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Create Your Own Path In June (2023 Wallpapers Edition)

There’s an artist in everyone. Some bring their ideas to life with digital tools, others capture the perfect moment with a camera or love to grab pen and paper to create little doodles or pieces of lettering. And even if you think you’re far from being an artist, well, it might just be hidden deep inside of you. So why not explore it?

For more than twelve years already, our monthly wallpapers series has been the perfect opportunity to do just that: to break out of your daily routine and get fully immersed in a creative little project. This month was no exception, of course.

In this collection, you’ll find beautiful, unique, and inspiring wallpapers designed by creative folks who took on the challenge this month. All of them are available in versions with and without a calendar for June 2023 and can be downloaded for free. As a little bonus goodie, we also compiled a selection of timeless June wallpapers from our archives at the end of this post. Maybe you’ll spot one of your almost-forgotten favorites in there, too? A big thank-you to everyone who shared their designs with us this month! Happy June!

  • You can click on every image to see a larger preview,
  • We respect and carefully consider the ideas and motivation behind each and every artist’s work. This is why we give all artists the full freedom to explore their creativity and express emotions and experience through their works. This is also why the themes of the wallpapers weren’t anyhow influenced by us but rather designed from scratch by the artists themselves.
  • Submit a wallpaper!
    Did you know that you could get featured in our next wallpapers post, too? We are always looking for creative talent.

World Environment Day

“An annual event celebrated on June 5th to raise awareness and promote action for the protection of the environment. It serves as a global platform for individuals, communities, and governments to come together and address pressing environmental issues. So I decided to design this wallpaper and to promote awareness among us. Hope you like it.” — Designed by Hrishikesh Shome from India.

Back In My Days

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Boundless Joy

“Boundless Joy is a magical realm where children and dogs find pure delight. It’s a place where laughter echoes through sunlit meadows and imaginations take flight. In this enchanting world, youthful spirits soar as kids and their furry companions chase dreams, playfully bound together. With every step, Boundless Joy sparks smiles, ignites friendships, and creates memories that last a lifetime.” — Designed by Kasturi Palmal from India.

Cuban Bartender

“Summer arrives and with it the long days and nights that allow us to enjoy the weather. We are heading to Cuba and from the Malecón we observe the city waiting for the new day.” — Designed by Veronica Valenzuela from Spain.

Blue Butterfly

“Captured with Sony A7II and FE 90mm F2.8 Macro lens. Macro photography is my favorite.” — Designed by Viktor Hanacek from Czechia.

Holding Out For Me

“Effectively captures the essence of a girl observing the view outside through a window. It conveys the image of someone attentively observing or gazing at what’s happening outside, suggesting a sense of curiosity or contemplation.” — Designed by Bhabna Basak from India.

Pre-Wash Instructions

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Summer Palms

“Looks like Bahamas, but these are from San Francisco! Yep, photographers’ secrets!” — Designed by Viktor Hanacek from Czechia.

Raise A Glass To World Milk Day

“World Milk Day is a reminder to appreciate the nourishing qualities of milk and the impact it has on our well-being. Whether enjoyed on its own, added to a smoothie, or used to create mouthwatering recipes, milk is a versatile and wholesome ingredient that deserves to be celebrated.” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Oldies But Goodies

So many wonderful wallpaper designs have seen the light of day since we first embarked on this monthly journey. Below you’ll find a selection of favorites from past June editions. Please note that these wallpapers don’t come with a calendar.

Create Your Own Path

“Nice weather has arrived! Clean the dust off your bike and explore your hometown from a different angle! Invite a friend or loved one and share the joy of cycling. Whether you decide to go for a city ride or a ride in nature, the time spent on a bicycle will make you feel free and happy. So don’t wait, take your bike and call your loved one because happiness is greater only when it is shared. Happy World Bike Day!” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Summer Coziness

“I’ve waited for this summer more than I waited for any other summer since I was a kid. I dream of watermelon, strawberries, and lots of colors.” — Designed by Kate Jameson from the United States.

Old Kyiv

“This picture is dedicated to Kiev (Kyiv), the capital of Ukraine. It is loosely based on a 13th century map — this is what the center of Kyiv looked like ca. 900 years ago! The original map also included the city wall — however, I decided not to wrap the buildings into the wall, since in my dream world, a city would not need walls.” — Designed by Vlad Gerasimov from Georgia.

Travel Time

“June is our favorite time of the year because the keenly anticipated sunny weather inspires us to travel. Stuck at the airport, waiting for our flight but still excited about wayfaring, we often start dreaming about the new places we are going to visit. Where will you travel to this summer? Wherever you go, we wish you a pleasant journey!” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Strawberry Fields

Designed by Nathalie Ouederni from France.

Oh, The Places You Will Go!

“In celebration of high school and college graduates ready to make their way in the world!” — Designed by Bri Loesch from the United States.

Expand Your Horizons

“It’s summer! Go out, explore, expand your horizons!” — Designed by Dorvan Davoudi from Canada.

Summer Surf

“Summer vibes…” — Designed by Antun Hirsman from Croatia.

Summertime

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Deep Dive

“Summer rains, sunny days, and a whole month to enjoy. Dive deep inside your passions and let them guide you.” — Designed by Ana Masnikosa from Belgrade, Serbia.

Join The Wave

“The month of warmth and nice weather is finally here. We found inspiration in the World Oceans Day which occurs on June 8th and celebrates the wave of change worldwide. Join the wave and dive in!” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Melting Away

Designed by Ricardo Gimenes from Sweden.

Bauhaus

“I created a screenprint of one of the most famous buildings from the Bauhaus architect Mies van der Rohe for you. So, enjoy the Barcelona Pavillon for your June wallpaper.” — Designed by Anne Korfmacher from Germany.

World Environment Day

“On June 5th, we celebrate World Environment Day — a moment to pause and reflect on how we impact Earth’s health. A few activities represented in this visual include conserving energy and water, shopping and growing local, planting flowers and trees, and building a sustainable infrastructure.” — Designed by Mad Fish Digital from Portland, OR.

Pineapple Summer Pop

“I love creating fun and feminine illustrations and designs. I was inspired by juicy tropical pineapples to celebrate the start of summer.” — Designed by Brooke Glaser from Honolulu, Hawaii.

Window Of Opportunity

“‘Look deep into nature and then you will understand everything better,’ A.E.” — Designed by Antun Hiršman from Croatia.

Midsummer Night’s Dream

“The summer solstice in the northern hemisphere is nigh. Every June 21 we celebrate the longest day of the year and, very often, end up dancing like pagans. Being landlocked, we here in Serbia can only dream about tidal waves and having fun at the beach. What will your Midsummer Night’s Dream be?” — Designed by PopArt Studio from Serbia.

Papa Merman

“Dream away for a little while to a land where June never ends. Imagine the ocean, feel the joy of a happy and carefree life with a scent of shrimps and a sound of waves all year round. Welcome to the world of Papa Merman!” — Designed by GraphicMama from Bulgaria.

Gravity

Designed by Elise Vanoorbeek (Doud Design) from Belgium.

Solstice Sunset

“June 21 marks the longest day of the year for the Northern Hemisphere — and sunsets like these will be getting earlier and earlier after that!” — Designed by James Mitchell from the United Kingdom.

Yoga Is A Light, Which Once Lit, Will Never Dim

“You cannot always control what goes on outside… you can always control what goes on inside… Breathe free, live and let your body feel the vibrations and positiveness that you possess inside you. Yoga can rejuvenate and refresh you and ensure that you are on the journey from self to the self. Happy International Yoga Day!” — Designed by Acodez IT Solutions from India.

Summer Things

“Summer is coming so I made this simple pattern with all my favorite summer things.” — Designed by Maria Keller from Mexico.

Night Night!

“The time we spend with our dads is precious so I picked an activity my dad enjoys a lot, reading.” — Designed by Maria Keller from Mexico.

Evolution

“We’ve all grown to know the month of June through different life stages. From toddlers to adults with children, we’ve enjoyed the weather with rides on our bikes. As we evolve, so do our wheels!” — Designed by Jason Keist from the United States.

Handmade Pony Gone Wild

“This piece was inspired by the My Little Pony cartoon series. Because those ponies irritated me so much as a kid, I always wanted to create a bad ass pony.” — Designed by Zaheed Manuel from South Africa.

Getting Better Everyday

“Inspired by the eternal forward motion to get better and excel.” — Designed by Zachary Johnson-Medland from the United States.

Comfort Reading

Designed by Bobby Voicu from Portugal.

Happy Squatch

“I just wanted to capture the atmosphere of late spring/early summer in a fun, quirky way that may be reflective of an adventurous person during this time of year.” — Designed by Nick Arcarese from the United States.

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7 Best Business Voicemail Transcription Services (Text and Email)

Are you looking for a service to transcribe your voicemails?

Voicemail transcription helps convert your voicemails to text, so you can read them later on your phone or computer. It saves time, as you don’t have to listen to recordings and quickly view the message in text form.

In this article, we’ll show you the best business voicemail transcription services.

Best business voicemail transcription services

Why Use a Business Voicemail Transcription Service?

Voicemail transcription means converting your audio messages into text format. However, manually transcribing each voicemail is a time-consuming task. Instead, you can use a business voicemail transcription service.

There are a lot of software available that will automatically convert voicemail speech to text. The transcriptions can be sent to you by email or text.

This is more convenient especially when you can’t listen to voicemails. You can quickly read the message anywhere instead of listening to the voice recording.

It also helps streamline your customer support process. Your support staff can search for voicemails from a user and look at previous messages, so they can provide a better customer experience. You can also keep records of your voicemails and connect them to customer relationship management (CRM) software.

That being said, let’s look at the best business voicemail transcription services.

1. Nextiva

The Nextiva coupon code has been automatically applied

Nextiva is the best virtual phone service in the market that offers powerful features, including voicemail transcriptions. The cloud phone system is easy to use and set up.

It brings multiple communication channels under one roof. For example, you can make HD video calls, send text messages, live chat, voicemails, phone calls, and more from a single place.

Nextiva offers a voicemail to email and text option, where you can receive voicemails inside your inbox. This allows you to respond to customers quickly, even when calls are missed. Once this feature is active, it will automatically transcribe the voicemail.

Besides that, you also get other features like call recording, unlimited calls and texts in North America, toll-free numbers, team chat, auto attendant, call transfer and forwarding, and more.

They also business phone apps for iOS and Android smartphones, so it lets you stay connected with customers anywhere in the world.

At WPBeginner, we use Nextiva for all our business phone needs. We’re huge fans of their platform and the features it offers.

Pricing: You will need the Nextiva Enterprise plan to use the voicemail transcription features, which will cost you $32.95 per user per month.

2. RingCentral

RingCentral

RingCentral is another top business voicemail transcription service. Their business VoIP phone service offers lots of powerful features and is a perfect solution for remote teams.

With its Voicemail for Business feature, you get to choose how to receive voicemails. For instance, you can access voice messages from the RingCentral online account, desktop app, mobile device, email, and desk phone.

RingCentral offers an option to send voicemails to your email address. You’ll receive an audio attachment and transcription, so you can quickly scan through the message without listening to the voicemail.

Other than that, RingCentral offers features like video conference calls, unlimited calling in the US and Canada, voice-to-text features, toll-free numbers, and other call-handling features.

Pricing: The voicemail-to-text feature is available in the Essentials plan and will cost you $19.99 per user per month.

3. Ooma

Ooma

Ooma is a popular VoIP phone service for businesses of all sizes. It is loaded with features, including voicemail transcription and voicemail-to-email options.

You can configure your voicemails to be automatically sent to an email address when they’re left in your Ooma Office app. You will get an audio recording as an attachment and transcribed text in the body of the email.

Ooma is also easy to use and works out of the box. You get more features like a virtual receptionist, hold music, extension dialing, video conferencing, 1-800 phone numbers, a call center, and more. There are also desktop and mobile apps, so you can call and receive voicemails from anywhere in the world.

Pricing: Ooma prices start from $19.95 per month per user. However, the voicemail transcription feature is available in the Ooma Office Pro and Pro Plus pricing plans.

4. FreshDesk Contact Center

FreshDesk

FreshDesk Contact Center is the next business voicemail transcription service on our list. It was previously known as Freshcaller and is a user-friendly virtual business phone provider.

FreshDesk Contact Center offers an AI-power voicemail transcription feature. Its artificial intelligence engine, called Freddy AI, automatically transcribes voicemails.

