An important aspect of building a business that’s scalable – one that operates when you aren’t around to “press the buttons” – is eliminating paper.

I’m going to be writing about what I’ve put into practice over the last couple months to eliminate all my paper in my software consulting business. One of the easier (and obvious) aspects of going paperless is eliminating the fax machine.

Yes, even if you run an internet-only business you will run into a vendor that only offers a fax machine as an alternative to snail mail.

Here’s how to setup your business to send and receive faxes online with no monthly fee.

Sending Faxes

They don’t advertise it on their home page, but eFax offers a dedicating incoming fax number with 10 free pages for no monthly charge.

You’ll get a dedicated number you can use to receive faxes. Faxes will be converted to a PDF and emailed to you.

Receiving Faxes

eFax doesn’t offer a free tier for receiving faxes.

However, HelloFax offers the ability to receive five faxes a month with no monthly fee on their free tier.

On another note, if you are a developer check out Phaxio, a fax API service.