I run a dead-simple, one-time, online fax service called JustFax Online[0].
While I don't have a recurring revenue as I operate one one-time payment, for the past months I have been consistently grossing over €500/mo.
This also brings tears to my eyes, as I remember[1] browsing these threads and being amazed (still am) by all the people who make side projects and make money from them, and at the same time thinking that I will never reach this milestone, and yet, here I am.
I don’t need to send a fax often, but when I do it’s a real pain. I’ll be bookmarking this.
I love that it doesn’t need an account and is a simple straightforward service, as if I was paying to use an actual fax machine somewhere. I wish nearly every service online was built this way.
It used to be possible to do this with a faxmodem; these days telephony is over IP, so there might be telco APIs for it. But, because it's a telco, that will be annoying and hidden.
(I slightly balked at the $5 initial price, but then realized: this is a desperation fee and I think for a lot of the users a clear fee for a clear one off service is the best deal. Anyone who wants to send 1,000 faxes will (a) be in the top 1% of fax users in their country if it's not Japan and (b) make their own arrangements. Also patio11's "charge more")
Software wise, if you have a PBX line (which the telco will change for) you can run Asterix and then https://www.asterisk.org/products/add-ons/fax-for-asterisk/ to send as many faxes as you like to the other person in your country with a fax machine.
Why would you need a PBX line to send faxes with Asterix? You'd just need a normal phone line with a plan that includes free ("long distance") calling to the whole country, right?
Yes, I use another service + add a ton of stuff on top related to reliability, payments, and file formats. However, I have toyed with the idea of implementing my own fax sending. Maybe when I will be able to live off my side projects, I will explore this idea further.
How do people find your service? It seems like there are a million "send a fax" online services out there so it would be difficult to get in front of potential customers.
If you don't need an account to send a fax, how do you comply with law enforcement's requests to identify who sent a specific fax? I would think this would open you up to significant liability
Any thought of adding the ability to receive faxes too? I notice that most of the sending places don't offer that and it might be a difference if it's not too expensive.
I still have a 25 year old HP LaserJet printer that has a built in FAX function. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to use it since we gave up our landline about 20 years ago. Still prints well, however.
This also brings tears to my eyes, as I remember[1] browsing these threads and being amazed (still am) by all the people who make side projects and make money from them, and at the same time thinking that I will never reach this milestone, and yet, here I am.
[0]: https://justfaxonline.com [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39110194#39141819