.09 per fax for up to 15 pages, and a few cost more (the Philippines is $5.06). A failed international fax gets a 90% refund.
A few more details:
- It accepts PDF, DOC, DOCX, RTF, PNG, JPG, XLS, XLSX, TXT, HTML, TIFF, GIF, PPT and a few other file types.
- You do not need an account, only an email address.
- You get an email when the fax goes through (or an explanation when it does not), plus a link to a private status page.
- Its sister service, Edwyna, sells a prepaid, account-based fax API for developers.
- For the security picture, see the FAQ at the end of this page.
Where FaxZero stops making sense
Most of the friction sits in the free tier. Reviewers at PC Mag, Tom’s Guide and Crazy Egg have each pointed to a different part of it.
The two-step sending flow is slow
To keep spam out, the free tier sends each fax through an email-confirmation step. As Tom’s Guide noted, “Your FaxZero fax will not send instantly: you must first wait for an email with a link to your fax, and then click on the link to deliver it.” The round-trip can take several minutes, and longer if the email lands in a spam folder. Premium faxes skip this step.
The free cover page is branded
The free tier puts the FaxZero logo and slogan at the top of the cover page that reaches the recipient. For a personal fax, most people will not mind. If you would rather send a plain cover page, or none at all, the $3.29 premium fax does that.
No mobile app
As PC Mag pointed out, “FaxZero lacks a mobile app.” The site works in a phone browser, but the page is laid out for a desktop screen, so on a phone you zoom in to fill out the form.
Photos and scans can come out faint
Crazy Egg observed that “FaxZero is a better option for sending documents that are mostly text-based.” FaxZero’s own FAQ explains why: fax is black and white, so a gray or color scan can arrive very light, and a dark phone photo can arrive mostly black. It suggests scanning at 200 DPI in black and white. That advice holds for any fax service, PayPerFax included.
Daily caps
Three pages per fax, five free faxes a day, US and Canada only. Those are the limits of the free tier. If your fax is four pages, you have already sent five today, or the recipient is in another country, you pay $3.29 for a premium fax or the per-country rate for an international one.
PayPerFax: the pay-per-fax alternative
PayPerFax is a pay-as-you-go online fax service. You upload a document, enter a fax number, pay $2 for the first three pages plus $0.75 for each additional page, and send. There is no account to create, no subscription to manage, and nothing to cancel. It works in any browser, including on a phone, without an app.
You pay only when the fax is delivered. If the line is busy, the machine on the other end is off, or the number is wrong, nothing is charged. FaxZero’s paid faxes work the other way round: you pay first, and a failed fax is refunded afterwards (in full for the US and Canada, 90% abroad).
Nothing is added to your cover page. PayPerFax puts no logo on the fax, so the recipient sees only what you send. On FaxZero, a cover page without branding comes with the premium fax.
There is no daily count. You can send several faxes in a row, to the US, Canada or any of 130+ countries, and you see the price before you send.
The fax goes out right after you pay. There is no confirmation email to wait for.
You can start from a file in the cloud. Right-click a PDF, DOC, DOCX, JPG or TIF file in Google Drive or Dropbox and send it as a fax, after a one-time install from the Google Workspace Marketplace or Dropbox.
An AI assistant can prepare the fax for you. Once your assistant is connected to PayPerFax, it can draft the cover letter, prepare the fax and give you a link. You check the preview and pay in the browser, one fax at a time.
What PayPerFax does not do:
- It is not free. Every fax costs something, so if your fax fits FaxZero’s free tier and the branded cover page is fine, FaxZero costs less.
- It has no incoming fax number. PayPerFax only sends. If you need a number people can fax you at, you need a subscription service.
For a wider view, see our list of pay-as-you-go fax services.
FaxZero vs PayPerFax at a glance
| Comparison point | FaxZero | PayPerFax |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Free tier (capped), $3.29 premium fax (up to 25 pages) | $2 for first 3 pages, $0.75 each additional, no monthly fee |
| Daily limit | 3 pages per fax, 5 faxes / day (free); none on premium | None |
| Cover page branding | FaxZero logo on free tier; none on paid faxes | None |
| International destinations | Paid only, $2.09 per fax (up to 15 pages) for most countries | 130+ countries, price shown before you send |
| Account required | No | No |
| Sending delay | Email-confirmation step on free tier; none on paid faxes | Sends right after payment |
| Mobile | No app; desktop-layout site in a phone browser | No app; works in a phone browser |
| Failed faxes | Free tier costs nothing; paid faxes refunded (in full in US/Canada, 90% abroad) | Not charged; only delivered faxes are billed |
| Cancellation | Nothing to cancel | Nothing to cancel |
| AI assistants | No assistant integration; sister service Edwyna sells a prepaid fax API for developers | Yes: your AI assistant prepares the fax, you review it and pay |
Which one should you choose?
When FaxZero fits better
- You are faxing a US or Canada number and have three pages or fewer
- The fax is personal and the FaxZero logo on the cover page is not a problem
- You can wait for the email-confirmation step
- You have not used your five free faxes today
- You want a longer US or Canada fax without branding for a flat $3.29 and are happy to pay through PayPal
When PayPerFax fits better
- You want to pay only when the fax is delivered, rather than pay first and wait for a refund
- You have used your free faxes today and do not want to pay through PayPal
- You want a clean cover page and no email step on every fax
- You are sending from Google Drive or Dropbox, or want an AI assistant to prepare the fax
Neither service is strictly better. FaxZero is hard to beat for a short free fax to a US or Canada number, and its premium fax is a fair price for a longer one. PayPerFax suits senders who want to pay only on delivery, with no branding and no email step on any fax.
Other FaxZero alternatives
If you are shopping the broader market, most other options are subscription services with monthly fees:
- eFax is the largest subscription provider. Plans start at $18.99/month billed monthly and include a dedicated incoming fax number.
- RingCentral Fax bundles fax with a full business phone system. It suits offices more than one-off senders.
- HumbleFax is a smaller subscription option with pooled inbound and outbound page allowances.
- MyFax, MetroFax and SRFax are subscription services with comparable monthly fees in the same tier.
- Dropbox Fax (formerly HelloFax) sits in the same tier; its advertised free page is once per Dropbox account, not a recurring free tier.
A subscription has a monthly fee that you pay whether you fax or not. If you send a few faxes a month, paying per fax usually costs less. If you fax often and need an incoming number, a subscription starts to make sense.
FAQ
Is FaxZero safe to use?
FaxZero serves its site over HTTPS, deletes fax content within three days of transmission, and is not flagged by mainstream reputation services such as Google Safe Browsing, Norton Safe Web and ScamAdviser. It keeps records about each fax, such as your email address and the destination number, indefinitely, and says it does not share them with marketers. It is built for low-risk personal use.
There is no healthcare-compliance (HIPAA) framework on offer, so the honest answer is “yes for everyday personal faxes, not for protected health information.” For the wider trade-offs, see Is fax more secure than email?.
Sending a fax without a daily cap
If you need to send a fax right now and the free tier’s limits or email step get in the way, you can send it at payperfax.com without creating an account. Upload the document, enter the fax number, and send. The per-page charge applies only if the fax is delivered. For more on how this works, see our guide to sending a one-time fax online.