MetroFax and RingCentral are widely regarded as two of the best online fax providers available today. Metrofax offers excellent features on every plan while RingCentral is one of the most cost-effective and feature-rich online fax providers available today. To see who wins when these two rivals are pitted against one another, keep reading.
RingCentral vs MetroFax Sending and Receiving Faxes
MetroFax and RingCentral could not be easier to use. Both services offer well-designed online platforms that let you send a fax in just a few clicks.
RingCentral’s online interface is more feature-rich than the online UI of most other providers. Users can control every aspect of their account via the online dashboard and also import/export lists of contacts. It’s exceptionally easy to use even if you’re not a computer whiz. If you can send an email, then you can send a fax with RingCentral.
MetroFax, on the other hand, also offers an aesthetically-pleasing online interface that has no major faults. Once again, sending and receiving faxes is as easy as managing an email inbox. MetroFax’s interface is more simplistic than RingCentral’s interface. This simplicity is a feature that non-tech users will undoubtedly appreciate.
Ultimately, you don’t have to use either online interface at all. You can continue using your regular email inbox to send and receive faxes just like you would send and receive normal emails.
Or, you can download the fantastic mobile apps which are available for free. Metrofax offers apps for the iPhone, iPad, and Android devices, while RingCentral has the same selection. Both apps let you easily send and receive faxes and edit your contacts. The RingCentral app, however, works particularly well if you’re also a RingCentral virtual PBX subscriber, as you can view all your incoming calls, messages, faxes, and notification history from the same simplified inbox.
No matter how you send or receive your faxes, RingCentral and Metrofax are virtually identical when it comes to sending and receiving faxes. Both services lets you choose an online fax number.
RingCentral vs MetroFax Supported File Formats
MetroFax supports far fewer file formats than RingCentral, which gives RingCentral a distinct advantage in an otherwise close competition. However, don’t immediately assume that this makes Metrofax the inferior product: look at the file formats below and think about which file extensions your business actually uses. Do you really need WB1, WB2, WB3, and VSD compatibility? Or are you okay with the basic file formats of TXT, DOC, DOCX, and PDF?
MetroFax Supports: XSL, PNG, TIFF, JPEG, HTML, RTF, DOC, DOCX, PDF, TXT.
RingCentral Fax Supports: PDF, PS, PSD, IFF, DXF, CSV, GIF, SHW, WPD, P5, WP6, EFX, JFX, EPS, HTML, JPG/JPEG, 123, WK1, WK3, WK4, LWP, XLS, XLSX, PPT, PPTX, PUB, WRI, DOC, DOCX, DOT, DOTX, WPS, ODG, ODP, ODX, PCX, TXT, LOG, ERR, C, CPP, H, PNG, QPW, WB1, WB2, WB3, RTF, SXD, SXI, SXC, TIF/TIFF, VGA, VSD, BMP, WPG.
RingCentral 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.
RingCentral
Fax 1500: Includes 1000 faxed pages each month, 4.9 cents per additional pages, phone & online tech support, and costs $17.99 per month.
Other Points of Comparison On RingCentral vs MetroFax
International Coverage: both Metrofax and RingCentral support international faxing, but it’s not included with either electronic fax provider. If you send an international fax outside of Canada or the United States, then you’ll need to pay a small fee (typically between 5 cents and $1, depending on which country you’re faxing).
Digital Signatures: RingCentral includes digital signature support, while Metrofax does not. You can still manually add digital signatures to your faxes, but with RingCentral, the entire signing process becomes significantly faster and easier.
Tech Support: This is another category we have to give to RingCentral. RingCentral offers tech support over a toll-free phone line. However, since the phone line isn’t available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, users can also read through the helpful tutorial information at RingCentral.com, which includes webinars, video tutorials, FAQs, and much more. Meanwhile, the Metrofax tech support website is a virtual wasteland and contains just a single FAQ article. You can, however, call tech support during standard North American business hours.
Support for the Cloud: If your business uses cloud services like Dropbox or Google Drive, then RingCentral is likely the better option. RingCentral smoothly integrates with both Dropbox and Google Drive (along with other cloud storage services). That means you can fax from either of these services by simply clicking a button from the dropdown file menu – just like you would print a document. Metrofax does not directly integrate with cloud services.
Multi-User Support: One of the largest advantages of Metrofax is its multi-user support. You can assign up to 5 users to each account. These users all have faxing privileges. They can send faxes to personal contacts and will automatically receive all incoming faxes into their email inbox. RingCentral does not offer multi-user support whatsoever and users can only create a single administrative account with full faxing privileges.
Contact Management: Users can import and export lists of contacts and merge contacts between online accounts. You can also edit existing contacts and sort contacts by lists and groups. All of these contact management features are available on both Metrofax and RingCentral.
Our Verdict On RingCentral vs MetroFax
Who wins the debate between RingCentral and MetroFax? You, the customer, wins. These two competitors are equal in nearly every category. In terms of pricing, they’re only a few pennies apart while offering similar monthly allowances.
More importantly, both providers are loaded with bonus features on every plan – and many of these features cost extra with other computer fax providers.
We can’t singlehandedly decide whether Metrofax or RingCentral is the superior option. However, we can help you choose which one is right for your business.
The major advantage of using RingCentral is being able to add digital signatures to all your faxes. These signatures don’t use a verification system, but you can easily add multiple signatures to multiple faxes with just a few clicks. That’s an enormous advantage for any business owner who signs several faxes per day.
On the other side, Metrofax supports multiple users per account while RingCentral does not. If your business has multiple employees who need to send and receive faxes, then Metrofax may be the better option. If you want to enjoy multi-user support with RingCentral, then you’ll need to sign up for the full virtual PBX plan.
Ultimately, these two online fax heavyweights are as close as competitors can be. Need multi-user support? Go with MetroFax. Need digital signatures? Choose RingCentral. No matter which option you choose, you’re getting a high-quality online fax provider at an exceptionally affordable price.
