The biggest cost to sending faxes is the fax machine itself. In the era of email and other forms of communication, it is a hassle to invest money in a machine that is used less and less.  Once in awhile an employer or agency will require you to fax a document, but that itself is not reason enough to buy a fax machine.  That’s why the cheapest way to send international faxes is through your computer, and they range in price from reasonable to free.

There are a number of service providers that allow PC users to upload pdf and word documents (and sometimes cell phone pictures) to their website to be faxed. This cuts out the price of the machine and instead charges customers expected rates and can even provide an incoming fax number.

Here are some of the options:

E-Fax – This service is perfect for consumers looking to send faxes more frequently. A monthly membership for the smallest package is $14.13. Someone with this membership gets 130 received faxes and 30 free sending faxes. Learn more about EFax here

Myfax – Myfax has a 30-day trial before you need to subscribe to their service, and also has a $10 monthly fee for 200 incoming 100 outgoing messages. It also allows up to 2 pages (10 pages each per day) for free for non-members. Learn more about MyFax here

The bottom line is international faxing no longer requires an investment in a physical machine and inheriting all the problems of that fax machine. Rather, the much cheaper (and sometimes free) option is online faxing for your international faxes.