This page is a quick review of the differences between Nextiva and RingCentral’s fax services.
For the full review on each service, see:
- RingCentral Review – Canadian Supplement – UK Supplement – Mac Supplement – Linux Supplement
- Nextiva Review – Canadian Supplement – UK Supplement – Mac Supplement – Linux Supplement
Summary
RingCentral and Nextiva both provide good service but cater to different individuals in their own way.
RingCentral provides a “feature rich” experience that power users will find a need for, while Nextiva is completely web based, and potentially a better option for people frequently on the road.
Side by Side Comparison
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Service |
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Fax Authority Ratings |
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Core Features |
4 / 5 |
4 / 5 |
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Interface & Usability |
4 / 5 |
4 / 5 |
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Extra Features |
5 / 5 |
1 /5 |
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Customer Service |
5 /5 |
4 / 5 |
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Pricing |
4 / 5 |
5 / 5 |
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Total Rating |
4.5 / 5 |
3.5 / 5 |
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Plan Reviewed |
Fax 500 |
Single User |
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Plan Includes |
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Outgoing Pages / Month |
500 |
500 |
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Incoming Pages / Month |
incl. in Outgoing |
incl. in Outgoing |
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Overage Page Cost |
5.9c |
3c |
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Sending Features |
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Send Internationally |
Y |
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Send to Multiple Faxes |
Y |
Y |
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Auto Re-Send on Busy or No Answer |
Y |
Y |
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Schedule Fax Delivery Time |
Y |
Y |
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Receiving Features |
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Receive to Multiple Email Accounts |
Y |
Y |
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Receive Multiple Faxes at the Same Time |
Y |
Y |
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Receive Faxes when Not Connected to the Internet |
Y |
Y |
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Number Features |
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Toll Free Numbers |
Y |
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Local Numbers |
Y |
Y |
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Security |
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SSL |
Y |
Y |
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Account Password |
Y |
Y |
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No Email Attachment Option |
Y |
Y |
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Smarphone Apps |
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iPhone |
Y |
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Android |
Y |
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Blackberry |
Y |
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Customer Service |
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Customer Support Hours |
24 / 7 |
6-6 MST / PDT |
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Phone Support |
Y |
Y |
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User Guide |
Y |
Y |
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Support Forum / Knowledgebase |
Y |
Y |
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FAQs |
Y |
Y |
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Ticketing System |
Y |
Y |
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Mthly Cost |
$7.99 |
$8.95 |
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Mthly Cost – Annual Plan |
$6.59 |
$4.95 |
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Buy Now |
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Free Trial |
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Full Review |
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Mac Supplement |
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iWork File Support |
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All Features Accessible to Mac |
Y |
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Linux Supplement |
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Open FIle Format Support |
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All Features Accessible to Linux OS Systems |
Y |
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Canadian Supplement |
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Local Canadian Numbers |
Y |
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Toll Free Canadian Numbers |
Y |
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Canadian $ Pricing & Billing |
Y |
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French Language Support |
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UK Supplement |
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Local UK Numbers |
Y |
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Freephone UK Numbers |
Y |
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Billing in Pounds Sterling |
Y |
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UK Customer Support Hours |
24 / 7 |
1PM – 1AM GMT |
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Buy Now |
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Free Trial |
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Core Faxing Features
With a focus on core sending and receiving of faxes, we find that both service perform well.
While RingCentral has the additional option of faxing through its Call Controller program, Nextiva’s web-based system leaves nothing out from the sending and receiving process.
Software and Interface
While RingCentral and Nextiva both offer a solid faxing interface, we find that Nextiva comes out ahead for two reasons.
1) We like that Nextiva has all of its options and features in one place – on the web interface. RingCentral places some of its features in the web interface, and some in the Call Controller program, leading to a bit of a “confusing” experience for users at times.
2) RingCentral bases its software and interfaces off a full phone suite – while this is an advantage for users who want to have a phone line as well, for fax only customers, this makes for an interface with a bit too many buttons that do nothing for the user.
This isn’t to say that RingCentral has a poor interface or provides poor software. In our opinion, Nextiva is more focused on the full faxing experience, while RingCentral is more focused on the full phone suite (which we see as a good thing for customers who are looking to move everything to a phone and fax provider).
Extra Faxing Features
RingCentral easily excels when it comes to extra features.
Signature stamps, desktop notifications, and direct scanning to a fax are some of what RingCentral can provide that Nextiva is not. While we like Nextiva’s web only approach, it does hold it back when it comes to extra features.
Customer Service
Both features appear to have the same reputation for customer service, with Nextiva potentially pulling ahead of the two when it comes to reputation (however the lack of customer service complaints towards Nextiva could be because it is a smaller company than RingCentra).
We like RingCentral’s online forum, as it provides a good place to look for more technical answers that others may have experienced.
Pricing
When it comes to domestic faxing, Nextiva 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 Nextiva is priced at $4.95 for 500 sent or received pages (both based on an annual plan).
Pages above the monthly free allocation are $0.059 a page for RingCentral and $0.03 a page for Nextiva.
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 Nextiva for Mac OS X review.
Linux & Open Source Users
When it comes to Linux fax users, we find that Nextiva has the advantage because it is fully web based. The web interface can be used to access all features. With RingCentral, certain features such as desktop notifications and custom cover pages are managed through the Call Controller program, which is not available on Linux based machines.
Linux users who are focused on open formats will find that neither Nextiva or RingCentral are very accommodating to them, and will need to change their file formats to Microsoft Office, RTF, or PDF files.
For more, see our full guide to online faxing with Linux, as well as our Nextiva Linux and RingCentral Linux reviews.
Canadian Perspective
Fax users in Canada will likely find that RingCentral is their better choice.
With Nextiva offering only US based numbers and support, and RingCentral having a full Canadian version of their software with nothing missing from the mainline version, unless Canadian users are willing to operate a US base fax number (not toll-free) then RingCentral is easily better for the Canadian market.
For more, see our full guide to online faxing for Canadians, as well as our Nextiva Fax Canada and RingCentral Canada reviews.
UK Perspective
British fax users will also find that RingCentral is a better service, for the reasons that Nextiva offers only US based numbers, and all customer support is based out of Arizona on Arizona business hours, usually 1pm – 1am GMT.
For more, see our full guide to online faxing for the British, as well as our RingCentral UK review.
Conclusion
There are a lot of good things to like about both RingCentral and Nextiva.
Between the two, we would suggest that users who are looking for the best price or a web-only service consider Nextiva, while users who are looking for a fully featured service still at a price that is decent compared to the industry look towards RingCentral for their faxing service.
More of our RingCentral Review
- Full RingCentral Fax Review
- RingCentral for Mac Users
- RingCentral for Linux & Open Source Users
- RingCentral for Canadians
- RingCentral for UK Users