What’s Your Fax Server Really Costing You? A Practical TCO Breakdown
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If you’re still running an on-prem fax system, chances are you’re underestimating its true cost. Not because the math is tricky, but because the impact is scattered across departments, buried in workflows, and rarely questioned.
Here’s a practical breakdown of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for legacy fax infrastructure, and why ignoring it could be costing you more than you think.
💸 Hard Costs (Visible, Budgeted, and Recurring)
These are the line items that make it into your budget but often get treated as fixed necessities:
- Telco: T1/PRI/SIP lines, toll-free numbers, per-minute billing
- Hardware: Fax boards, servers, racks, power, cooling
- Software Licensing: Core platform, upgrades, disaster recovery modules
- Support Contracts: Maintenance for fax and DR systems
- Capital Outlay & Depreciation: Deployment costs and refresh cycles
- Monitoring Tools: Third-party software for uptime and queue health
These costs don’t show up on invoices—but your team feels them daily:
- IT time spent patching, troubleshooting, and escalating telco issues
- Carrier reconfigurations and data center overhead
- Paper, toner, and analog fax machine maintenance
- Security, compliance, and disaster recovery planning
⚠️ Soft Costs (Easy to Miss, Hard to Ignore)
These are the compounding risks that surface when things go wrong:
- Helpdesk burden and retraining
- Downtime and disrupted workflows
- Compliance gaps and audit limitations
- Scalability challenges and continuity risks
- Manual rework and transmission inefficiencies
Why It Matters
This isn’t about scaring you out of your current system; it’s about creating visibility and alignment. IT, finance, compliance, and operations teams need a shared understanding of what it actually takes to “keep the fax server running.” And if you’re considering a future transition to a cloud model, knowing your TCO is the first step in evaluating potential ROI
Want help building your own TCO model? Our Cloud Fax experts at Kelley Create are ready to tailor one to your environment.
Written by Chris Heckert, Technology Strategy Director and Cloud Fax Expert
