As you probably know by now, Internet or online fax has become extremely popular with both individuals and business owners. Online faxing is a simple form of “cloud computing” which lets you use your web access and your email system to do all your faxing. It ties all your faxing into the modern workplace, which is becoming more and more connected with computers and the Internet.First, you must realize, in order to use online faxing you have to sign up to a fax service provider where you are given a local or toll-free fax number which you give out to all your business contacts. Your faxes are sent as email attachments, usually in tiff or pdf format. You also get an online fax account or interface where you can logon to check or send your faxes. Because it is web based, you can receive and send your faxes anytime, anywhere.However, what many people don’t realize, you can save major revenues or business expenses over the long haul if you do some serious comparison shopping before choosing your online fax service. Since this is an ongoing expense with a monthly fee and different faxing rates – it pays to shop around and compare fax services before you sign on the dotted line.Average monthly rates are around $10, but if you shop around you can find quality services for much less, especially if you do minimum faxing. You usually get around 300 faxes for that monthly charge, but each company differs slightly in how many faxes you can send and/or receive in a month. There are also charges if you go over that number of faxes and again, each company differs slightly in what they charge. Also note, that some companies charge by the fax, while others charge by the minute.You should thoroughly check-out all these different charges and fees before you pick the right online fax service for your needs. Many times, it is just a matter of precisely matching up the right service to meet your needs. If you do very little faxing, then an annual fax service for around $20 would probably suffice. If faxing plays a major role in contacting clients, making sales or communicating with your employees, then you need a more robust fax service. Keep in mind, many of these services are completely scalable for business, which means if you need to increase services quickly, you can do this since there is no additional hardware (fax phone lines, fax machines…) to install.You must also realize, online faxing is much more cheaper than the traditional fax machine, mainly because you don’t have the expense of an extra fax phone line. Nor do you have the ongoing expenses of purchasing papers, inks and toners – which can quickly add up. But perhaps the biggest savings comes from the efficiency offered by online faxing since there are no more missed faxes because of paper jams or busy signals. Plus, your faxes are available anywhere, anytime, which means you’re open for business 24/7.Of course, when shopping for any kind of business service, your first goal must be finding one that is of superior quality and has good support. You must be able to contact it at all times if you should run into trouble. Thankfully, most of these online fax providers offer free 30 day free trials so you can check out their services before you buy. While you can check online review sites, nothing beats first-hand testing of the fax service in your own working environment. If your chosen fax service doesn’t meet your standards, you can simply pick another.So if you’re in the market for an online fax service do some major comparison shopping first and compare the different fax rates and fees provided by the different fax companies before you buy. Do your homework now and save yourself or your company significant savings over the long term. Choose wisely.