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.
[0]: https://justfaxonline.com [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39110194#39141819
Thanks for making a service where people can pay for a thing to happen, rather than an account and subscription and …
I often get frustrated at how hard it can be to give someone money to perform a service I want them to do and they want to be paid to do.
Thank you very much. I try to focus on making usable software without enshittifying them.
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.
This is the coolest thing I've seen on this thread. Single purpose and a very nice, crystal clear homepage.
Thank you! I appreciate the feedback!
That's super cool, how do you run it? Are you using some other service under the hood, and just abstract their annoying pricing model?
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.
UK: OFCOM are phasing out the fax support requirement https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-and-broadband/telecoms-infra...
(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?
https://developers.telnyx.com/docs/programmable-fax/send-a-f... I use Telnyx. (Mainly because I also use them for voice.)
https://www.pamfax.biz/en/developers/introduction/
https://developers.ringcentral.com/fax-api
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.
It's a very tough market. Before I started I found a handful of services, and saw some services appear after I started.
I focus on SEO mainly. Most users come from search engines and LLMs. Some users are returning customers.
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.
TIL you can still buy fax machines!
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.
It's still included on some office multifunctional printer/scanner machines.
We have one in our office.
doesn't look like stripe, do you use stripe as a payment provider ? or something else.
i am in the middle of a project using stripe and looking for alternatives
It's Stripe, and I'm happy with them. What did you not like about Stripe?
What did you not like about stripe?
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Very cool. Love how simple it is, no bullshit.
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