MetroFax and Nextiva are often ranked close to one another on online fax ranking charts. However, the two services are considerably different from one another in terms of features. Nextiva is an affordably priced option with generous monthly allowances, while MetroFax is a user-friendly, feature-rich service which also offers affordable monthly rates.
Nextiva vs MetroFax Sending and Receiving Faxes
MetroFax and Nextiva both feature a great online interface and mobile support. You can easily login to your online fax accounts from any internet-connected device, including your Mac, tablet, smartphone, or whatever else you use to connect to the internet.
With MetroFax, users enjoy a diverse range of mobile apps. Mobile apps are available for Android smartphones and tablets as well as the iPhone. The mobile app makes it really easy to send and receive faxes over your mobile device – in fact, you can send a fax in about three taps. It’s that easy.
Nextiva doesn’t offer the same mobile support as MetroFax. Nextiva offers mobile apps, faxing from computer options but they don’t include online fax functionality (they’re reserved for Nextiva virtual PBX subscribers). You can still send and receive faxes on your mobile devices with Nextiva, you just won’t be able to experience an easy-to-use app on Android devices or iPads.
Ultimately, both services accept all popular file formats. With both services, sending a fax is as simple as sending an email: you simply open your email inbox, create a message, type in your contact’s fax number, attach the document or documents you’re trying to fax, and then click ‘send’. You can do this with mobile apps, the online interface, or your own email inbox.
Nextiva vs MetroFax Supported File Formats
Both services support all popular fax file formats, including the major formats like PDF, Doc, and DocX. However, compared to some of the other popular providers out there, neither of these providers has particularly strong file support. While other services often support over 50 different file types, MetroFax and Nextiva support around a dozen different formats. Of course, most business users will never need to go beyond PDFs and Microsoft Office documents, but you need to consider the needs of your business.
Nextiva Fax Supports: TIFF, GIF, PNG, JPEG, PDF, DOC, XLS, PPT, PCL, EPS, PS, HTML, XML XSL, TXT, RTF.
MetroFax Supports: XSL, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, HTML, RTF, DOC, DOCX, PDF, TXT.
Nextiva vs MetroFax Pricing
MetroFax
Essential: Includes 500 faxed pages each month, 3 cents per additional pages, phone-based tech support, and costs $7.95 per month ($6.63 per month on the annual plan) with no setup fee.
Value: Includes 1000 faxed pages each month, 3 cents per additional pages, phone-based tech support, and costs $12.95 per month ($10.79 per month on the annual plan) with no setup fee.
Professional: Includes 2500 faxed pages each month, 3 cents per additional pages, phone-based tech support, and costs $35.95 per month ($29.96 per month on the annual plan) with no setup fee.
Nextiva
500 Pages: Includes 500 faxed pages each month, 3 cents per additional pages, over-the-phone tech support, and costs $4.95 per month with no setup fee.
1000 Pages: Includes 1000 faxed pages each month, 3 cents per additional pages, over-the-phone tech support, and costs $12.95 per month with no setup fee.
3000 Pages: Includes 3000 faxed pages each month, 3 cents per additional pages, over-the-phone tech support, and costs $29.95 per month with no setup fee.
Other Points of Comparison On Nextiva vs MetroFax
Higher Pricing for Toll-free Numbers: Both Nextiva and MetroFax offer local and toll-free fax numbers. When you sign up for a plan, you can choose to use a pre-existing number or create a new fax number. Most online fax providers charge the same rate whether you’re creating a toll-free fax number or a local fax number, but with MetroFax, users pay an extra dollar per month for a toll-free fax number. That’s an insignificant amount for most businesses. However, if you’re comparing Nextiva’s lowest $5 per month plan to MetroFax’s lowest $7.95 per month plan ($8.95 with a toll-free number), then that difference may be significant.
Basic File Format Support: One of the unique traits about MetroFax and Nextiva is that they’re two of the worst online fax providers for file type support. Neither provider supports a diverse range of file types, although all of the major file types are supported. This isn’t a big deal for businesses which deal exclusively with Excel and Word documents or PDFs, but it will matter for businesses which use specialized software and unique tools.
Tech Support: Nextiva’s tech support is available 24/7 via email, toll-free phone number, and social media. MetroFax offers tech support during normal North American business hours and all tech support requests are handled by real MetroFax employees in the United States. Nextiva has better tech support due to its wealth of online tutorials and resources. MetroFax, for whatever reason, has hardly bothered to answer any questions online: the MetroFax website only features about 15 FAQs for visitors. Other than that, no online help is available. If tech support is important to you and your business, Nextiva is the better option.
Mobile Apps: MetroFax easily wins this category. In fact, since Nextiva doesn’t have online faxing mobile apps, this isn’t even a competition. MetroFax offers apps for iPhone, iPad, and Android devices. Many businesses sign up for online faxing purely because they want to fax from their mobile device; if that’s the case with your business, then MetroFax is likely the better option due to its highly-functional apps.
No Digital Signatures: Digitized signatures are only supported by a few email fax providers, and neither MetroFax nor Nextiva offer digital signature support. You can still add digital signatures to your faxes, but you can’t automatically crop and paste the same signature into multiple faxes. If your business signs a lot of faxed documents, then neither Nextiva nor MetroFax would be a good option.
Multi-User Support: Want more than one employee to send faxes? MetroFax lets you easily create multiple users with online faxing privileges. From the MetroFax menu, you simply type in 5 email addresses to give those email addresses faxing privileges. On Nextiva, you can also setup multiple users, but you won’t be able to send faxes from more than one email account. Multi-user support simply means being able to receive faxes into multiple email inboxes. That’s not good enough for some businesses – especially businesses with multiple departments or employees.
Our Verdict On Nextiva vs MetroFax
Both MetroFax and Nextiva offer excellent value on all electronic faxing plans. Each provider offers high monthly allowances at a price that’s tough to beat. Better yet, there are no setup fees and both providers charge 3 cents per additional pages.
For these reasons, the two providers are virtually identical when it comes to pricing, value, and monthly fax allowances. So we have to compare the two providers using other features.
When we look at additional features, it’s clear to see that MetroFax is the winner. Those additional features include, most notably, multi-user support and mobile apps.
The only major feature lacking in both providers is a digitized signature tool. There’s no easy way to add your signature to incoming online faxes. You have to manually add your signature to each fax. Since neither provider offers this feature, neither provider is a good option for companies which need to sign a lot of online faxes.
Ultimately, both MetroFax and Nextiva offer generous monthly allowances and affordable pricing plans without compromising on a feature-rich experience. MetroFax narrowly wins this comparison due to its extensive mobile app functionality and excellent fax management, but users will not be disappointed with either service.
