FAX from iPhone: Send Doc App

Very seldom do I need to send a fax these days. For the past few years this elegant and simple app has served me well for sending PDFs when necessary. Due to the limited necessity, the previous credit model was great. On the couple of occasions per year when I had to send a fax, I could come back to this dependable app and spend my hoarded credits to get the job done without thinking twice. However, I opened the app today to send a fax that I planned my day around only to be halted by a subscription screen upon attempting to send. As I cancelled the fax and searched the rest of the app for my credit balance which was nowhere to be found. So seldom do I send faxes, I had not noticed the payment model had changed since my last use. While I can understand a change of payment models and agree the developer has the right to make that change, it appears that there was no effort to grandfather in previously purchased credits. Voiding prepaid credits just seems disingenuous and is poor business practice.

But it’s kind of expensive for my needs. I haven’t needed to send a fax in over a decade. Suddenly, I’ve needed fax capabilities twice in a month. You get a $10 introductory rate for the first week and then get charged $15/week thereafter. Initially, I only needed to send one fax and that $10 was a bit steep, but acceptable. I canceled my subscription easily enough and had no more charges. Now a few weeks later, I need to use it one more time. This time that one fax costs me $15. Both of these subscription purchases came with unlimited faxing for a week, but I only needed it once each time. Unfortunately, I had to pay for the ability to send hundreds of faxes in a week. Surely, there could be a cheaper option for those of us where this is a one-off. I wouldn’t hesitate at all to use this service if I could pay, say, $1 each time I needed to send a fax (or maybe a graduated scale like $1 for cover + 1-5 pages, $2 for cover + 6-10 pages, etc.). Admittedly, I don’t know what the logistics are for keeping a service like this available but I’d think most of the people that use it, send lots of faxes and most people needing a one-off fax look for another way to send the document. Maybe a better option could be available for people with rare needs like mine.

So, once upon a time this app used to be a “pay as you go” app. You bought credits and sent faxes as needed. When I went to reload credits this time, I only had 1 option. The dreaded hook-digging “subscription service.” I send maybe 1-2 faxes every 2 years (if that), so a monthly fee for faxing nothing is absolutely ludicrous. I completely understand that every single software driven model these days has turned into a revolving door of subscriber services. Having a healthy ARR/MRR is great for raising private equity capital (this company isn’t traded publicly). But for faxes? Come on! Apps like these should still continue to offer folks one-time fax credits, because people rarely need fax machines these days, and the app would provide value to a customer’s experience when this type of app is needed. To the developers/owners of this app, please consider rolling out a graduated pricing scale for “pay as you go” customers. Set a minimum credit purchase, charge a bit more per page, offer break points (discounts) if you purchase more credits up front, and still hold onto the subscription based service for heavy users. You could have the best of both worlds, and an additional revenue stream to boot. Imagine that!