eFax vs RingCentral Online Fax Comparison

This is a quick review of the differences between RingCentral and eFax.

For the full review on each service, see:

Summary

eFax and RingCentral both provide a “feature rich” experience, giving users the most amount of options when it comes to features in a service.

While eFax may come out ahead with some unique features such as fax security options and well priced international fax features, RingCentral appears to excel in areas such as pricing and customer service.

Side by Side Comparison

Service

RingCentral

eFax

Fax Authority Ratings

Core Features

4 / 5

4 / 5

Interface & Usability

4 / 5

3 / 5

Extra Features

5 / 5

5 / 5

Customer Service

5 /5

3 / 5

Pricing

4 / 5

2 / 5

Total Rating

4.5 / 5

3.5 / 5

Plan Reviewed

Fax 500

eFax Plus

Plan Includes

Outgoing Pages / Month

500

150

Incoming Pages / Month

incl. in Outgoing

150

Overage Page Cost

5.9c

10c

Sending Features

Send Internationally

Y

Y

Send to Multiple Faxes

Y

Y

Auto Re-Send on Busy or No Answer

Y

Y

Schedule Fax Delivery Time

Y

Receiving Features

Receive to Multiple Email Accounts

Y

Y

Receive Multiple Faxes at the Same Time

Y

Y

Receive Faxes when Not Connected to the Internet

Y

Y

Number Features

Toll Free Numbers

Y

Y

Local Numbers

Y

Y

Security

SSL

Y

Y

Account Password

Y

Y

No Email Attachment Option

Y

Y

Smarphone Apps

iPhone

Y

Y

Android

Y

Y

Blackberry

Y

Customer Service

Customer Support Hours

24 / 7

24 / 7

Phone Support

Y

Y

User Guide

Y

Y

Support Forum / Knowledgebase

Y

FAQs

Y

Y

Ticketing System

Y

Y

Mthly Cost

$7.99

$16.95

Mthly Cost – Annual Plan

$6.59

$14.13

Buy Now

Free Trial

Full Review

RingCentral

eFax

Mac Supplement

iWork File Support

All Features Accessible to Mac

Linux Supplement

Open FIle Format Support

Y

All Features Accessible to Linux OS Systems

Canadian Supplement

Local Canadian Numbers

Y

Y

Toll Free Canadian Numbers

Y

Y

Canadian $ Pricing & Billing

Y

Y

French Language Support

Y

UK Supplement

Local UK Numbers

Y

Y

Freephone UK Numbers

Y

Y

Billing in Pounds Sterling

Y

Y

Customer Support Hours

24 / 7

24 / 7

Buy Now

Free Trial

Core Faxing Features

When it comes to core sending and receiving, both services perform well, and services between the two are comparable.

Both offer faxing to and from the web, email, and their own custom program, eFax Messenger and RingCentral Call Controller.

Software and Interface

Being fully featured, both eFax and RingCentral offer fairly comparable services when it comes to sending and receiving faxes over the web.

We find that each has their own quirks when it comes to software interface – eFax’s web and software applications feel outdated to us – they feel like they were developed 5-7 years ago, and keep a somewhat clunky feeling when navigating through the system. Meanwhile, RingCentral, being a provider of both Fax and Phone services, has its software built primarily around the phone user, with fax being an afterthought. While this is a good thing for users of the full suite of products, we think fax only users will find themselves with a lot of buttons that do nothing for them.

Extra Faxing Features

Both RingCentral and eFax are feature rich when it comes to additional features.

They each have their own extras, such as RingCentral has a “fax received” notification that can appear on the desktop much like an instant message, and eFax has some extra options in the areas of fax security – such as password protected files as well as the option to have a fax not arrive in your email inbox (just a notification does, the fax is then fetched from the web interface).

Customer Service

RingCentral appears to pull ahead when it comes to customer service, both because of the appearance of a better “reputation” for customer service, as well as having more resources such as online forums at the disposal of the customer.

Pricing

When it comes to domestic faxing, RingCentral comes out ahead in the pricing department.

RingCentral’s basic package offers a total of 500 pages a month either sent or received for $7.99, while eFax is priced at $12.95 for 150 pages sent and 150 pages received.

Pages above the monthly free allocation are $0.059 a page for RingCentral, and $0.10 a page for eFax.

International users and individuals who regularly fax to destinations outside of North America should note, however, that eFax appears to have far better international rates. Over 40 countries are included in eFax’s pricing, so faxes to the UK or Brazil or Japan are all included in the monthly allocation.

As well, faxing with eFax to the UK for example, is the regular $0.10 a page – while RingCentral goes from its very reasonable domestic rate to $0.37 a page. France is $0.10 a page with eFax and  $0.41 a page with RingCentral. In other markets, however RingCentral comes out ahead – at $0.10 a page for eFax to both Brazil and Japan, while RingCentral is $0.078 a page and $0.039 a page respectively.

Mac Users

We’ll be updating this section soon pending our full review of RingCentral on the Mac.

For more, see our full guide to online faxing on Mac OS X as well as our eFax for Mac review.

Linux & Open Source Users

When it comes to Linux users, we give a slight advantage to eFax only because of the fact that it support open document formats such as ODG, ODP, ODS, and ODT files (these are used by Open Office and are non-proprietary file formats). Both eFax and RingCentral will let users fax in Microsoft Office based formats, as well as PDF and RTF.

Linux users should note that there are some quirks from the two services for using them on Linux – both of them require the Windows based software to get full functionality for services such as custom cover pages (custom cover pages can be set up once then used through the web based version of the service), scanning directly to fax, and desktop fax notifications.

For more, see our full guide to online faxing with Linux, as well as our eFax Linux and RingCentral Linux reviews.

Canadian Perspective

Canadian users should find the two services equally suited to their needs. Both RingCentral and eFax offer all the same services to Canadians as they do with their mainstream system, and Canadian users do not lose out on any of the features.

Users in Quebec and other French speaking parts of Canada should note that eFax is available with a French interface, while RingCentral is only available in English.

For more, see our full guide to online faxing for Canadians, as well as our eFax Canada and RingCentral Canada reviews.

UK Perspective

UK users will also find the two services equally suited to their needs. Both RingCentral UK and eFax UK offer all the same services to the British as they do with their mainstream system, and UK users do not lose out on any of the features.

For more, see our full guide to online faxing for the British, as well as our RingCentral UK and eFax UK reviews.

Conclusion

There are a lot of good things to like about both RingCentral and eFax.

Between the two, we would suggest that unless users see a special feature they really need in one or the other, that RingCentral would be the first choice for domestic user primarily because of its better pricing structure, while eFaxwould likely be a better choice for users outside of the USA / Canada / UK, as well as users who frequently fax internationally.

More of our RingCentral Review

More of our eFax Review

More Comparison Guides