You can easily access the transcriptions from the FreshDesk phone system and view key metrics like queue time and IVR time. It also lets you enable voicemail transcription for selected phone numbers and set up voicemail greetings.

Other features offered by FreshDesk Contact Center include a call waiting option, vanity numbers, mobile apps, shared lines, route calls to voicemail, block spam calls, call recording, and more.

Pricing: You will need the Growth plan or higher to use the voicemail transcription feature in FreshDesk Contact Center. This will cost you $15 per agent per month (billed annually). There is also a free version of the software you use to get started, but it doesn’t include voicemail transcriptions.

5. Grasshopper

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is one of the best business phone services, and it is perfect for small businesses and startups. The service offers a voicemail transcription feature and allows you to receive the transcriptions in your email inbox.

It is very easy to set up, and you can add email addresses where you’d like the forwarded messages to go. Then using the Grasshopper desktop app or mobile apps, you can read the voicemail messages.

Aside from voicemail transcription, Grasshopper is filled with robust features. For instance, you get simultaneous call handling, call forwarding, extensions, call transfers, VoIP calling, virtual fax, reporting, and more.

Pricing: Grasshopper pricing plans start from $28 per month (billed annually), and all plans include the voicemail feature. Do note that it is only available in the US and Canada.

6. Google Voice

Google voice

Google Voice is another business voicemail transcription service you can use for your WordPress website. It is part of Google Workspace and easily integrates with other tools like Google Meet and Calendar.

The service uses Google’s AI to turn voicemails into text automatically. The AI is powerful and converts complex words into easy-to-read text.

Besides that, it is very easy to use and offers free calling to US and Canada, spam call blocking, unlimited text messaging in the US, call forwarding, mobile apps, and more.

Pricing: Google Voice prices start from $10 per user per month and includes a voicemail transcription feature.

7. Phone.com

Phone.com

Phone.com is a popular cloud-based virtual phone service offering a voicemail feature. You can listen to audio messages from your online account and set up a voicemail-to-email feature.

Phone.com will automatically transcribe your voicemails and send them to you as email or text messages. This way, you can read the message instead of listening to the voice note or forward the transcription to other team members.

With Phone.com, you also enjoy other powerful features. It is a complete virtual phone solution and offers call forwarding, call transfer, analytics, number porting, audio conferences, fax from phone, text messaging, and more.

Pricing: The voicemail transcription feature is included in the Plus users or higher plan, and its prices start from $15.99 per user per month.

Which is the Best Business Voicemail Transcription Service?

In our expert opinion, the best business voicemail transcription service is Nextiva, and after careful research we chose to use it for our own business.

Nextiva is user-friendly and offers lots of features to help you connect with your customers and team members from anywhere. You can easily receive voicemail transcriptions in your email, handle calls, conduct virtual meetings, create workflows, and more.

Plus, Nextiva has desktop and mobile apps, so you are always connected on the go. It also easily integrates multiple communication channels into a single platform.

If you’re looking for other solutions, then we recommend RingCentral and Ooma as alternatives to Nextiva for voicemail transcriptions.

We hope this article helped you pick the best business voicemail transcription service. You may also want to see our comparison of the best email marketing services and best live chat software for small business.

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The post 7 Best Business Voicemail Transcription Services (Text and Email) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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SRFax Review

It’s a common notion that faxing has become obsolete. However, many businesses still rely on online faxing even today, in part because faxing takes care of some very specific aspects of business management. Online fax services facilitate receiving and sending crucial faxes from anywhere and can help retrieve old faxes with just a simple search. 

SRFax provides a smooth, secure, and HIPAA-compliant online faxing experience, ideal for healthcare providers. While it’s not in our top recommendations for online fax services, SRFax offers plenty and can be the right fit for several organizations. Read on to find out why.

SRFax logo

SRFax Compared

Even though SRFax is an excellent option to consider, it did not make it to our top list of the best fax services. The best online fax service for most of our readers is RingCentral Fax because it’s easy to set up and has a user-friendly interface. Try its Fax 1500 Package for free to make an informed decision for your business. 

  • RingCentral Fax — Best overall
  • eFax — The most popular online fax service
  • Ooma — Best online fax and phone service bundle
  • MetroFax — A best mobile app for online faxing
  • Nextiva — Best standalone online fax service
  • iFax — Best enterprise fax solution
  • FAX.PLUS — Best for offices that fax occasionally
  • MyFax — Best online fax service for personal use
  • HelloFax — Best for small teams and cloud storage integration
  • FaxZero — Best for faxing a few pages
  • Sfax — Best HIPAA-compliant online fax service
  • Biscom 123 — Best email-to-fax service

You can read the in-depth analysis of these platforms here.

About SRFax

SRFax is an excellent online fax service for many businesses. It is end-to-end encrypted and has a top-notch web interface. It also offers two-factor authentication logins that further increase its security. It is the only online fax service willing to sign a Business Associate Agreement with its users. The BAA is an important document that details the responsibilities of both parties in compliance with legal rules and regulations.

SRFax also integrates with a user’s email account, making sending a fax directly from the email inbox easier. The website is exceptionally well-designed and follows a responsive design principle. All subscription plans offered by SRFax provide unlimited storage, allow scheduling of outgoing faxes, and integration with internet fax API in your application.

With SRFax, users can keep their existing number or get a local number. It also provides one of the best 24/7 customer support, charges no hidden fees or startup fees, and allows you to cancel your plan anytime.   

SRFax Health and Stability

SRFax was launched in 2004 in British Columbia, Canada. It was the first platform to introduce email-to-fax service in a rapidly growing SaaS industry. Its selling point was its commitment to providing cyber security. Moreover, the company is also committed to delivering gold-standard customer service to all its users. 

After its creation in 2004, SRFax gained considerable attention from businesses of all sizes from different industries and in multiple locations in Canada and the US. Moreover, people working remotely from home or elsewhere also preferred using SRFax. So far, it has thousands of positive reviews from regular clients.

Since SRFax is HIPAA compliant and SSL encrypted, many medical professionals and people working in industries with sensitive information, like law firms, hospitals, and pharmacies, trust its services to communicate sensitive information.

SRFax is suitable for the healthcare industry, small businesses, and large enterprises. Ever since the creation of SRFax, its users have continued to grow and are predicted to grow even further. Therefore, it is safe to conclude that SRFax is here to stay for a long time as a secure online fax service.     

SRFax Pricing

SRFax has various pricing plans, and each plan offers some new advanced features. Unlike other online fax service providers, SRFax prioritizes security and encryption above all other features. Therefore, all its plans provide robust application security, hardware safeguards, automated backups, organizational safeguards, and more.

Based on the pricing plan, SRFax provides different fax pages per month. All paid plans allow a trial run before users commit to a plan, and a 15% discount is provided to all users on annual payments.

All paid plans offer unlimited storage, unlimited outbound users, additional fax numbers, and consolidated billing. Each paid plan offers additional fax pages and advanced features at a slightly higher cost. 

Apart from the paid plans, you can contact the sales staff to explore more features and get a custom plan made specifically to meet the needs of your business. 

SRFax Pricing Structure

The price of each subscription plan offered by SRFax depends upon the number of features or services offered in each package. It also keeps coming up with new limited-time offers and discounts from time to time, so keep an eye out for them. Some of the primary services provided in all the plans include unlimited storage, unlimited outbound users, multiple users with a unique fax number, and consolidated billing.

Each of its pricing plans has a different fee based on the number of fax pages and other features. Moreover, each progressive plan offers a few additional advanced features. Users can also try a free trial of each package before committing to it.

The five standard paid plans offered by HelloFax include:

  • Basic Plus Plan costs $9.95 per month
  • Standard Lite Plan costs $12.95 per month
  • Standard Plan costs $18.95 per month
  • Standard Plus Plan costs 32.95 per month
  • Customized Larger Plan has a custom quote based on the features that you avail

It gives a 15% discount to users who are billed annually. If the featured services and features don’t fulfill the requirements of your business, you can always request a custom plan with additional benefits at a higher cost. The final price quote is always based on the number of services you request. Overall, each service provides more value to your business. You can request a discount if you take a bundle of services. 

SRFax also offers separate healthcare plans as follows:

  • Healthcare Lite Plan costs $10.95 a month
  • Healthcare Basic Plan costs $13.95 a month
  • Healthcare Basic Plus Plan costs $19.95 a month
  • Healthcare Standard Plan costs $35.95 a month
  • Custom Plans has a customized fee per month based on availed services

The healthcare plans are specifically designed to fulfill the faxing needs of physicians, healthcare workers, and medical facilities.

SRFax Pricing Comparison

SRFax offers many services to its clients, be they healthcare facilities or other small businesses. However, some other fax services offer similar features at a lower price or provide more features at a similar cost.

Nextiva is one such example. It is considered the best standalone online fax service provider, and its most basic Essentials Plan provides 550 fax pages at only $10 per month on an annual payment.

Almost all fax service providers offer a discounted rate on annual payments, and each service provider offers a different discount percentage. For example, eFax and MetroFax provide a 17% discount on annual payments for a plan, but SRFax offers a 15% discount on annual payments.

FAX.PLUS offers one of the most affordable basic plans, which costs only $6.99 a month and provides 200 fax pages in addition to some other unique features. MyFax also offers 100 fax pages per month for only $10, but it also provides unlimited lifetime fax storage and 24/7 dedicated customer support.

There is a considerable variation in the prices of different subscription plans offered by various services. Every service has a unique and specifically designed plan for its users. The features offered in one platform’s basic plans often differ from those offered by another platform’s similar-looking plan. Therefore, the price also varies based on the number of services or features being offered.

SRFax Trials and Guarantees

SRFax is a secure platform with various features like a user-friendly interface and optional optical character recognition. Its easy-to-use interface makes it easier for even beginners to send faxes. Many healthcare institutes trust SRFax to fax confidential data securely. Some small businesses actively utilize fax for communication and rely on SRFax to fulfill their needs. 

Each SRFax subscription plan offers security, compliance with local data-related laws, and a free trial. Free trials can help users get the hang of the platform and decide whether they want to continue using it. However, it doesn’t offer free trials for its healthcare subscription plans.

The company also runs different limited-time discount offers throughout the year. So, keep checking to get a higher discount if you want to subscribe to a paid plan. Moreover, you can contact the customer support service to understand the purpose and benefits of various services and features being offered.

Get started today to understand how the standard plans of SRFax work.

SRFax Online Fax Service Review

There are several better online fax service providers present in the market today. Those platforms outperform SRFax in different aspects. However, SRFax is only slightly lesser than them in terms of features and quality of service. If you are on the lookout for a fax service that is highly secure and provides excellent client support, consider SRFax.

Our research also suggests that SRFax is ideal for healthcare providers. Healthcare professionals can seamlessly set up their accounts and automate the deletion of fax data after delivery to prevent leaks. To see how SRFax’s online fax services stack up against some of its top competitors, read our comparison of the best online fax services.

What Makes SRFax Online Fax Service Great

SRFax webpage with headline that says "How to Send an Email to Fax" and directions to complete Step 1 of the process
SRFax makes it easy to send a fax using your email account.
  • Responsive interface: SRFax has a simple, easy-to-use, modern and responsive interface. It has a lighter color scheme, and the website loads quickly even though it reloads whenever a new section is clicked. The menu has five main categories that further open up more sections. It is easily navigable for beginners and is loved by all users. Additionally, it offers two-factor authentication, further strengthening its security—a feature not offered by many other similar platforms.
  • Multi-step security: With technological advancement, hackers have also become sophisticated, and the importance of cyber security has increased more than ever before. SRFax fulfills this demand and provides top-notch security features, including two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption on platform servers. Moreover, it allows users to delete faxes right after sending them to protect against data leaks.
  • Affordable pricing: The pricing tiers offered by SRFax provide good value for the money invested. All plans are fairly priced based on the features and services offered. Many users believe that the services provided by this platform are pretty affordable compared to other online fax service providers. 

Where SRFax Online Fax Service Falls Short

SRFax webpage illustrating Steps 2 and 3 for how to send an email to fax
With SRFax, you can quickly send a fax in three simple steps.
  • No mobile app: Mobile apps for any service are crucial to connect with users on the go. The lack of a mobile app can significantly reduce the usability of an application. SRFax, like a few other fax service providers, doesn’t have a mobile app for iOS or Android. Whereas most of its competitors have an app that allows users to view, sign, edit, and send faxes from anywhere at any time. 
  • Lack of digital signature tools: A significant drawback of SRFax is that it doesn’t allow users to sign documents digitally. Therefore, users often have to print, sign, and then scan the documents just to put a signature on a document. The lack of digital signature tools puts it behind its competitors like HelloFax, which offers this feature.
  • International faxing fees: SRFax charges an additional fee per page to send a fax to an international destination. For example, sending a fax to someone in Norway will cost you five additional cents per page. Many users find these additional costs unfair and prefer other platforms like FAX.PLUS, which, instead of charging a fee, deducts a specific number of extra pages from the user’s monthly limit.

