Stay in touch with your incarcerated loved one.

Yes. StayCloser is a real, family-run communications service dedicated to one thing: helping people stay in touch with an incarcerated loved one without learning a new system. We are privately operated, based in the United States, and accountable to the families we serve.

We are not a government agency, not a vendor inside any facility, and not a replacement for CorrLinks — we're the bridge that lets a normal text message travel through it. If you ever have a question about who we are or how your account works, email info@staycloser.org and a real person will answer.

No. StayCloser is an independent service. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, CorrLinks, TRULINCS, Securus, GTL, or any correctional facility. We operate as a messaging relay — your incarcerated loved one voluntarily adds our email address to their CorrLinks approved-contacts list, and we carry messages back and forth the way any family member's email address would.

This is important to say out loud because plenty of companies in this space pretend otherwise. We don't.

Two common ways. One: you tell them — most families hear about us from someone else and bring the service to their person. Two: they may have received a mailer with a personal StayCloser email address and the 3-step instructions printed on it. Either path works. If you start, email us and we'll coordinate the rest with your loved one.

Three things, once: (1) add their personal StayCloser email address to their CorrLinks approved-contacts list — this usually takes 24–48 hours for the facility to approve, (2) send the word START to that address once approved, and (3) keep CorrLinks open when they want to send or receive messages. After that, they send and receive messages through CorrLinks the normal way they send email. We handle the translation to and from your phone on our end.

Plans start at $10.99/month. That price includes unlimited messaging, photos, articles, search requests, lyrics, case-law lookups, and access to gift ordering and greeting cards. There are no per-message surcharges on a plan.

You get a 24-hour free trial before you're charged. If you cancel during the trial, you pay nothing. Pricing may vary slightly by facility and plan length — email us for a quote specific to your situation.

Both. You can pay from any credit or debit card, CashApp, Apple Pay, Google Pay, PayPal, Affirm, or Klarna. Your loved one can also pay directly from their inmate account via a BP-199 form — the standard request form for institutional disbursements. We'll walk either of you through whichever method you prefer.

Individual facilities and mailroom staff sometimes flag or reject specific messages — usually over image content, language, or incomplete approval status. When that happens, we notify you so you know the message didn't land, and either rework the content or help you escalate through the facility's mail-dispute process.

If an entire account gets blocked, we can usually re-route through a fresh email address and restart the approval step. No family has ever lost their account balance over a facility action.

We store only what's needed to deliver your messages: your loved one's name, registration number, facility, your phone number, and the messages you and they send. We do not sell, share, or monetize contact data. Messages pass through CorrLinks, which means the BOP has access to message content through their own systems — that's not something any relay service can change. For questions about how we handle your information, email info@staycloser.org.

Not today. StayCloser handles written messages, photos, and documents — the things that CorrLinks can carry. Voice and video calls still go through the facility's contracted phone-and-video vendors (typically Securus or GTL/ViaPath). We may add scheduling and call-credit support in a future release, but right now our focus is making the written side work reliably.