Comparison
Signal Fax vs the machine in the corner
The machine works. That's the honest starting point — it has probably worked for years. What it can't do is be in two places at once, tell you what happened to a page six months ago, or keep working when the person who knows how to clear a jam is out.
Signal Fax
your fax machine
What it needs
A browser
A dedicated analogue phone line, toner or ribbon, and paper
Where you can send from
Anywhere you can sign in
The room the machine is in
Who can receive
Whoever is assigned the number, by email and in a shared inbox
Whoever walks past the output tray
Confidentiality of incoming pages
Delivered to named users; access is logged
Sits face-up in the tray until collected
Proof of what you sent
A transmission report per fax, kept and searchable by recipient and date
A printed confirmation slip, if it's still in the drawer
Sending to many recipients
One broadcast, per-recipient results
One at a time, by hand
When a line is busy
Retried automatically, result recorded
Redial and hope
Monthly cost
From $12, no hardware
Line rental plus consumables plus the machine
If it breaks
Nothing to break at your end
Nobody faxes until it's fixed
Honest close
The case for keeping a machine is that it's already paid for. The case against is everything that happens when a page goes missing and there's no record of whether it ever arrived. If you handle documents you might have to account for later, the machine is the weakest link in that story.
Other comparisons: vs HumbleFax · vs eFax · vs SRFax · vs Fax.Plus