SRFax Online Fax Service Compared

While SRFax is an excellent option for many businesses, the best online fax service provider for most of our readers is RingCentral Fax because it’s easy to set up, affordable, and simple to use. Moreover, it offers the feature to schedule faxes and allows users to send faxes from all types of devices.

  • RingCentral Fax — Best overall
  • eFax — The most popular online fax service
  • Ooma — Best online fax and phone service bundle
  • MetroFax — A best mobile app for online faxing
  • Nextiva — Best standalone online fax service
  • iFax — Best enterprise fax solution
  • FAX.PLUS — Best for offices that fax occasionally
  • MyFax — Best online fax service for personal use
  • HelloFax — Best for small teams and cloud storage integration
  • FaxZero — Best for faxing a few pages
  • Sfax — Best HIPAA-compliant online fax service
  • Biscom 123 — Best email-to-fax service

Final Verdict

Even today, businesses require an online fax service to send and receive faxes. Online fax service providers offer businesses a more convenient alternative to traditional fax machines. They allow you to send faxes from phones, desktops, and tablets. There is an ideal fax service for every specific need of each type of business.

SRFax has been in the market since 2004 and has provided secure online fax services to several businesses. Its affordable pricing packages, robust security, and responsive interface have helped it stand out among its competitors. Therefore, SRFax is here to stay.

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Compare the Best Business Text Messaging Services

Our recommendation for the best business text messaging service is SimpleTexting because of its versatility, reliability, ease of use, and fair pricing. Start your 14-day free trial today.

With consumers bombarded with dozens of promotional emails on a daily basis, it’s become increasingly difficult for organizations to reach their audience. Emails get ignored, deleted, or go straight to the spam folder. 

But texting is much more effective, as the message goes straight to someone’s phone—ensuring the message gets read. The business text messaging services in this guide will help you improve engagement, increase sales, and enhance customer service.

The Top 5 Best Business Text Messaging Services

The five text messaging services reviewed below are excellent options, and they each stand out for different reasons. SimpleTexting is the most versatile on the list, as it can be used for sales, marketing, mass messaging, and one-on-one texting. Try it free for 14 days. 

  • SimpleTexting – Best texting service for marketing and sales
  • Textedly – Best for bulk texting
  • OpenPhone – Best for unlimited calling and texting
  • Podium – Best for text-to-pay
  • Sendinblue – Best for texting combined with email services
Company logos for our best business text messaging services reviews.

Continue below for our business text messaging service reviews and buyer’s guide.

Match Your Scenario to the Right Business Text Messaging Solution

Our research team here at Quick Sprout identified the top five reasons why an organization would need a business text messaging service. Then we found the best texting solutions that fit within that category—making it easy for you to find the best texting service for your needs. If you see a scenario below that best describes what you’re looking for, you can jump straight to that section to see our top recommendations. 

You want to run SMS marketing campaigns

Best Option: SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting has customizable user segments and custom fields to help personalize your marketing campaigns. It integrates seamlessly with more than 1,000+ tools, so you can create automated workflows and connect data between your email marketing software and CRM.

Another standout feature is SimpleTexting’s results tracking. You can use it to monitor KPIs like deliverability, CTR, subscriber growth, and more. 

Another Great Choice: Textedly

Textedly has a unique feature for loyalty marketing. You can set up campaigns that reward customers based on visits or spending and track everything from their phone numbers. Then you can automatically send marketing messages to users, keeping them updated on their rewards and even letting them claim rewards via text. 

For SMS marketing campaigns, look for:

  • User segments: Ensuring the right message is delivered to the right person at the right time.
  • CRM integrations: So you can align your marketing campaigns across all communication channels with your customer database.
  • Analytics: To see what’s working, what’s not, and look for ways to make improvements.
  • Automation: So you can put campaigns on autopilot and schedule drips.

You have high-volume texting needs

Best Option: Textedly

With plans that support up to 240,000 messages per month, Textedly has the ability to accommodate organizations with massive contact lists. If 240,000 isn’t enough for you, Textedly will set you up with a customized plan—making it possible to send millions of messages every month.

You don’t have to worry about paying for contacts, either. Since Textedly plans are based on outbound messages, you can add an unlimited number of subscribers to your database at no extra cost. 

Another Great Choice: OpenPhone

Every OpenPhone plan comes with unlimited texting and calling in the US and Canada. So you can send as many texts as you want without having to ever worry about the cost. Every user on your account will also have a dedicated line.

For high-volume business texting, keep an eye on:

  • Reliability: Sending 200,000 texts is useless if only half are getting delivered.
  • Monthly limits: You don’t want the service to cap you at a maximum number of text messages every month.
  • Subscriber limits: Ensuring you won’t outgrow the platform. 
  • Auto reply: Because it can be tough to respond manually to recipients when you’re sending hundreds of thousands of messages simultaneously. 
  • Cost structure: Typically, the price per text should get cheaper as your volume increases.

You want a complete CRM to manage contacts

Best Option: Sendinblue

Sendinblue is a complete email marketing and SMS messaging platform with a built-in CRM. So you won’t have to integrate your software with a third-party tool to manage your contacts with multi-channel marketing. 

The software makes it easy for you to identify wins with each customer interaction, and you can quickly use it to close open deals in the sales pipeline. Users love Sendinblue’s ability to add notes, attach documents, and assign tasks to each contact so the entire team can be informed about a contact’s history.

Another Great Choice: Podium

Podium is a CRM built for local businesses. The platform makes it easy to track all of your customer interactions from every channel, and it keeps a full history of every conversation and payment. You can even use Podium’s CRM to segment your customers based on location, behavior, preferences, the amount they spend, and more. 

For CRM contact management, make sure you consider:

  • Built-in CRM: Eliminating the need to integrate with third-party platforms.
  • User segmentation: Ensuring your contacts are getting highly personalized messages.
  • Multi-channel support: So every text and email interaction is tracked from the same place.

You need to send texts internationally

Best Option: Sendinblue

Sendinblue makes it easy to pre-pay for SMS credits in different countries. So if you have customers or prospects overseas, you can still target them with text messaging campaigns. The credits never expire, so you’re not required to use all of them within a month, quarter, or year—which is great if you’re not planning on exhausting those credits immediately.

Another cool part about Sendinblue is the ability to purchase credits for WhatsApp messaging campaigns as well. This is one of the most popular messaging solutions worldwide and is great for contacts who may prefer WhatsApp over texting. 

Another Great Choice: OpenPhone

OpenPhone supports unlimited texts in the US and Canada. But they offer per-usage rates on texts in other countries worldwide—starting as low as $0.02 per text. You can send SMS messages anywhere and only get charged based on the country and how many texts you’re sending internationally.

If you’re sending international texts, be aware of:

  • Cost structure: SMS rates typically vary by location, so you’ll want to pay close attention to how you’re being charged to send international texts. 
  • Countries supported: The ability to text people internationally is useless if the countries you want to reach aren’t available. 

You need to send custom texts to single recipients

Best Option: Textedly

While Textedly is best known for its ability to send bulk texts, the platform is versatile enough to support one-on-one messaging as well. All of your subscribers have the option to reply to a text, making it easy to accommodate two-way chat. 

This is ideal if they need questions answered or want to continue moving through the sales process. Textedly sends you an instant notification whenever you get an inbound message so you can reply ASAP. You can also set up automatic replies that are delivered within three to five seconds of the inbound message. 

Another Great Choice: SimpleTexting

SimpleTexting makes it easy to have two-way conversations with people, which is perfect for sales teams. All incoming SMS messages are free and won’t count toward your monthly credits. You can also lend longer messages to your contacts and include phones, documents, zip files, and other MMS content. 

If you’re sending individual texts to one person, pay attention to:

  • 2-way messaging: So when the recipient replies, you can have a complete conversation via text.
  • Autoresponders: To ensure your audience gets a quick reply, even while your agents are away.
  • Extended messaging: So you’re not limited to just 160 characters or SMS only.

Business Text Messaging Services Company Reviews

Below you’ll find our in-depth reviews of the best business texting services on the market. Each solution shines above the crowd for a particular reason, a unique feature, or a use case, which we’ve highlighted in the review. 

Read on to learn more about these top business text messaging solutions. We’ll even call out areas where a particular service could use some improvements and give you more information on pricing so you can find the best value for your needs. 

SimpleTexting – Best texting service for marketing and sales

SimpleTexting, one of the best business text messaging services.

SimpleTexting lives up to its name in the sense that it’s ultra-easy to use. But don’t let that simplicity fool you. It’s still a feature-packed texting service that can be used for virtually any use case.

What makes SimpleTexting unique compared to other options on the market is its ability to accommodate multiple departments and needs within an organization. Your marketing team can use it for drip campaigns and bulk messaging. But your sales team can also use it to nurture leads with one-to-one conversations and two-way messaging.

The service can even be used for appointment reminders, interview scheduling, and HR job recruiting. It’s worth noting that SimpleTexting doesn’t have a built-in CRM or email marketing solution. But you can integrate it with the tools that you’re already using. 

What Makes SimpleTexting Great

When it comes to text campaigns, sales and marketing teams have very different approaches. Sales reps need to personalize messages and have two-way conversations with leads, while marketers need to blast bulk campaigns to thousands of people. Fortunately, SimpleTexting can handle both of these needs from a single platform.

Screenshot of SimpleTexting's features web page.
SimpleTexting supports both sales and marketing initiatives.

This really isn’t something that you’ll find from many other business text messaging services on the market, as most platforms tend to lean in one direction or the other. 

You can use it to announce sales promotions, improve customer satisfaction, find new customers, and follow up with leads faster than email. SimpleTexting supports more than 1,000+ integrations, making it easy for you to connect with business software you’re already using and create automated with a hands-off approach.

Pricing is based on how many texts you’re sending per month, and all incoming SMS messages are free. Plans start at $29 per month for 500 messages, and the price per message gets cheaper as your monthly volume increases. Try SimpleTexting free for 14 days—no credit card required. 

Textedly – Best for bulk texting

Textedly, one of the best text messaging services.

Most business text messaging services cap you at around 50,000 messages per month. Some let you go up to 100,000 texts with enterprise plans. But Textedly blows all of those out of the water with the ability to send up to 240,000 text messages each month.

This is an excellent option for large organizations with massive customer databases. If you want to take advantage of your existing contact list, Textedly won’t hold you back.

But it’s also a great tool for businesses with growing contact lists. You’ll never have to worry about outgrowing Textedly. Even if you need to send more than the 240,000 monthly texts available in the Textedly Champion plan, you can just give them a call for a customized solution. 

One downside of Textedly is its lack of built-in features. But it does integrate with more than 3,000+ third-party tools for sales, marketing, CRM, and automation.

What Makes Textedly Great

The great part about Textedly is that you’re not locked into a contract. If you double your database overnight or you want to ramp up the frequency of your campaigns, you can upgrade to a bigger texting plan at any time. 

Screenshot of Textedly's home page.
You’ll never outgrow Textedly, regardless of your contact list size or monthly volume.

When you’re sending tens of thousands or potentially hundreds of thousands of texts, you need to consider how much it’s going to cost you if those conversations continue. Textedly gives you some relief here, as all incoming SMS messages are always free.

You can add an unlimited number of subscribers to your account at no extra cost. So if you end up with two million phone numbers in your database, you won’t be paying more than someone who has 200 numbers—making it easy to grow without limits. 

Plans are based on monthly messaging and range from $24 per month for 1,200 texts to $2,800 per month for 240,000 messages. You can try Textedly free for 14 days and send your first 50 texts at no charge.

OpenPhone – Best for unlimited calling and texting

OpenPhone, one of the best business text messaging services.

OpenPhone is an all-in-one solution for business text messaging, calling, and contact management. Every plan supports unlimited calling and messaging within the US and Canada.

All OpenPhone plans come with one local or toll-free number per user, so everyone on your team can have their own line. It’s the perfect solution for organizations seeking a complete business phone solution with the ability to send texts as well.

