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Phaxio Zapier integrationAutomate Phaxio with Zapier.

The Phaxio Zapier integration gives you 2 triggers and 1 action. Both triggers are instant: a fax received or a fax sent starts your Zap right away. The action sends a fax from any tool you already use. It runs on the free plan.

See the 3 operations

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Overview

What the Phaxio Zapier integration does for a team that still faxes

The Phaxio Zapier integration links Phaxio, a fax service built for developers that sends and receives faxes online, to the tools your team already uses. Two triggers tell Zapier when a fax comes in or when a sending attempt ends. One action sends a fax for you, from data held anywhere else.

Three results people build with it:

Incoming faxes where people read them. New Received Fax starts the Zap and the next step drops the fax into the inbox, chat or folder your office checks.

Faxes sent from a form or a record. When a referral form or an order is filled in another tool, Send Fax sends the document to the number it carries.

A log of every sending attempt. New Sent Fax starts a Zap when a fax has finished sending, whether it went through or not, so you can track failures in a sheet.

What Zapier does not do here: there is no action to download, cancel or resend a fax, and no search to look up an older one. Faxes received before the Zap is switched on are not picked up either. What it does well is speed: both triggers are instant, so even on the free plan a fax reaches your Zap without waiting for a timed check, and nothing on the trigger side counts against your tasks.

Phaxio also has a Phaxio Make integration page, and n8n vs Zapier helps you weigh the platforms themselves.

Vocabulary

Zapier words used on this page

Seven terms in plain words. After this, the page uses them without a reminder.

Zap
The automation you build on Zapier: one trigger, then one or more actions that run every time that event happens.
Trigger
The event in an app that starts the Zap. Once the Zap is switched on, Zapier waits for it and does nothing before.
Action
What the Zap does after it starts: the step that writes, sends or moves something for you in an app.
Task
The unit Zapier bills: one action your Zap completes successfully. The number on your plan counts those.
Polling trigger
A trigger Zapier checks on a timer, asking the app for new items at a set interval. Neither Phaxio trigger works so.
Instant trigger
A trigger the app reports itself, the moment the event happens, so nothing waits for a check. Both Phaxio ones are.
Filter
A step that lets the Zap carry on only when what arrived meets your condition, and stops it quietly otherwise.
Cost

What a Phaxio Zap costs you in tasks

Phaxio is not a premium app, so it runs on the free plan. Its two triggers never cost a task, and because both are instant, the interval grid of the plans does not slow them down.

  • Free plan100 tasks a month, unlimited Zaps
  • Phaxio triggersInstant, never billed
  • Premium appNo, Phaxio works on the free plan
  • Multi-step ZapPaid plan only

Each action that succeeds counts as one task, so every fax that Send Fax hands over costs one. An action that fails is not billed. A Zap with three actions eats three times what a one-action Zap does, and a few actions take more than one task. The free plan stops at two steps: one trigger, one action. A filter or a second action, such as a step that files the fax elsewhere, makes the Zap multi-step, which needs a paid plan.

Connect

Connect your Phaxio account in three steps

  1. 01

    Open the connection dialog

    In Zapier, open the Apps page of your account and click + Add connection. A connection is your Phaxio account linked to Zapier once, then reused by every step that touches Phaxio.

  2. 02

    Pick Phaxio

    Type Phaxio in the search box of the dialog, select it from the list of results, then click Add connection. A new tab opens on the Phaxio sign-in page.

  3. 03

    Sign in and grant access

    Log in with your Phaxio account and allow Zapier to access it. You need read or write rights on anything you do not own yourself and want the Zap to touch.

First Zap

Your first Phaxio Zap: forward real faxes only

GoalEach fax received from a live call, not from the test environment, is sent on to a second number.

  1. 01

    Pick the trigger

    Create a Zap, choose Phaxio as the app and New Received Fax as the event that starts it, then select the Phaxio connection you added.

  2. 02

    Test the trigger

    Run the test. Zapier brings back the three most recent faxes received on the connected account, so you build the next steps on a real one.

  3. 03

    Add the filter

    From the plus icon, add a Filter step on the Is Test? value, so faxes from the test environment stop here and only live ones go on.

  4. 04

    Add Send Fax

    Add a Phaxio action, choose Send Fax, and type the destination in the To field as digits only. Map the received fax into the step.

  5. 05

    Test and publish

    Test the action and read what came back, then click Publish. The filter makes this a multi-step Zap, so it needs a paid plan.

Triggers

The 2 Phaxio triggers

2 events start a Zap when something happens in Phaxio, and 2 of them are instant: the app calls Zapier straight away, whatever your plan.

1

New Sent Fax

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggered when sending a fax has completed (successfully or unsuccessfully).”

