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Ask HN: How to sponsor a nearly free fax service?

3 points by dundercoder ↗ HN
I think most of us have had the odd and frustrating experience where we are forced to submit a document of some kind to some stone-aged entity via fax. With the advent of programmable fax, you can now send a 5-page fax for less than $0.10 USD, almost anywhere in the world.

I'm writing a hassle-free fax as a service application for that one time per year that you're reduced to returning to [1995 to use a fax.](http://dilbert.com/search_results?terms=1995)

I don't want to make money on it, just break even. How can I employ this in such a way that prevents abuse (someone programmatically hitting the app for their own fax service) without having to charge a user an exorbitant fee to cover CC transaction costs? I'm not willing to fund it with adverts, I hate that. Ideas?

5 comments

[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 24.8 ms ] thread
sudouser
as a user I've paid for service such as this. if i were you i would charge from the start and another option add some patreon
bradsdb
One idea would be to cooperate with a rural LEC. For example some of the rural iowa guys make $0.04 cent per minute when people call their phone numbers (cabs billing).

You would promote free inbound fax numbers and do a revenue share with the rural lec. You could easily do free inbound fax service for all of your customers because most Rlecs do not agree to bill and keep tarrifs.

So... you run your fax service where you get 1 free minute outbound for every 10 inbound faxes.

  Then your average outbound fax costs would be 1/10th less.  So if you did a 60/40 revenue split with the RLEC, you would be able to offer free outbound faxes on a "ratio".
The FCC is probably going to close this loop hole in the next 20 years. They have been playing cat and mouse with this for years.
Endy
I dunno, I've never had a problem with faxzero the one or two times a year I have to send something by fax, honestly. I'm just not sure what a new player in the "fax by web" field would be able to do. I'm not trying to naysay what you're doing, I'm just saying that solid competitors already exist and work well for a lot of users already.
dundercoder
You make a good point. I personally found fax zero to be a PITA, but I think that this itch I’ve scratched might not really scale.
rahimnathwani
"without having to charge a user an exorbitant fee to cover CC transaction costs?"

PayPal charges 5% + 5 pence per transaction if you transactions are all small. Look up 'paypal micropayments'.