While OpenPhone has all of the standard features you’d expect in a business text messaging service, it does lack some of the more advanced marketing and sales features you’ll find from alternatives. That’s because the business phone solution is the primary service, and texting is somewhat secondary.

What Makes OpenPhone Great

One of the coolest features of OpenPhone is the ability for teams to simultaneously manage two-way texts with recipients. This is a huge bonus when you need someone from the right department to reply or the original sender is out sick or on vacation.

Screenshot of OpenPhone's home page.
Get the whole team involved, and your customers will never know the difference.

As a phone and text messaging service from a single platform, you can use OpenPhone to automatically send texts directly after a call. For example, you can follow up with surveys and post-sales campaigns. Or if you miss a call, you send an automated text apologizing for the delay and set up the engagement via text. 

Beyond SMS messaging, OpenPhone supports MMS messages, videos, files, GIFs, and more. You can even use it for group messaging—which is great for sales teams that want to keep multiple stakeholders involved in the process. 

OpenPhone plans start at $10 per user per month. Try it free for seven days to get started.

Podium – Best for text-to-pay

Podium, one of the best business text messaging services.

Podium is a versatile business solution that supports a wide range of features, from messaging to online reviews and more. It’s also a complete CRM that makes it easy to manage contact lists and keep track of interactions at every touchpoint.

But Podium stands out from the crowd with its built-in text-to-pay feature. This is handled directly through Podium’s platform, so you won’t have to set up any third-party integrations. 

One potential drawback of Podium is its pricing structure. It’s a bit more expensive than other services that are strictly for business texting. 

You’re getting so much more than just basic business texting. But the pricing is definitely something to consider if you’re not planning to take advantage of Podium’s other robust features. Organizations seeking a solution that’s strictly for text messaging should look elsewhere. 

What Makes Podium Great

Podium’s integrated text-to-pay feature is definitely its shining star. This capability is available on every Podium plan, including the entry-level tier. 

Screenshot of Podium's text payments web page.
Use Podium to get paid quickly via text.

This is so much better than emailing customers to collect payments or sending paper invoices through the mail. Podium says that the average text is opened within 15 minutes of delivery, ensuring you’re getting paid quickly. This also makes things easier for your customers, as they can pay for goods and services using a few clicks from their phones.

Text-to-pay works great within industries like healthcare, automotive, home services, dental, professional services, and more. 

After customers pay you via text, you can automatically send them a follow-up message asking them to leave a review. The message will include a link directly to the review platform of your choosing. 

Plans start at $289 per month for up to three team members and $449 per month for unlimited team members and unlimited contacts. Text-to-pay processing rates range from 2.5% + $0.30 per transaction to 2.7% + $0.30 per transaction, depending on your plan. Read our full Podium review to learn more. 

Sendinblue – Best for texting combined with email services

Sendinblue, one of the best business text messaging services.

Most business texting messaging tools do just what you’d expect—they allow you to send text messages. But Sendinblue is unique in the sense that you’re getting a text messaging service and email marketing solution from a single platform.

This means that you won’t have to worry about setting up integrations between your text service and email platform or CRM. You’re getting all the tools you need from a single interface.

It’s worth noting that Sendinblue is generally considered an email marketing platform first, with SMS messaging capabilities second. While the text messaging service is not an afterthought by any stretch of the imagination, it does lack some of the features you’ll see from platforms that are strictly for business text messaging. 

What Makes Sendinblue Great

The great part about using Sendinblue is that all of your contacts can be managed in one place. So you’ll see exactly how your database interacts with both email campaigns and targeted SMS messages.

Screenshot of Sendinblue's sms marketing web page.
Get SMS marketing and email under one roof with Sendinblue.

This is great information, as you can adjust your strategy to see when emails are more appropriate and when texts are more effective. Whether you’re sending texts, emails, or both, your team can keep track of all customer interactions from a single inbox with every interaction in a customer’s history.

Another cool part of Sendinblue is the ability to set up powerful marketing automation that moves customers through your flow based on their engagement and interactions. You can even set up both emails and texts from a single campaign or automation so your database gets a mix of both.

Plans start at $25 per month for the email marketing platform, with SMS credits available as an add-on. Rates are based on volume and country, such as $5.45 per month to send 500 texts in the US. Try Sendinblue for free today. 

Quick Sprout Business Text Messaging Services Related Content

For more about business messaging, how it works, and how to succeed with it, check out the related resources below—hand-picked from the Quick Sprout blog:

Business Text Messaging Services Guides and How-Tos

Business Text Messaging Services Company Reviews

Business Text Messaging Services Related Top Lists

The Top Business Text Messaging Services in Summary

SimpleTexting is the best business text messaging service for most organizations because it’s versatile enough to support both sales and marketing initiatives. You can use it to send mass messages to your entire contact list or start two-way conversations with individual recipients. 

But that doesn’t necessarily mean that SimpleTexting is right for you. Use the reviews, recommendations, and considerations highlighted in this guide to make sure you find a business text messaging service that aligns with your needs. 

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How to Integrate Square Payments in WordPress (Step by Step)

Do you want to accept Square payments to your WordPress site?

By default, WordPress does not come with credit card payment options. Square is an excellent payment gateway that can be connected to your site using several popular WordPress plugins.

In this article, we’ll show you how to integrate Square payments in WordPress, so you can easily accept credit card payments on your website.

How to Connect Square Payments in WordPress

Why Connect Square Payments in WordPress?

Square is a popular payment gateway that makes credit card payments easy. You can use Square on your WordPress website to securely accept payments through a simple payment form or a full-featured eCommerce store.

Like the Stripe payment gateway, it provides a flexible option to accept payments by credit card online or in person.

Credit card acceptance is available in USA, Canada, Australia, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, France, and Spain. Square offers a fixed transaction rate, and this varies for each country.

Note: You will need to enable HTTPS/SSL on your website so that you can securely accept credit card payments. For more details, you can follow our guide on how to get a free SSL certificate for your WordPress site.

With that being said, let’s take a look at how to connect Square payments in WordPress.

We’ll show you how to add a Square payment form using WPForms, and then cover other methods, such as accepting Square payments in an online store using WooCommerce.

Connecting Square to WordPress Using WPForms

The simplest way to create a form for Square payments is by using WPForms. It is the best WordPress form builder plugin used by over 5 million websites. You can use their drag & drop builder to quickly create any kind of form, including payment forms, to your WordPress website.

For this tutorial, we’ll be using the WPForms Pro version because it gives you access to the Square addon that will allow you to accept credit card payments without writing code.

You can also use WPForms to accept credit card payments using Stripe, Authorize.net, and PayPal.

Installing and Activating WPForms

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WPForms Pro plugin. If you need help, then please see our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

After activating WPForms, head over to WPForms » Settings in your WordPress dashboard.

WPForms' pro settings

On this screen, you need to enter your license key into the ‘License Key’ field. You’ll find this key in your WPForms Account.

After that, make sure you click the ‘Verify Key’ button to activate your license. This will allow you to easily enable the Square addon for WordPress.

Connecting WPForms to Square

After activating the core plugin, it’s time to install the Square addon.

In your WordPress dashboard, head over to the WPForms » Addons page and then scroll until you find the Square Addon. Next, you need click the ‘Install Addon’ button.

Install the WPForms Square Addon

Once the addon is installed and activated, go to the WPForms » Settings page and click on the Payments tab.

By default, WPForms will collect payments in American dollars. If you need to accept payments in a different currency, just open the Currency dropdown and choose from the list.

Set Your Currency in WPForms Payments Settings

The next step is connecting WPForms to your Square account.

To make this connection, scroll down the page to the Connection Status section. Then just click on the ‘Connect with Square’ button.

Click the Connect With Square Button

You can now follow the onscreen instructions to either create a new Square account or connect WPForms to your existing Square account.

If you wish to test your payment form, then you should check the Test Mode option. This allows you to make dummy payments to make sure that the form is working correctly. Don’t forget to uncheck the box when you have finished testing.

Make sure you click the ‘Save Settings’ button at the bottom to store your settings.

Creating a Square Payment Form in WordPress

Once you’re successfully connected to Square, you’ll need to create a payment form. To do that, head over to WPForms » Add New in your WordPress admin area.

First, you’ll have to provide a title for your form. Then you should scroll down to the ‘Billing / Order Form’ template and click the ‘Use Template’ button.

Select the Billing Order Form Template in WPForms

WPForms will now automatically load your form template in the drag and drop builder. It includes most of the fields you will need and makes it easy to add, remove, or change the fields on your form.

For example, a Multiple Items list has been added to the form, so your visitors can select the product or service they wish to pay for. Once you click on this field, you will be able to customize the field’s label along with the name and price of each item.

Customize the Multiple Items List

If you are only offering a single item, then you should delete the Multiple Items field by clicking the trash icon in the top right corner of the field.

Next, you can scroll down to the Single Item field and drag it onto your form.

Add a Single Item Field to Your Form

You can click on this field to customize it.

For instance, you can change the field’s label, description, and price. The preview of your form on the right will be updated automatically.

Configure the Single Item Field

If you are only offering a single item, then the Total field is unnecessary. Feel free to delete it.

Next, you need to add the Square field to your form to collect the customer’s payment information. Simply click on the ‘Add Fields’ tab and scroll to the Payment Field section.

Add the Square Field to Your Form

You can now go ahead and drag the Square field into place on your payment form.

As soon as you do that, a notification will pop up letting you know that you need to enable Square payments for this form.

Notification to Enable Square Payments

Once you click the OK button, head over to Payments » Square in the WPForms editor. Once there, you’ll have to toggle the ‘Enable Square Payments’ setting to the on position.

After that, you can type a description in the ‘Payment Description’ field. This text will appear on the customer’s credit card statement.

Toggle the Enable Square Payments Setting to the On Position

It’s a good idea to also complete the other optional settings. These let Square know where to find the customer’s email address, name, and billing address in the form you have created so that an email receipt can be sent.

Finally, WPForms also allows you to set up smart conditional logic for your forms. This is useful when you want to allow your customers to choose from several payment methods, such as credit cards or PayPal.

When you’re happy with how your credit card payment form looks, it’s time to save your changes. To do this, just click on the Save button at the top of the screen.

Configuring Notification Emails for Square Payments

Next, you can configure the email notification that is sent to you when the form is submitted. You can also set up notification emails to your customers after they make an order.

Every time a customer completes the payment form, WPForms will send an email to your WordPress admin by default. However, you may want to send these emails to a different address or even notify multiple people.

This is easy to do using WPForms. To customize your email notifications, simply click on the Settings tab then select Notifications.

Creating credit card payment notifications

On this screen, find the ‘Send To Email Address’ field. By default, this is set to {admin_email} and tells WordPress to use the WordPress admin email.

You can delete this dynamic text and replace it with any other email address. Simply type the new address into the ‘Send To Email Address’ field. If you want to email multiple people, just separate each address with a comma.

Creating email notifications

You can also edit the email’s subject line, message, and more.

Next, we’ll set up an email notification for your customers, confirming their purchase and thanking them. To do that, you need to click on the ‘Add New Notification’ button.

Creating a new WPForms notification

WPForms will ask you to provide a name for this notification. For this tutorial, we’ll call it ‘Customer Notification.’

After that, WPForms will show all of the notification fields that you can customize.

How to easily accept credit card payments in WordPress

You can enter a smart tag so the notification email is sent to your customer’s email address. Simply click on the ‘Show Smart Tags’ link next to the ‘Send To Email Address’ option.

After that, you need to select the form’s ‘Email’ field. This allows WPForms to use the email address the customer provided when submitting their payment.

Adding smart tags to your credit card payment emails

You can now customize the rest of the notification email, such as the subject line or email message. For example, you might personalize the email content using smart tags for the customer’s name or some information about the product they bought.

WPForms will also display an onscreen notification when they place an order. You can customize this by clicking the ‘Confirmations’ tab and editing the confirmation message.

Creating a payment confirmation message

Instead of showing a message, you might prefer to show a specific page or redirect customers to another URL.

To make this change, simply open the ‘Confirmation Type’ dropdown. You can now choose from the available options.

Changing the payment confirmation settings

Finally, you will want to make sure that these email notifications are delivered to the recipient’s email inbox and not to the spam folder. The best way to do this is by using an SMTP service provider to improve email deliverability.

For more details, see our guide on how to fix WordPress not sending email issue.

Adding the Payment Form to Your WordPress Website

The final step is adding your new Square payment form to your WordPress website. WPForms makes it super easy to add forms anywhere.

