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Ask HN: economics of online faxing services? (Why do they suck)
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.
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.
I'd love to build a good service with a good user experience and a one-time charge. Thoughts?
- petervandijck 16y agoI 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.
- guiseppecalzone 16y agoI'm working on startup called http://www.hellofax.com 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.
- mateo999 16y agoI'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.
- mateo999 16y agoAh, no - it seems to have a monthly subscription if you want an inbound number, about $15.
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