

Ask HN: economics of online faxing services? (Why do they suck) - petervandijck

I had to receive a fax today, so I set out to get a temporary number. I noticed again the economics of it (buying adwords) seem to favor crap services that charge you repeatedly without you noticing, for as long as they can.<p>Is it impossible to create an online fax service that works well and doesn't charge you ongoing fees, just a one-time fee? I am thinking that the recurring fee services have more money to spend on adwords, and hence push the one-time-fee services out of the market.<p>I'd love to build a good service with a good user experience and a one-time charge. Thoughts?
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petervandijck
I checked, cost per click for relevant keywords seems to be from 3 to 10$. Not
sure what the conversion rate would be, perhaps quite high, say 20%? That's a
cost of 15 to 50$ per user there, impossible to recoup with a one-time fee.

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guiseppecalzone
I'm working on startup called <http://www.hellofax.com>, so we've researched
this a lot.

Peter is right. The cost per click on faxing keywords is super high. It will
be tough to compete there as 1 click costs more than 1 conversion. So, we need
alternative ways to find users. We have some ideas. But, if you can think of
ways we can cheaply find people like you, you should ping me.

In the meantime, you can do some one-time faxes for free. All accounts come
with 3 pages. But, if you run out, email me at joseph (at) hellofax dot com
and I'll refill it for free.

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mateo999
I've used interfax.net for years - to send faxes, I don't receive them. I
wouldn't be surprised if you can receive faxes too, though.

It's always been a great service, and no ongoing fees - I just pay a few cents
every time I send a fax.

Pretty old-school site, but it has a SOAP API that works. Hope that helps.

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mateo999
Ah, no - it seems to have a monthly subscription if you want an inbound
number, about $15.