Simply create a new post or page, or edit an existing one. Then, click on the plus (+) sign at the top and add a WPForms block in the WordPress editor.

Drag the WPForms Block Onto Your Post or Page

After that, select your payment form from the dropdown menu in the WPForms block.

Once you’re finished, you can save or publish your page and click on the preview button to see your form in action.

Preview of Square Payment Form

Congratulations, you’ve now connected Square payments in WordPress.

You can connect your Square payment form with email marketing services, Google Sheets, and other apps to further streamline your workflow using WPForms native integrations.

Bonus Ways to Connect Square to WordPress

WPForms offers a simple way to create a payment form that connects Square payments with your WordPress site. However, some users may have different needs.

For example, you may want to start a membership site or online store to sell physical products, sell ebooks, sell online courses, or even accept donations.

Square is not always the best choice. That’s because Stripe has much better plugin support than Square in WordPress, making it a better choice if you are looking to add a credit card option.

Many popular plugins like MemberPress, WP Simple Pay, and Easy Digital Downloads offer built-in Stripe integrations.

However, if you are running a WooCommerce store, then you can easily add Square support using the official Square for WooCommerce extension.

Square WooCommerce Extension

This extension syncs products between your website and your Square account. That means that when you add products to your Square account, they will be automatically added to your WooCommerce store as well.

Besides that, it supports recurring payments when used alongside the WooCommerce Subscriptions extension.

We hope this tutorial helped you learn how to connect Square payments in WordPress. You may also want to learn how to run a giveaway or contest in WordPress, or check out our list of the best social media plugins.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Integrate Square Payments in WordPress (Step by Step) first appeared on WPBeginner.

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Vehicle license in Canada

Hello everyone, I am new to this discussion. I really want to believe that I will get some guidance here,Can anyone help me to find out the procedures for getting vehicle license in Canada?

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Podium Review

Do you want to get more online reviews for your product or services? Podium has got you covered. By helping businesses send automated invites to customers at every critical touchpoint, Podium can give you a competitive advantage. It harnesses the power of online reviews for companies built on word of mouth. And with its powerful interface, you can also request feedback, convert web chat to text messages, and manage customer messages across different platforms all from the same place.

Podium Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Free version available (for US and Canada users only)
  • Easy-to-navigate user interface
  • Available in both desktop and mobile
  • Automated review solicitation
  • Instant notifications for real-time response to online reviews
  • Multiple customer interaction apps in one dashboard
  • Seamless CRM integration
  • Smooth onboarding process
  • Plenty of customer service options

Cons

  • Custom pricing structure available only by request
  • Commitment to a 12-month contract required
  • Cumbersome for very small businesses

Podium Features

From starting as a simple tool to procure quality reviews, Podium has grown into an all-in-one app that consolidates all customer interactions. With the help of Podium’s support team, you can cherry-pick only the features your business needs, at a price that is well within your budget.

Reviews

The most disgruntled customers are often the most driven to post their negative experiences. So even if you hold your business to a high standard, the negative reviews of a select few can warp people’s perception of your business. To stop these bad reviews from outnumbering the good, you need a reputation management tool like Podium’s. 

Podium is integrated with over 20 online review sites like Facebook, Google My Business, TripAdvisor, and a host of other industry-specific platforms. With Podium Reviews, you can view and manage all customer reviews from these platforms under one roof. No more jumping back and forth between these review sites as you can keep track of all new customer reviews straight from an easy-to-use interface. 

Are you ready to beef up your online reviews? It all starts with a request, and you can convince your customers to provide their reviews using your own message or one of Podium’s preset templates. 

Sending these review invites is a whole new ball game, but this where Podium outshines its competitors. Through its platform, you can set up automations so your customers can receive review invites soon after completing a purchase. With its switchboard feature, you can also determine how many customers will be sent to which review sites, ensuring no platform is overlooked. 

From the same dashboard, you can also set up alerts so you get notified each time a customer leaves a review. By doing so, you can promptly respond to each review and address customer complaints within the Podium app. 

Podium Reviews comes with in-depth reporting to help you gauge how well your business performs based on the reviews. By looking at star rating, recency, and review count, you can determine how well you stack up against competitors and whether your strategies need fine-tuning. 

Campaigns

Podium Campaigns is a potent alternative to old-fashioned email campaigns. Instead of sending emails that are often relegated to either the SPAM or a separate “Promotions” folder, you send marketing promotions to where customers can see them right away: SMS inbox.

We’re not talking about sending out spam texts en masse. Customers won’t receive marketing campaigns via SMS unless they opt in to your list. And with opt-in opportunities available in every customer touchpoint, you can passively grow the list of people who are more likely to respond to your promos. 

With a targeted list at your disposal, it’s easier to craft personalized campaigns that resonate well with your customers. You can send these campaigns to your entire list or to specific segments of your list. 

By using a conversational tone in your messages, you can take the first step towards building a long-term relationship with your audience. The text thread is also two-way so your customers can reply to your messages, giving you more opportunities to earn their trust.

Whether you’re sending out coupon codes or announcing a special sale, Podium Campaigns allow you to take advantage of the 98% open rate of a text message. Moreover, it comes with built-in analytics so you can measure your total revenue, unsubscribe rate, click-through rate, and response rate straight from your dashboard. Using these valuable data, you can fine-tune your campaigns and get better results in the long run. 

Inbox

By integrating Podium with Facebook, Google, Instagram, Zendesk, and other platforms, all customer conversations can be funneled into one location. This enables you to quickly reply to messages without having to juggle multiple platforms at the same time. 

Podium’s inbox also streamlines how you deal with all these messages. Using artificial intelligence, it can automatically group incoming messages so you know which one should be prioritized. Each customer profile also has an interaction history which includes all payments and transactions completed. At one glance, you can get insights about the customer you’re dealing with, allowing you to personalize your messages accordingly.

For the busy marketers who don’t have time to respond to all messages, Podium’s inbox also provides smart solutions. 

You can assign the messages to other employees or another business location. Access restrictions are also available to ensure only the authorized people can answer specific messages. 

Meanwhile, you can set up autoresponders so you won’t lose potential leads even outside business hours or whenever you can’t reply in person. By also automating feedback requests, review invites, and reminders, Podium ensures you won’t waste your precious time on cumbersome tasks.

Feedback

Getting feedback from your customers doesn’t have to involve long, boring surveys that barely get attention. Podium’s feedback feature turns the traditional survey on its head by sending two automated text messages proven to elicit quicker responses. 

Humans are notorious for having short attention spans. By sending short and simplified questions via SMS, you don’t have to wait for weeks or months for answers. Your customers can send their honest feedback almost instantly, which means you can also address customer complaints at lightning speed. 

With regular use of Podium’s feedback feature, you’ll be able to understand your market, explore opportunities to improve your service, and gain more loyal customers. The best part is you can also automate it so you can gather insights about your customers at any touchpoint, not just after they make a purchase. 

You can schedule when your customers will receive the feedback request and also set up automated responses based on the customers’ answers. By doing so, Podium can gather a wealth of valuable information even while you’re not around. 

Podium’s feedback feature also comes with analytics so you can dissect the impact that customer feedback has on your business. Through this tool, you can track your Net Promoter Score which gives you an idea of how satisfied your customers are with your products or services. It also enables you to measure how many customers who received feedback invites actually responded. By understanding how effective your campaign is, you can revise your questions accordingly to elicit more responses. 

Webchat

Through Podium’s webchat widget, you can turn random website visitors into customers. 

Unlike live chat where transactions begin and end in the same chatbox, the webchat follows your visitors even after leaving your website. All the visitor has to do is enter his name, mobile number, and message to the webchat and the conversation will be transferred to his phone. By giving you access to the SMS inbox where people are the most engaged, you can answer queries and nurture leads without being glued to your computer screen. 

The only downside is not everyone will agree to volunteer their contact details, especially those who are only making casual inquiries. But for those who agree to invite you to their personal inbox, the possibility is endless. 

To ensure the webchat can capture leads every single time, you can also set up autoresponders. This guarantees your visitors can get an automated reply even when no one from your team is available, usually during holidays or after business hours. 

Through Google Analytics integration, Podium webchat can give you insights on how your visitors interact with your website, and which web pages perform the best. There’s also an option to receive daily digest emails so you can keep track of every inbound lead. 

Finally, a leaderboard allows you to compare each employee’s response times and other metrics. It ensures nobody in your team is slacking off when it comes to capturing valuable leads. 

Podium Pricing and Package Options

Every business is unique so Podium offers custom pricing tailored to your needs. To get a personalized quote, go to Podium’s pricing page, fill out the form with your contact information, and submit it. A Podium representative will then contact you to get a better picture of your business, its industry, and its locations. 

A customized plan that includes only the features that will best optimize your business will be recommended. Price varies depending on how many features you need and the number of your business locations. A single-location business, for instance, can cost anywhere between $350 and $450. It may be too expensive for businesses that only need Podium’s review feature but remember that Podium is much more than a simple text messaging solution. 

What most users may find off-putting is the 12-month contract that they have to commit to initially. Payments can be made upfront (annually) or in monthly installments.

For those who can’t afford to get into a 12-month contract yet, Podium also has the free Starter plan. Users from the US and Canada can sign up to take advantage of a free textable number and up to 30 communications per month. 

The free starter plan also includes a webchat widget, a centralized inbox where you can manage all customer communications, and the ability to send a limited number of automated review invites via SMS. 

Podium Reputation

Podium has been known as a reputation management tool so it shouldn’t come as a surprise that most users rave about its review feature. In fact, it’s the leading reason why most users gravitate toward Podium. By letting them send review invites via text not only after purchase but at every possible customer touchpoint, Podium can help businesses triple the number of online reviews they get. 

The clean user interface makes it easier to navigate the dashboard and find what they’re looking for at a glance. Podium’s capability to consolidate all messaging apps in one place is also worth highlighting. By eliminating the need to move from one platform to another, Podium effectively streamlines how businesses communicate with their customers.

On the flipside, Podium may turn off businesses that value transparency. Pricing plans are not available publicly so any business interested to get a personalized quote must contact Podium directly. According to those who have already used Podium’s service, the steep cost of the customized plan may pose a problem to businesses that only need basic features. 

The platform has also grown cumbersome for small businesses that only signed up to beef up the number of their customer reviews. The problem is you can’t purchase a plan with only one feature. So even if your team only needs the review feature, they still have to contend with other moving parts they rarely use but make navigating the user interface a tad complicated.

Summary

Podium stands head and shoulders above the competition for helping businesses use every possible customer touchpoint as an opportunity to get reviews. And because online reviews are now the word of mouth of the digital world, multiplying the reviews you get tenfold can drive great returns for your business in the long run. 

However, Podium comes at a steep price, not to mention you have to commit to a 12-month contract before you can get your team on board. If your company has multiple locations and deals with a steady stream of inbound leads, it most likely has the revenue to justify the cost of using Podium’s services. 

On the other hand, small businesses that don’t have the means to enter into a long-term commitment with Podium can use its free starter plan instead. Alternatively, you can use Textedly and other similar services that let you message your customers via text but come with a more flexible monthly payment schedule.

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Zoom Vs. GoToMeeting

A successful meeting depends on a reliable video conferencing platform. Zoom and GoToMeeting both rank near the top of best video conferencing services. But which is better?

Both use communication technology that allows teams to access different features and hold a meeting as close to in-person as possible with so many employees working from home. They come with features like video conferencing, screen sharing, recording, transcribing, and more advanced settings to make conducting meetings easy for your whole team.

The cloud-based software lets you connect with any team, whether you work in education, healthcare, sales, or another field where you need to communicate with others. Choosing the right one means giving your company the tools they need to increase productivity and collaboration.

Can’t decide between Zoom and GoToMeeting? Let’s look at how they stack up against each other.

Zoom Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Lot s of advanced options
  • Offers Breakout Rooms for meetings
  • Easy to navigate

Cons

  • Some add-ons are expensive
  • Lots of extra costs
Visit Zoom
  • Advanced screen & audio sharing
  • Join meetings from any device
  • Password-protected meeting security
  • Five pricing plans
Try for free

GoToMeeting Pros and Cons

Pros

  • Flexible calling features
  • Unlimited storage and recording

Cons

  • Some features are very basic
  • No free version
Visit GoToMeeting
  • Unlimited meeting storage & sharing
  • Automatic participant calling included
  • Built-in VoIP audio
  • Three pricing plans
Starts at $12/month

Video Conferencing: Zoom

To hold a productive meeting, you need excellent video quality and excellent connectivity. You don’t want your platform to kick you off every time you have more than a few meeting participants, after all.

