assuming you don't have a fax machine. If you can sign up online for an existing faxing service and then unsubscribe or put up with having your email sold in even close to 30 seconds I will hire you.
I think it's designed for people that don't have a FAX machine. So I think maybe (30 minutes of your time + cost to FAX at your local fedex kinkos) might be a more accurate comparable.
Grab coat, get in car, drive to UPS store: 5 minutes.
Wait in line: 0-10 minutes.
Talk to cashier, send fax: 3 minutes.
Pay: 1 minute.
Get in car, drive home, remove coat: 5 minutes.
Total: 14-24 minutes.
My time is worth more than an average of ~$17/hour.
Since you took the time to figure that out, I'll contribute. I just called a FedEx Kinkos (in Riverside, CA, USA) and they said it's $1.40 for the first page and $0.99 for each additional page, and that's to the same area code.
For some more perspective: InterFax's smallest--and highest cost-per-page package--is $0.11/page. So to send 15 pages through InterFax will cost a developer at most $1.65: http://www.interfax.net/en/prices
I worked on a project very similar to this (and of course the others linked in this thread) for awhile (because I had a need for just such a service), so: 1) Kudos to you, the developer for actually shipping, which I did not do, and 2) I agree with others that you're pricing himself out of the market.
Personally I think that $0.99-1.99 is the sweet spot, and you should tweak your cost and page counts to match that. I've never had to fax more than ten pages, so if I went to this site with my 3-6 pages I'd scoff--"Five bucks for three pages? Pffff." But that's me--maybe lots of people need to send 10-15 pages. You'd want to do some market research to figure what are the most common page counts.
Off the top of my head, though, I'd charge $0.99 for the first five pages. Disregarding marginal costs, that's 50% profit per transaction (assuming you eat the cost of a cover sheet)--at least! 125% profit for three-page faxes. After that you can tack on your $0.25/page and it's all gravy.
And, of course, this would be an easy thing to A/B test.
Edit: By the way, if you were willing to buy $500 in InterFax credits up-front (instead of $10 for their smallest package) you could do 10 pages/$0.99 with at least 33% profit. If you went down for the $2k package you're up to 48% profit.
With 15 pages for $5 you're looking at a minimum 184% profit. So I can understand the draw--but I don't think the average customer will.
Edit 2: Changed numbers to factor in cover sheets, which you'll likely want to eat the cost of.
I used Greenfax until I actually saw the faxes that were coming out the other end. They were unreadable garbage. I switched to http://faxzero.com/ and have been very happy with the quality of their faxes.
$5 to send a fax seems pretty steep. I would think that after people have gone to the trouble of creating a PDF (by either scanning or converting), they would just email it to the recipient.
somethings require faxing or mailing. A lot of government docs and things like that
Good point...faxed or mailed documents are accepted as official notification, whereas email is not. But for something that important, I'd be hesitant to trust someone's MVP. For $5, it would be cheaper to send it Priority Mail.
At $5 per fax I believe they have priced themselves out.
Not sure what this service buys me, typically the only time i have to send a fax is because I am sending a form that requires a signature and the company prefers to receive a fax. So regardless I have to either scan the document then upload it for faxfresh to send or I can just simply scan+fax in one step. Is this supposed to be for people that do not have a fax machine (or a printer that can print+fax)?
Yeah, this is for people without a fax machine--which is pretty much everyone I know. I have to fax so rarely that those subscription accounts don't make sense. I end up walking down to Kinkos, which charges something like a couple bucks a page. So this pricing seems just about right to me.
I don't have a fax machine and think this would be very useful. However, what about the privacy/security issues? On the rare occasions that I need to fax something, that "something" is usually a credit card authorization, driver's license scan, etc. I don't feel comfortable PDFing and emailing such things "into the cloud". Not sure if I'm an outlier.
+1, my typical use scenario is faxing medical receipts to the admin of the flexible spending plan. HIPPA violation if the fax were to get leaked, even accidentally.
My employer switched health insurance providers three different times over the past three years and NONE of them had the ability to accept pdf's (fax or mail was the only way to submit flex plan expenses).
Like the other posts have mentioned, $.99 for five pages is reasonable (I would use it at that price).
$5 per fax is pretty expensive, and you can't receive faxes through it.
i used to use my all-in-one to fax things over the phone line that i had to get just for my dsl connection. since switching to cable, i use http://faxage.com/ which gave me a local phone number in my area code and works over e-mail. my monthly bill from them is about $3.75.
any faxes sent to my number get emailed to me, and to fax out, i just email (the number)@faxage.com with an attached pdf and get an email back when the fax has gone through.
i have yet to receive any spam faxes through it and have never had any complaints about quality or problems converting pdfs.
FYI - VBuzzer.com lets you send faxes to free within North America (via their IM software app) - I've been using that for years with great success. You don't even have to have a credit card.
It's Windows Only though :( If gives you a Fax as a virtual print driver, pretty straight forward.
I've been using MaxEmail.com for my faxing for nearly a decade. $24.00/year, plus .10 per page sent (I think I'm still paying the old rate of $14.95/year, which makes it an obvious no-brainer, and I'll never cancel the account as long as I'm still needing faxes occasionally and they let me keep that old rate). Free incoming faxes up to 100/month.
I send and receive very few faxes, but I need to be able to do both occasionally, for contracts with old people, in particular, so faxfresh is simply not a realistic option for me, despite the fact that it's probably not much difference in price for the amount of faxes I send.