Starts your Zap when Phaxio has finished trying to send a fax, so each attempt leaves a trace in your other tools.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
writing every outgoing fax to a tracking sheet, so the front desk can see which referrals went out.
Watch out
it fires on a failed fax as well as on a successful one. Read the result in the trigger before telling anyone the fax arrived, or add a filter on it.
2

New Received Fax

Instant trigger

In Zapier“Triggers when a new fax has been received.”

Kicks off the Zap each time a fax reaches your Phaxio number, so nobody has to watch for it.

How it fires
the app tells Zapier the moment it happens, so the Zap starts right away, whatever your plan
When to use it
posting each incoming purchase order in the sales channel, or saving it in a shared folder for the accounts team.
Watch out
faxes from Phaxio's test environment start the Zap too. The Is Test? value tells them apart from a live phone call, so filter on it before anything leaves the Zap.
Actions

The Phaxio action

Phaxio gives you 1 action. For each one: what it does for you, when to reach for it, and what to watch out for.

1

Send Fax

Action

In Zapier“Send a fax to a phone number.”

Sends a fax to the phone number you give it, using the content mapped from an earlier step.

When to use it
faxing a signed form to a partner office the moment it is approved in your document tool.
Watch out
the To field is required and accepts digits only, without dashes or parentheses; a formatted number from a form needs cleaning first.
When it breaks

When a Phaxio Zap breaks

Zapier links no help article to Phaxio, so the cases below are the general limits of every Zap built on it.

None of them shows during a test. They appear once the Zap has been live for a while. The Zapier troubleshooting guide covers how to diagnose them.

  • Past faxes are never picked up

    A Zap only reacts to what happens after you switch it on. Faxes received or sent before stay out, and moving that history is a separate job.

  • Send Fax feeding New Sent Fax

    A Zap started by New Sent Fax that runs Send Fax sets itself off again with each fax it sends, over and over, and burns through your tasks fast.

  • A sudden flood is held back

    When a trigger suddenly returns a huge batch, after a bulk import or a migration, Zapier's flood protection can hold the Zap back.
Need help

Need help automating Phaxio with Zapier?

A person reads every message.

FAQ

Phaxio Zapier integration: common questions

01Is the Phaxio Zapier integration free?
Yes, as long as your Zap stays at two steps. Phaxio is not a premium app, so it runs on the free plan, which gives 100 tasks a month and unlimited Zaps. The limit is the shape of the Zap: one trigger and one action, nothing more. New Received Fax followed by Send Fax fits. Add a filter to skip test faxes, or a second action, and it becomes multi-step, which needs a paid plan.
02How many tasks does a Phaxio Zap use?
One task per action that completes successfully. Neither New Sent Fax nor New Received Fax costs anything, however many faxes come through. A Zap that runs Send Fax uses one task for each fax it hands over. An action that fails is not counted against your plan, so a fax rejected at the step does not eat into the 100 monthly tasks of the free plan. Each extra action in the Zap adds its own task.
03Are the Phaxio triggers real time?
Yes. Both New Sent Fax and New Received Fax are instant triggers: Phaxio tells Zapier when the event happens, instead of Zapier checking on a timer. The plan intervals, 15 minutes on Free down to 1 on Team and Enterprise, do not apply to them, which is the most useful point for anyone on the free plan. The editor marks such a Zap with a lightning bolt. The type comes from Phaxio and cannot be changed in the editor.
04What does it take to connect Phaxio to Zapier?
A Phaxio account, plus read or write access to anything you do not own and want the Zap to reach. The connection takes three moves: Apps, then + Add connection, then sign in to Phaxio in the tab that opens and grant access. Once linked, every Phaxio step in every Zap reuses that connection. For Send Fax, have the destination numbers ready as digits only, since that is the one required field.
05Why does New Sent Fax fire when a fax failed?
Because it fires when sending has completed, and completed covers both outcomes: the fax went through, or it did not. That makes it useful for logging every attempt, but risky if the next step tells a client their document arrived. Check the result the trigger carries, and on a paid plan add a filter so only successful sends go on. Failed ones can go to a separate Zap that alerts whoever needs to retry.
06What if the Phaxio operation you need is missing?
Then the integration does not cover it, and no setting adds it. Zapier lists 2 triggers and 1 action for Phaxio, and the editor offers nothing else: no step to download, cancel or resend a fax, and no search for an older one. The usual way around is to let another tool hold the fax once a trigger has passed it on, and keep Phaxio for receiving and sending, which it does cover.
07Zapier, Make or n8n for Phaxio?
Decide on criteria rather than a ranking. First, does the platform offer the Phaxio operations your process needs? On Zapier that is two instant triggers and one sending action. Second, how fast must a fax be seen? Here both triggers are instant on every plan. Third, how does billing scale with volume? Zapier counts one task per successful action, so one per fax sent. Check the same three points on the other platform before you choose.
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