Zoom and GoToMeeting have some video conferencing features in common, and both give you high-quality HD video. You can switch between different views, like full-screen and gallery, as well as use multiple feeds.

With up to 49 webcams with Zoom and 25 with GoToMeeting, both accommodate most businesses. When it comes to appearing on camera, Zoom goes the extra mile by giving you the “Touch up my appearance” setting that spruces you up if you’re not looking your best for that 9 am meeting.

GoToMeeting doesn’t give you a filter, but it does let you adjust more advanced settings, like brightness, contrast, and saturation. Playing with those settings can offer similar advantages, but it requires you to adjust them manually. Zoom’s filter does it for you automatically.

Zoom and GoToMeeting both offer backgrounds if you haven’t had time to tidy your workspace lately. Zoom also allows you to join your meeting from any device, including iPhone and Android.

Overall, Zoom has more advanced video features. GoToMeeting has enough to get you by, but if you want more flexibility when you hop on your call, Zoom has it.

Screen Sharing: Zoom

Zoom and GoToMeeting both have user-friendly screen sharing capability that shows which apps and windows you have open on your device, so you can choose what you share. You can also make it so specific people have control of the mouse.

Both platforms have a window that shows all your options for sharing, and with GoToMeeting, you can view them as a more compact list. Zoom and GoToMeeting allow others besides the meeting host to share their screen. You can even share on mobile!

Zoom offers more advanced screen sharing than GoToMeeting. It comes with audio sharing, so you can play a video that everyone can listen to, rather than just GoTo’s visual sharing feature. Zoom also allows you to share only part of your screen.

With Zoom’s simultaneous sharing options, you can share more than one monitor. For example, if you have several people contributing to a discussion, they can all show their screens to other participants. You also have document sharing on iOS and Android.

GoToMeeting gives you the basics of screen sharing, but Zoom shines with more well-rounded features, like its audio. Those features allow for more versatility when it comes to offering information and resources in meetings.

Storage and Recording: GoToMeeting

When you have a meeting, you sometimes want to reference what someone said without writing it all down. Both Zoom and GoToMeeting have recording and transcription features that you can save in various formats, including .mp4, .m4a, and .txt.

Zoom’s free version lets you record and store locally on your device, but you have to upgrade to the paid version to get 1GB of storage with Zoom itself. Some plans also offer automatic cloud recording transcription. If you need more than 1GB of storage on Zoom, you’ll have to pay $40 or more every month.

That’s where GoToMeeting has an advantage. It has unlimited storage starting with its Pro plan, whereas you only get unlimited Zoom storage with the Enterprise package.

GoToMeeting also makes it easier to share your recorded meetings when you can keep more of them on hand. Like Zoom, it also has automatic transcription.

When it comes to storage, recording, and transcription, GoToMeeting wins out. If you record many meetings, GoToMeeting gives you the space to do that at an affordable price. Other than storage, Zoom and GoToMeeting offer most of the same recording and transcription features.

Calling and Audio Options: GoToMeeting

Calling on your video conferencing platform should make things convenient for you. At the same time, you want high-quality audio without paying extra or using clunky devices.

Neither Zoom nor GoToMeeting requires you to use a phone or to dial into a meeting. All you have to do is turn on your computer’s microphone and speakers, and you get excellent audio quality with both platforms.

With Zoom, you can quickly test your computer’s audio to make sure you can hear others, and they can hear you. Both Zoom and GoToMeeting have the Call Me feature with traditional calling that will call meeting participants when it’s time for your meeting, so no one worries about forgetting the time. However, Zoom’s Call Me feature comes as a $100 add-on, while GoToMeeting includes it in every plan.

Overall, GoToMeeting has better calling features. It becomes more flexible when you want to use a phone to join the meeting, too. It has built-in audio using VoIP and Toll, and it makes more advanced features like Call Me available without having to factor them into your budget separately.

Administrative Controls: Zoom

When you run a meeting, you want to have control over it as the host. That includes who you let in, who controls which features, and who has the floor during the meeting.

With Zoom and GoToMeeting, the host has a lot of options when it comes to controls. As the host, you can mute or unmute participants and decide whether meeting members can mute or unmute themselves. You can also control screen sharing options and webcam visibility.

When it comes to chatting, you can adjust the settings so participants can chat with everyone or just the host during meetings. Both platforms have a feature that makes participants wait to get logged in via the Waiting Room (Zoom) or Meeting Lock (GoTo). These features allow for better meeting security so unwelcome participants can’t enter.

Zoom comes with another security feature that GoToMeeting doesn’t have—password protection. If you set the meeting so that participants can join before the host shows up, you can give everyone a password to join early.

Although GoToMeeting and Zoom share many features, including the ability to temporarily remove participants and put them on hold, GoToMeeting doesn’t include some of Zoom’s more advanced features like administrative control over recording, chat, notifications, and encryption, making Zoom a better option if you want to run a meeting your way.

Ease of Use: Tie

When you choose a video conferencing platform, everyone should be able to use it without any trouble. A steeper learning curve can delay meetings and waste time that your team could use planning, collaborating, and increasing productivity. With a user-friendly platform, you can seamlessly jump into your meeting without the wait.

GoToMeeting and Zoom have interfaces that almost anyone can figure out quickly. Zoom is a little more streamlined, with all meeting options laid out on one page with a visually pleasing design. There’s no overcrowding, and you can hover over or click on each one to select between them. You can even choose not to show the control panel.

GoToMeeting always has its controls on a full-page panel in a separate window from the meeting screen. You can shrink them, but you can’t hide them. They also have a more crowded layout, which makes it slightly less intuitive than Zoom.

GoToMeeting has lots of dropdown menus and right-clicking to navigate to additional options. On the other hand, Zoom clearly indicates where you can find your options with arrows attached to different features and settings on the page.

GoToMeeting’s layout is fairly straightforward, but if you want one that requires minimal thought to get around, go with Zoom.

Pricing: Tie

When it comes to pricing, consider how well the features stack up to the cost instead of going for the cheapest product. A cheaper package might mean the product lacks some of the features you need, which can cost you more in the long run.

Zoom has a free plan, which GoToMeeting doesn’t. On the other hand, GoToMeeting has more affordable paid packages than Zoom, and the two offer many of the same features. Each product has its advantages, from storage with GoToMeeting to administrative features with Zoom.

With Zoom, you’ll likely end up paying for some add-ons if you want to make up for what it lacks in storage and attendee limits. However, you may find that its free plan does all you need for your business.

Zoom has five package options:

  • Free
  • Pro: $149 per year per license
  • Business: $199.90 per year per license
  • Zoom United Business: $300 per year per license
  • Enterprise: $240 per year per license

The Free and Pro plans both allow up to 100 participants, though Pro upgrades to a group meeting limit of 30 hours from the Free plan’s 40 minutes. Business bumps you up to 300 participants and gives you more advanced features like single sign-on, recording, transcripts, and managed domains.

Zoom United Business has many of the same features as Pro. However, it also includes more phone features from Zoom United Pro, like unlimited calls to the United States and Canada, automatic call distribution, and a dial by name directory.

When you get the Enterprise package, you have a higher minimum license requirement, so you’re technically getting a discount. This package allows up to 500 participants, unlimited cloud storage, and a dedicated customer success manager.

GoToMeeting has three packages:

  • Professional: $12 per organizer per month
  • Business: $16 per organizer per month
  • Enterprise: Custom pricing

Professional gives you up to 150 participants with unlimited meetings and no meeting time limits. You also get some advanced features like Call Me, single sign-on, and administrative features.

Business upgrades you to 250 participants and comes with unlimited cloud recording. You also get features like transcription, meeting lock, and mobile cloud recording so you can have the full range of meeting features on the go.

Enterprise gives you the option to customize your package and hold meetings with up to 3,000 people. The main selling points for this tier include the Enterprise customer success manager, onboarding and training, and its volume discount. Otherwise, it has most of the same features as the Business package.

When you base your buying decision on price alone, GoToMeeting wins here. However, the two platforms offer different features in different packages, and GoToMeeting doesn’t have a free version. We can’t say for sure which would be right for your business based on cost, so choose based on your needs for your meetings.

Integrations: Zoom

When you can integrate your video conferencing platform with other workflow management tools, you streamline productivity in the workplace. Zoom and GoToMeeting have many of the same integrations, like Slack, Salesforce, and Office 365. GoToMeeting also has a Google Calendar plugin.

Zoom takes the prize for the most integrations, though. It includes Atlassian, Dropbox, Azure, and Okta, among others. Its integration features are more comprehensive, and it has a bunch of add-ons to boost its performance and functionality.

The only downside is that the add-ons cost money, and some can be $100 or more. Still, the broader selection of integrations means that you can do more with Zoom and have more communication capabilities and options with your team.

While GoToMeeting has a few workflow integrations, Zoom wins out by making itself compatible with almost any business. You won’t have to worry about it not working with your existing system.

Meetings: Zoom

Zoom is a leader in meeting platforms. Its intuitive platform makes it so simple that most teams pick up how to use it right away, whereas GoToMeeting might take a little longer to figure out.

Zoom has more meeting security, whereas GoToMeeting has some, but it’s not quite as in-depth. Both platforms have single sign-on, encrypted meetings, dismiss user features, and meeting locks. However, Zoom also has password-protected meetings for when the host hasn’t yet joined.

Zoom has more features that let you connect with others and even have some fun during your meetings with backgrounds and filters. GoToMeeting has enough basic features to get you through, so if you don’t need anything fancy, its crystal-clear video and audio and more advanced features in lower-cost packages make it worth considering.

Overall, Zoom’s ease of use, additional security, and more advanced features make it a better choice for video conferences.

Chat: Zoom

Sometimes, you don’t need to hold a meeting to discuss part of a project. For quick communication without jumping on a call, Zoom and GoToMeeting have chat features you can use on their own or during meetings between participants.

You can communicate between team members or external members, like vendors and customers, on both platforms. Creating separate rooms specific to various groups within teams helps keep everyone organized. You can also switch from chat to video with one click.

By setting statuses, you can see who’s available when you need them. With chat, you can even attach files and search for messages to find information fast.

Once again, Zoom has a little more capability here with starred channels, so you know where your most important chats are at any given time. It also archives your chat data for up to ten years.

Phone System: Zoom

If you want phone service capability, Zoom and GoToMeeting both have a cloud-based phone system. They even have separate plans for phone-specific features. In Zoom’s case, some of those features are included in Zoom United Business.

Both platforms come with video, HD voice, voicemail, and call recording. GoToMeeting has a broader selection of phone plans, but both platforms operate with Windows, Linux, and Mac. As with its video conferencing plans, GoToMeeting has cheaper ones for phone service.

Overall, Zoom has better quality service, especially with mobile. GoToMeeting’s mobile app lags sometimes, and it’s been known to kick people off the call.

Conference Rooms: Tie

Conference rooms let you join a room with one touch. You can share multiple desktops in one room simultaneously, so you don’t have to worry about booking your meeting or sharing screens between multiple people.

GoToMeeting sets up conference room capability in 15 minutes, making it especially convenient. It works for various room sizes, so you can even accommodate large groups. It also lets you sync your room with the GoTo Admin Center.

Zoom lets you join a conference room using your existing conference system, which can make for low-effort connections. It also comes with a one-click wireless share and up to 12 whiteboards per meeting. With role-based administration and extra security, Zoom keeps your meeting secure.

In this case, you may want to consider your priorities. Do you want convenience or comprehensive features? GoToMeeting still lets you collaborate with many people at once, but Zoom allows for more sharing within your group.

Final Verdict

Visit Zoom
  • Advanced screen & audio sharing
  • Join meetings from any device
  • Password-protected meeting security
  • Five pricing plans
Try for free

Overall, Zoom is the clear winner when comparing the two video conferencing platforms. Both have excellent features, and GoToMeeting has a few advantages over Zoom, like unlimited storage and superior calling options.

When it comes to general features and usability, Zoom pulls ahead with breakout rooms, filters, chat archives, and a more intuitive interface. If you don’t need the frills, GoToMeeting might have what you need, and its plans are cheaper than Zoom.

If you’re looking for a popular, easy-to-use platform, you’ll have more luck with Zoom. It has a lesser learning curve, so you’ll spend less time figuring it out and more time increasing meeting productivity. Some things depend on your business needs, so decide which works for you based on them.