While I think there are often fortunes to be made in dying industries (capitalizing on the failures of old providers in that space to modernize) I don't think fax is an area with a lot of arbitrage opportunities that haven't already been tapped. And, it's really a dying tech at this point. I'd be surprised if this proves particularly profitable.
This is interesting. I'm also working on a faxing app. It's http://hellofax.com. What software are you using to send your faxes? Asterisk? Or are you plugged into an API?
I used PamFax [1] yesterday. 12 cents per page, hooks into your existing accounts (I used Google Accounts, but there was Facebook, Skype). No subscription.
Far, far, far better proposition, and likely just as quick as it uses accounts for authentication that you already have. And for 15 pages, it'll cost you $1.80.
This is exactly what happened I clicked this link.
1) clicked link from my RSS reader.
2) Ah great looking page, very simple to the point.
3) Wth.. $5 per page??
4) closed the chrome tab, to comment on HN and seen that everyone else raised the same point.
I have been using Faxaway.com for years, which bills on a per minute basis, not a per page. I believe the rate is $0.11 / minute in the US and $1 per month service fee.
I only need to fax infrequently, and I have a landline here. So, I plug the Windows (XP) machine into the line and "print to fax" (after a one time minute or two to set up this feature that's built in to the OS/platform).
It receives, too.
I suppose there's probably other software including for other platforms, but I've never bothered to look into it.
38 comments
[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 96.0 ms ] threadTotal: 14-24 minutes.
My time is worth more than an average of ~$17/hour.
I worked on a project very similar to this (and of course the others linked in this thread) for awhile (because I had a need for just such a service), so: 1) Kudos to you, the developer for actually shipping, which I did not do, and 2) I agree with others that you're pricing himself out of the market.
Personally I think that $0.99-1.99 is the sweet spot, and you should tweak your cost and page counts to match that. I've never had to fax more than ten pages, so if I went to this site with my 3-6 pages I'd scoff--"Five bucks for three pages? Pffff." But that's me--maybe lots of people need to send 10-15 pages. You'd want to do some market research to figure what are the most common page counts.
Off the top of my head, though, I'd charge $0.99 for the first five pages. Disregarding marginal costs, that's 50% profit per transaction (assuming you eat the cost of a cover sheet)--at least! 125% profit for three-page faxes. After that you can tack on your $0.25/page and it's all gravy.
And, of course, this would be an easy thing to A/B test.
Edit: By the way, if you were willing to buy $500 in InterFax credits up-front (instead of $10 for their smallest package) you could do 10 pages/$0.99 with at least 33% profit. If you went down for the $2k package you're up to 48% profit.
With 15 pages for $5 you're looking at a minimum 184% profit. So I can understand the draw--but I don't think the average customer will.
Edit 2: Changed numbers to factor in cover sheets, which you'll likely want to eat the cost of.
For me, I hardly send faxes. When I do need to, I email them to my assistant who faxes it for me. Takes me minutes and she has a fax.
http://www.freepopfax.com/
http://greenfax.com/sendonlyplan.php
http://www.hellofax.com/
http://www.onesuite.com/
http://www.popfax.com/
minimum 25 dollar increment credits
this one looks cool
looks sketchy like the rest of them
and subscription
...I think the focus is how easy and quick it is to do one off faxes
5$ is expensive but if it saves you the 20mins required to set up an account and then cancel the subscription for other services it's totally worth it
it's worth noting that I am not the creator btw. I just hate existing faxing options
Good point...faxed or mailed documents are accepted as official notification, whereas email is not. But for something that important, I'd be hesitant to trust someone's MVP. For $5, it would be cheaper to send it Priority Mail.
Not sure what this service buys me, typically the only time i have to send a fax is because I am sending a form that requires a signature and the company prefers to receive a fax. So regardless I have to either scan the document then upload it for faxfresh to send or I can just simply scan+fax in one step. Is this supposed to be for people that do not have a fax machine (or a printer that can print+fax)?
Like the other posts have mentioned, $.99 for five pages is reasonable (I would use it at that price).
i used to use my all-in-one to fax things over the phone line that i had to get just for my dsl connection. since switching to cable, i use http://faxage.com/ which gave me a local phone number in my area code and works over e-mail. my monthly bill from them is about $3.75.
any faxes sent to my number get emailed to me, and to fax out, i just email (the number)@faxage.com with an attached pdf and get an email back when the fax has gone through.
i have yet to receive any spam faxes through it and have never had any complaints about quality or problems converting pdfs.
Only way it could be improved is to add olark to it :)
It's Windows Only though :( If gives you a Fax as a virtual print driver, pretty straight forward.
I send and receive very few faxes, but I need to be able to do both occasionally, for contracts with old people, in particular, so faxfresh is simply not a realistic option for me, despite the fact that it's probably not much difference in price for the amount of faxes I send.
While I think there are often fortunes to be made in dying industries (capitalizing on the failures of old providers in that space to modernize) I don't think fax is an area with a lot of arbitrage opportunities that haven't already been tapped. And, it's really a dying tech at this point. I'd be surprised if this proves particularly profitable.
Ping me if you'd like to chat.
Far, far, far better proposition, and likely just as quick as it uses accounts for authentication that you already have. And for 15 pages, it'll cost you $1.80.
[1] http://www.pamfax.biz/
1) clicked link from my RSS reader. 2) Ah great looking page, very simple to the point. 3) Wth.. $5 per page?? 4) closed the chrome tab, to comment on HN and seen that everyone else raised the same point.
It receives, too.
I suppose there's probably other software including for other platforms, but I've never bothered to look into it.