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How to Know if Your WordPress Website Uses Cookies

Do you want to know if your WordPress website uses cookies?

Cookies are tiny files used by websites to store temporary information in users’ browsers. Many countries have different cookie laws that require website owners to disclose which cookies they use and what information they track and store.

In this article, we will explain how to find out if your WordPress website uses cookies and how you can manage those cookies to comply with local laws.

How to see which cookies are set by your WordPress website

What are Cookies?

Cookies are small files containing data sent by a website to store in a user’s browser. Cookies play a significant role on the web and are widely used to improve user experience.

WordPress uses two types of cookies out of the box.

First, there are session cookies. These cookies are used to login and are set for all logged-in users on a WordPress website.

Then, there are comment cookies. These cookies are set when users leave a comment on your WordPress blog. Their purpose is to store user’s name, email address, and URL information so that they don’t have to re-enter it the next time they comment on your website.

Apart from WordPress, third-party plugins and tools may also set cookies for your WordPress website.

What are Cookie Laws?

Cookies are a powerful tool that can be used to track a lot of information about users. Considering the privacy risks, many countries and regions have enacted laws that set compliance guidelines for website owners.

For instance, European Union has GDPR Law and ePrivacy Directive. Similarly, countries like Canada, UK, Japan, and many more have laws that require website owners to get user consent and disclose the information they collect, store, and track about users.

That’s the reason why you see cookie popups on many different websites. These banners allow website owners to comply with GDPR, cookie laws, and other privacy laws in different countries.

How to See Which Cookies Are Stored by a WordPress Website

All modern web browsers make it easy to view the cookies set by any website you visit.

Google Chrome

In Google Chrome, first, you need to visit your WordPress website. After that, click on the Padlock or Not Secure icon in the browser’s address bar. This will open a menu where you need to click on ‘Cookies’.

Viewing stored cookies in Google Chrome

This will bring up the cookies popup where you will see all the cookies set by that particular website in your browser.

Cookies stored by a WordPress website

You can also view these cookies by using the Inspect tool. Simply visit your website and left-click anywhere to select the Inspect tool.

This will split your browser window and you’ll see the developer console panel. From here you need to switch to the ‘Application’ tab.

Viewing cookies using developer tools

Next, you need to click on the Cookies menu from the left column and you’ll be able to see all the cookies stored on your site. More importantly, you’ll be able to see the data stored by the cookie under the ‘Value’ column.

Mozilla Firefox

In Firefox, you need to visit the website you want to check and then right-click anywhere to select the ‘Inspect Element’ tool.

This will split the browser window and you’ll see the developer console panel. From here, you need to switch to the ‘Storage’ tab and click on ‘Cookies’ to view all the cookies.

Viewing cookies set by WordPress using Firefox

Plugins That Allow You to Turn Off Cookies

Now when reviewing cookies set by your WordPress website, you may notice that there are some cookies set by different WordPress plugins you are using.

As a website owner, you may not want to use these cookies to comply with cookie laws in different countries and limit your liabilities.

However, not all WordPress plugins come with easy ways to turn off cookies and make your website compliant. Following are some of the plugins that allow you to easily turn off cookies without breaking plugin functionality.

1. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin on the market. It allows you to properly install Google Analytics and setup EU compliance addon.

First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more help, see our article on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

Once you have set up the plugin, go to Insights » Addons page and install EU Compliance addon.

EU Compliance addon for MonsterInsights

The addon works out of the box, and there are no settings for you to configure. You can see it’s enabled by visiting Insights » Settings page and switching to the Engagement tab.

EU Compliance addon status

The addon will now automatically anonymizes IP addresses, disable the Demographics and Interests Reports, turn off user and author tracking, and more. It also integrates with Cookie Notice and CookieBot plugins automatically.

2. WPForms

WPForms is the best WordPress contact form plugin on the market. It allows you to easily create GDPR compliant forms for your WordPress website.

First, you need to install and activate the WPForms plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to visit WPForms » Settings page and switch to the General tab.

WPForms settings

From here you need to scroll down to the GDPR section and check the box next to GDPR enhancements option.

WPForms GDPR settings

Checking the option will expand it and you’ll see the option to disable user cookies and user details for all forms.

WPForms also allows you to make individual forms GDPR compliant. For more details, see our article on how to create GDPR compliant forms in WordPress.

3. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the best lead generation software on the market. It helps you create GDPR compliant optin forms and lead campaigns for your website.

It allows you to easily add a Privacy Policy with a customizable checkbox. Users can then only submit the form once they’ve checked the box. It also allows you to enable double optin for your forms.

Adding privacy policy checkbox to OptinMonster campaigns

Plus, OptinMonster lets you target visitors based on their location. That way, you can make sure you’re showing GDPR-compliant optins to customers in EU countries. OptinMonster only creates cookies to improve user experience on your website and these cookies can only be utilized for on-site tracking.

4. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon is the best social media plugin for WordPress websites. It allows you to create social media feeds that are compliant with cookie and GDPR laws.

Smash Balloon GDPR compliance

The plugin detects if you have a cookie notification plugin enabled and then holds any cookies until user give cookie consent.

More Ways to Comply with Cookie Laws for WordPress Websites

It is the responsibility of a website owner to comply with cookie laws in different regions. Here are some basic steps to make your website more compliant.

1. Add a Privacy Policy Page

A privacy policy page is legally required to comply with privacy and cookie laws in different regions. See our guide on how to easily add a privacy policy page to your WordPress website.

2. Install a Cookie Notification Plugin

Cookie notification plugins show a notification on your website that it uses cookies and seek consent from the users.

Cookie Notice and CookieBot are two of the most popular cookie notification plugins that are compatible with many other popular WordPress plugins.

For more options, see our list of the best WordPress GDPR plugins to improve compliance.

3. Keep an Eye on Plugins and Tools that Use Cookies

Check your website cookies to make sure that you can connect each cookie to a installed plugin and tool on your website. When installing new WordPress plugins or third-party tools, make sure to check if they have options to make them GDPR and cookie law compliant.

We hope this article helped you learn how to check if your WordPress website uses cookies and ways to make your website compliant with cookie laws.

You may also want to see our WordPress security guide to make sure that any data that you collect on your website is properly secured.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Know if Your WordPress Website Uses Cookies appeared first on WPBeginner.

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7 Best Cloud Phone Systems for Remote Teams – Compared (2020)

Are you looking for the best cloud phone system for remote teams?

Cloud-based phone systems are a great option when your team members work remotely sometimes or work from home. Choosing the best cloud phone system is a very important decision because it can impact your business and customers.

In this article, we will compare the best cloud phone systems for remote teams with their features, pros, and cons.

The best cloud phone systems for remote teams (compared)

What is a Cloud Phone System?

A cloud phone system is a business VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephone system that allows you to make and receive business phone calls through your internet connection.

Because your phone calls are managed in the cloud over the internet, you and your employees can take calls from anywhere. You don’t need to be physically connected via a landline, as you would in a traditional phone system.

Cloud phone system is perfect for remote teams. Instead of employees giving out their personal cell phone number for business calls, they can receiving business phone calls using the virtual business phone number app on their cell phone.

That being said, here are the top cloud phone systems for remote teams.

1. Nextiva

Nextiva

Nextiva offers an excellent easy-to-use cloud phone system that’s ideal for remote teams. It comes with all the features and functionality you need for your business communications, such as unlimited free domestic calls, advanced call routing, voicemail to email and text, SMS messages, auto attendant, and online faxing.

The web-based admin panel is simple to use and manage. You get a free local or toll-free number, free number porting, and all the call management features you’d expect. These include caller ID, call forwarding, custom greetings, auto-attendant, advanced IVR (interactive voice response) system, and more.

Within the US and Canada, you have unlimited VoIP calling with Nextiva. For international calls, they have very affordable rates.

The Nextiva communication platform offers additional powerful features that integrate with your phone system. These include a fully-featured CRM and live chat, making Nextiva a Unified Communications system, also called a complete cloud platform.

Nextiva also offers online surveys and call analytics. The voice analytics software gives you real-time insights into phone activity across your organization. This lets you monitor call volumes and spot potential problems.

Larger companies, contact centers, and call centers often use Nextiva to transition their existing private branch exchange (PBX) system into a powerful cloud phone system.

You can use your existing desk phones with Nextiva, or you can buy IP phones for your remote team to use instead. Netiva also offers computer apps which work as a ‘softphone’, so your team can make voice calls through their computer.

Nextiva also have a business phone app that works on iPhones (iOS), and Android smart phones.

Most importantly, Nextiva gives you great call quality and connectivity through their incredibly reliable data centers. They have had no outages at all in the last two years.

If you ever need any help with your business phone service, their customer service team is always helpful and responsive.

Price: Nextiva starts from $19.95/user/month. The price per user varies depending on how many users you have.

Editorial Note: We use Nextiva for our team at WPBeginner and Awesome Motive. We’ve been huge fans of their platform and highly recommend them.

2. RingCentral

RingCentral

RingCentral is another popular cloud phone system for remote teams. Their feature-rich system includes all the standard options you’d expect, like unlimited calling, call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting, texts, online faxing, automatic call recording, and more.

You also get video conferencing with screen sharing, plus integration with Google Workspace (formerly G Suite), Dropbox, Microsoft Office365, Salesforce and other services. This can enable RingCentral to operate as the heart of your communications platform.

Like Nextiva, RingCentral will not charge you for calls in the US and Canada, no matter how many calls you make. Your team members can take calls through the RingCentral mobile or desktop app, giving them plenty of flexibility.

RingCentral also works as a cloud PBX or virtual PBX system, meaning incoming calls can easily be routed to the right department or extension. You can also add extra virtual phone lines as needed.

You can also use RingCentral to buy vanity phone numbers like 1-800-GoFedEX.

Price: RingCentral costs from $19.99/user/month, billed annually. There’s also a free 15-day trial available. This gives you a maximum of 5 users and 50 minutes of talk time per user.

3. Ooma

Ooma

Ooma is a popular business VoIP provider that makes a great cloud communications solution for remote teams. It gives you lots of useful features like a virtual receptionist, extension dialing, hold music, a mobile app, a desktop app, and more.

You can add a toll-free number (1-800 number) for free. There are also toll-free calling plans, so you get more minutes of incoming toll-free calls per month.

It’s simple to get your cloud VoIP business phone system set up with Ooma. You have the option to keep your existing business phone number or get a new one from Ooma.

Ooma also operates as a cloud PBX or hosted PBX system. This means it’s easy to transfer calls and enable team collaboration between remote employees.

You can set up team members with their own phone, purchased from Ooma or from a third party. Alternatively, you can reduce the upfront costs by creating a new line that directs to the employee’s existing Android or iOS device.

Keep in mind that with any phone system, your team members will need a reasonable amount of bandwidth (upload speed) to make high-quality calls.

Price: Ooma costs from $19.95/user/month.

4. Grasshopper

Grasshopper

Grasshopper is a great cloud phone system for small businesses. It gives you a virtual phone number that can forward calls to any phone number or mobile device.

You get all the features you’d expect, including call forwarding, routing, hold music, voicemail to email, and more. There’s a mobile app plus a desktop app, so it’s easy for your team to use while working remotely.

With Grasshopper, you are able to get a US or Canadian local or toll-free number. You can also add custom greetings and extensions. All Grasshopper’s plans include unlimited minutes, too.

A drawback with Grasshopper is that you can’t use it to make outgoing calls. You still need your regular phone number for that. Plus, Grasshopper is only available in the USA and Canada.

Price: Grasshopper costs from $26/month, billed annually. This is for one phone number, but you can add extensions.

5. Phone.com

Phone.com

Phone.com offers a simple web interface and mobile app to manage your cloud office phone system. Like the other phone system providers we’ve covered, they offer all the standard features you’d expect. These include call forwarding, call routing, caller ID, text messaging, voicemail to email, and more.

Phone.com includes Canada plus some European countries in their local call minutes. This makes calling out to those countries much cheaper.

With Phone.com, you can also pay for extra features including call recording and more phone numbers.

The cheapest plan limits you to 300 monthly minutes and 2,000 text messages. This may be enough for your business needs if your small company doesn’t make many calls.

There’s also 24/7 live customer support, in case you need help getting set up.

Price: Phone.com costs from $12.99/user/month.

6. Google Voice

Google Voice

Google Voice is a cloud phone system from Google. It offers all the features you need, like free calling to US and Canada numbers, call forwarding, voicemail transcription, text messaging, call screening, and more.

With Google Voice, you also get integration with Google Calendar, Google Fi, and Google Meet.

A Google Voice number can be used through cell phones or through the desktop app with a dial pad, letting your employees work on the go. They can set their Voice number to forward to their mobile phone or other devices.

Price: Google Voice is free for personal use. The business plans pricing is from $10/user/month.

7. eVoice

eVoice

eVoice is another popular VoIP service provider. It offers unlimited calls, call routing, custom greeting, call forwarding, conference calling, text messages, voicemail to text, and more.

It’s a good option if your remote team is international or based in the UK, as eVoice offers coverage in the UK, EU, and Canada, as well as in the USA.

Note: eVoice is branded as eReceptionist in the UK.

Price: From $16.67/user/month (billed annually).

Which is the Best Cloud Phone System for Your Team?

We believe that Nextiva is the best cloud phone system for remote teams. It has lots of advanced features, and excellent support. You can easily add remote team members and set up call forwarding rules.

Nextiva’s mobile and desktop apps are easy to use. This makes it a great option for remote teams, when hands-on training is difficult.

Plus, Nextiva’s unified communication platform comes with built-in CRM and live chat features.

This is why we use Nextiva on WPBeginner and believe it’s the best cloud phone system in the market.

If you want an alternative to Nextiva, RingCentral is another excellent option. It has similar features and comes as a close second in our list.

We hope this article helped you learn about the best cloud phone systems for remote teams. You might also like our comparison of the best email marketing services and best push notification software to connect with your customers after they leave your website.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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Canada, LOL, and Randie

Every so often, I enjoy taking things into a different perspective. In this article, I want to talk about some experiences which have caused me to think about how I am communicating with others — not only in IT, but in my daily life.

But...I Am Not IN Canada!

About every six weeks, I place an online order for a container of liquid iron for my toddler son to take on a daily basis. From my home in the Midwest portion of the United States, I open up a browser, navigate to the website, and start my shopping experience. Where things get a little off track is when I start looking at the pricing — especially during the check-out phase of my online order experience.

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CSS-Tricks Chronicle XXXVI

This is one of these little roundups of things going on with myself, this site, and the other sites that are part of the CSS-Tricks family.

I was recently in Zürich for Front Conference. It was my first time there and I very much enjoyed the city and the lovely staff of the conference. I was terribly jetlagged for my opener talk so I feel like I didn't quite nail it how I wanted to, but whattyagonnado.

It's named "How to Think Like a Front-End Developer" but it's really more like an adaptation of "ooooops I guess we’re full-stack developers now."

I've packed in several more conferences this fall:

  1. - Web Unleashed - Toronto, Canada
  2. - Dot All - Montreal, Canada
  3. - ARTIFACT - Austin, Texas - Use coupon code LASTCHANCE200 for this one.
  4. - All Things Open - Raleigh, North Carolina
  5. - JAMstack_conf - San Francisco, California

Speaking of conferences, if you know of any coming up that aren't on our master list of front-end related web conferences, please do a pull request or contact me.

If we've got anything at ShopTalk Show, it's consistency! I don't even remember the last time we've missed a week, and I enjoy making the show just as much now as I ever have.

Perhaps my favorite show of late was just chatting with Dave about what technology we would pick if on a greenfield (from scratch) project under different circumstances.

But mostly we chat with folks like Tyler McGinnis, Adam Argyle, Rachel Andrew, and Lara Hogan.

We're moving right along at CodePen as well!

  • You can now export Pens with a build process, meaning after an npm install, you have an offline version of CodePen to work with. Need to spin up a little processing environment for like Markdown/Sass/React/Babel? Just set up a blank Pen that way, export it, and you've got it.
  • We're building more and more of CodePen in React, and I think we're past the tipping point where the value in that becomes more and more clear. It's a good technological fit for our type of site. For example, we re-wrote how items are displayed and grids-of-items across the site. So now we build some little feature into it like "pinning" items, and it instantly sprinkles out to all the grids on the entire site. Same with filtering and view options.
  • Along those same lines, little moments like this feel very satisfying to me. That's related to our "Private by Default" feature.
  • We released a feature so you can block other users if it comes down to that (as well as report them to us).
  • We released some high contrast syntax highlighting themes that are both more accessible and darn nice to look at.

I got to be on Giant Robots!

We started an Instagram account at @real_css_tricks. The plan is just little educational tidbits.

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7 Best Virtual Business Phone Number Apps in 2019 (w/ Free Options)

Managing business phone calls from your personal phone number can become very annoying, and it takes away your privacy. Not to mention it doesn’t scale as you hire more people.

This is why many new and established business owners use virtual business phone number apps to get a custom phone number for their business.

A virtual business phone number allows you to use the same number on laptops, mobile phone, desktop handsets, and more. You can easily forward calls, record voice messages, and share the same number among employees.

You can quickly and easily setup a virtual business phone number without any technical knowledge. All you have to do is download the app on your phone or computer, and you can get started.

In this article, we’ll share our pick of the best virtual business phone number apps for small businesses (including free and unlimited options).

Best virtual phone number apps for businesses

When Do You Need a Virtual Business Phone Number?

Whether you run a small business website or an eCommerce store, offering customers a fast way to contact you will help you grow your business.

Most businesses now have an online presence, and customers need multiple ways to reach out.

While communication tools like business email, live chat, or text messages can be useful, nothing beats the personal human connection of hearing an actual human on the other end of the line.

Normally, businesses believe that having a landline number is quite enough. However, they soon realize how ineffective the traditional landlines are when it comes to handling business and customer calls.

And you definitely don’t want to make the mistake of using your personal phone number for business.

This is where a virtual business phone number app can help. It gives you the following benefits over the traditional land and mobile phone numbers.

  • You can use it on your phone with mobile apps, laptops, desk phone, and other devices
  • One number can be shared by different employees at the same time
  • Call routing, waiting, ring tones, vacation responses, business hours can all be managed via the app
  • Voice messages, text messaging, call to email transcription, and cheaper local/international phone calls are just the cherry on top

That being said, let’s take a look at some of the best virtual business phone apps that you can use.

1. Nextiva

Nextiva

Nextiva is the top virtual business phone number service provider on the market. They make it super easy to manage your virtual phone number using their app on your desktop / laptop computer, mobile phone, tablets, or a desk phone.

You can even keep your local number and use it with Nextiva to get HD voice calling over VoIP. They also allow you to get virtual business phone numbers for different geographic locations.

Nextiva has a powerful set of features included in each plan like call forwarding/routing, auto attendant, receptionist, voice mail to email, call queuing, unlimited calls, and call analytics.

Pricing: Starting from $20 per user each month.

2. RingCental

RingCentral

RingCentral is another powerful virtual phone number app provider for small businesses. They offer virtual phone numbers for any region in the US and Canada, toll-free 800 numbers, voice mail, fax, call forwarding, caller tones, and more.

They have easy to use apps for mobile phones to manage all your business calls on the go. You can also share the number with team members, setup auto call routing, create call flows, and ensure that your customers get all the answers they need.

Apart from virtual phone features, RingCentral also offers video meetings with screen sharing, free call minutes, and integrations with popular CRM software, Dropbox, Microsoft, and Amazon cloud services.

Pricing Starting from $19.99 per user per month.

3. Grasshopper

Grasshopper

Grasshopper provides an easy virtual phone number service for startups and small businesses. It comes with a mobile app that allows you to manage your business phone system on any device and from any location.

They offer virtual business numbers, vanity numbers, local numbers for different regions, 800 and 833 toll-free numbers to choose from.

You can keep business and personal calls separate with the same device and never miss a call. Grasshopper combines all essential features in one package with call forwarding, voice mail, business texting, business VoIP and WiFi calling, automated greeting, and more.

Pricing: Starting from $26 per month for 1 number and 3 extensions.

4. Phone.com

Phone.com

Phone.com is another great option to get a virtual business phone system. They offer affordable business phone services for startups, soloprenuers, and small businesses.

They also offer cheaper call rates to some European countries and Canada by counting those as local call minutes. From features perspective, you get mobile apps, call forwarding/routing, virtual assistant, IVR menus, text messaging, fax, and more.

They offer pay per minute plans which allows you to pay less based on your usage. However, it can easily get very expensive as your business needs grow.

Pricing: Pay per minute plans starting from $12.99 per month. Unlimited plans starting from $29.99 / month per extension.

5. Google Voice (Free)

Google Voice

If you are looking for a free virtual business phone app, then Google Voice would be the best option for you. If you are already using G Suite, then you can integrate it with all other Google Apps you are already using for your business.

Individual users and soloprenuers can use the personal plan to get a virtual phone number and call anywhere in the US and Canada for free.

However, the personal plan does not give you access to many of the business phone features included in their business plan such as auto-attendant, desk phone support, etc.

Pricing: Free for personal use. Paid plans start from $10 per user/per month.

6. eVoice

eVoice

eVoice is a popular business phone company offering international coverage, particularly in the United Kingdom. They offer business phone system, virtual numbers, toll-free numbers, and local numbers for different regions.

Their plans include call management tools, virtual receptionist, outbound calling app, conference calling and more. You can get custom phone numbers for UK, EU, Canada, USA, and many other countries.

You can choose from multiple plans each comes with a different number of users you can add, and set of call minutes. Call forwarding rates are different based on your location and the number you are forwarding to.

Pricing: Starting from £7.50 per month for 1 user.

7. FreshCaller

Freshcaller

Freshcaller is an easy to use virtual business phone app provider. Suitable for small and growing businesses, they offer reasonably priced plans to fit all budgets including a pay per minute plan with unlimited agents.

You can get international numbers, toll-free numbers, use the existing number, mask local number with a virtual number, or choose a vanity number.

It includes all the usual features you need like call management tools, business hours, mobile apps, shared lines, call waiting, SIP connections, and more. Some plans allow you to keep using your local carrier which is useful if you cannot port your local number or the local carrier offers better call rates.

Pricing Pay Per Minute or $19 per agent per month

We hope this article helped you find the best virtual business phone app for your business. You may also want to see our guide on how to get a free business email address, and the best email marketing services for small business.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

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CSS-Tricks Chronicle XXXV

I like to do these little roundups of things going on with myself, this site, and the other sites that are part of the CSS-Tricks family.

I spoke at Smashing Conf San Francisco.

There's a video! I can't embed it here because of privacy settings or something, so here's a link to the Vimeo.

It's an evolution of my "How To Think Like A Front-End Developer" talk. That's kinda how I like to roll with talks. Give the same one for about a year, but every time it's different as I learn more.

I was on the One Month podcast.

Chris Castiglione and I chat about:

  • How Chris Coyier learned to code
  • What’s a front-end developer?
  • What resources does Chris Coyier use to stay up to date on web dev?
  • Lessons learned from over 300+ episodes of the ShopTalkShow Podcast

There's a full transcript available.

We've released a number of new things on CodePen.

Quick hits:

And, as always on CodePen, we have a new CodePen Challenge, a new CodePen Spark (newsletter), and a new CodePen Radio (podcast) every single week.

I'm speaking at some upcoming conferences.

The front-end conference website got some upgrades.

We keep a list of all conferences out there related to the topics we write about here on CSS-Tricks! All things front-end web design and development!

It's a little 11ty site on Netlify, where you can contribute to anytime — particularly by adding conferences that fit the vibe that you know about.

Notably, every conference listed has a permalink (example). We did that so we could play around with dynamically generating images for them. It's super basic right now, but it was fun to play with. Dynamic CMS data is fed into an SVG, then also converted to a PNG at build time. Fancy. My hope is to upgrade the CMS to allow for cool custom backgrounds for each conference and then use them in these generated graphics.

Also, each conference has a little button where you can email it to somebody via Netlify functions, like we wrote about.

Jobs are $100 off in May

You know we have a Job Board here on CSS-Tricks. It's powered by the CodePen Job Board, which also powers the ShopTalk Show Job Board.

The price of posting a job is reduced from $299 to $199 just in May and runs for 60 days instead of 30.

Post one!

Dave and I have talked with people like Heydon Pickering, Jessica Ivins, Scott Jehl, and Guillermo Rauch on ShopTalk Show.

It's a great podcast, really ;). You should subscribe.

I bought a new bike!

A Specialized Vado (eBike). Cool right?

The trip from my house to work is a short bike ride, but it's a fairly dramatic elevation change, and my big ass is not capable of hauling itself up there. It's much easier with this, even with a couple of loaded saddlebags and a toddler on the back of it.

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