--- title: "Apps That Mail Letters to Inmates for You" slug: "apps-to-send-letters-to-inmates" description: "Apps to send letters to inmates print and mail your message for you. Here is how online letters work, what they cost, and where they get held up." canonical: "https://bestinmatetextingapp.com/apps-to-send-letters-to-inmates/" markdown_url: "https://bestinmatetextingapp.com/apps-to-send-letters-to-inmates.md" type: "blog" category: "Post" published_at: "2026-11-14T05:17:19+00:00" updated_at: "2026-11-14T05:17:19+00:00" robots: "index,follow" --- # Apps That Mail Letters to Inmates for You Apps to send letters to inmates let you type or upload a letter on your phone, and the service prints it and mails it to the facility for you. You skip the envelope, the stamp and the trip to the post office. The letter still arrives as physical mail, so it goes through the facility's mail screening the same way a handwritten letter does. The facility decides which services an inmate can receive mail through, and mail rules are set by that facility, so confirm the address and any restrictions on bop.gov or with the prison before you send. ## How an online letter actually reaches them The process is simple on your end and slower on theirs. You write your message in the app or on the website, add the inmate's name and register number, and pay. The service prints the page on paper and puts it in the mail to the facility. From there it is ordinary incoming mail: it gets sorted, screened, and handed to the inmate when staff deliver it. That means the timeline is not instant. A text message reaches a federal inmate when they next get to a TRULINCS terminal. A printed letter reaches them when the mail room processes it and staff deliver it. If you need a reply soon, a letter is the wrong tool. If you want something they can hold, reread, and keep, a letter is often the better one. One practical detail: the address matters more than anything else you type. Federal inmates have a BOP register number like 12345-678, and mail usually needs the full committed name and that number. You can look the number up with the BOP inmate locator on bop.gov. If the name or number is wrong, the letter can be returned or delayed. ## What you type, and what gets printed Most of these services give you two ways in. You can type directly into a form, or you can upload a document you already wrote. Typed letters tend to come out cleaner and are easier for staff to read, which matters when a mail room is handling a lot of envelopes. Uploaded letters are handy if you wrote something long on a computer and want it to arrive exactly as written. Keep the content plain. Write like you are writing to a person, because you are. Avoid anything that looks like it is trying to smuggle something in, avoid stickers or drawings that could be misread, and keep the tone ordinary. Facilities screen mail, and a letter that raises a question gets held while someone looks at it. If you want to send a photo along with the letter, that is usually a separate order. InmateDB, for example, lets families upload up to 10 photos per order and prints them standard or glossy and mails them to the facility. That is worth knowing if your letter is mostly about showing them the kids or the new apartment. ## What it costs, and how to compare Letter pricing is usually per page, not per letter. With InmateDB, a printed letter costs $1.49 for the first page and $0.30 for each page after that. So a two-page letter is $1.79, and a five-page letter is $2.69. Write tightly and the price stays low. Write a long letter with a lot of blank space and you are paying for the paper. Other providers set their own prices, and those prices vary by facility and by service. I am not going to quote numbers for companies I have not verified, because a wrong price is worse than no price. Check the provider's own page and the facility's mail information before you pay. Compare on three things, not just the page rate: - **Where it can be delivered.** Some services only work with certain facility types or certain messaging systems. InmateDB works with federal (BOP) facilities that use CorrLinks, about 93% of federal facilities, and does not work in state prisons or county jails. - **What else you can send.** Photos, a typed letter, and a text message may live in different places or the same account. One login is easier to manage than three. - **How you pay.** A monthly plan can make sense if you write often. Per-letter pricing makes sense if you write a few times a year. InmateDB plans run $9.99/month for texting, $14.99/month for texting plus AI chat and news, sports, weather and trivia apps, and $19.99/month for full access, which adds a personal phone number anyone can text first, email and more apps. New accounts get a 3-day free trial. ## Where first-time letters go wrong The most common mistake is a missing or wrong register number. The second is sending to an old address after a transfer. Inmates move between facilities, and mail sent to the previous institution does not follow them. Check the locator before you send, especially if it has been a while. The third is expecting a fast reply. A letter is not a conversation. If you want back-and-forth, pair the letter with messaging. In federal prison, inmates send electronic messages from TRULINCS terminals inside the facility, and CorrLinks is the outside side of that email system. InmateDB is a separate option that lets a federal inmate text any U.S. or Canada phone number, with the family replying from their normal texting app. The setup is that the family finds the inmate on InmateDB by name or BOP register number and starts the trial or a plan, then the inmate adds one InmateDB contact in TRULINCS and texts by putting a phone number in the subject line and the message in the body. Families do not need an app; they can use the website, the InmateDB app or Telegram. How quickly a reply is seen depends on when the inmate can get to a terminal, and facility staff can monitor messages. Disclosure: Best Inmate Texting App is made by the team behind InmateDB, so weigh that as you read the comparison above. ## Letters and texts work better together Think of the printed letter as the long form and the text as the short form. Use the letter for the things that need room: a full account of a family event, a copy of a photo order, something they will want to read twice. Use messaging for the everyday check-ins that keep the week from feeling empty. If you are still working out the messaging side, our guide to [sending inmate messages online](https://bestinmatetextingapp.com/send-inmate-messages-online-2/) walks through the steps, and [sending photos to inmates with an app](https://bestinmatetextingapp.com/send-photos-to-inmates-app/) covers the picture side. For the bigger picture of how these tools fit together, see [connecting with inmates online](https://bestinmatetextingapp.com/connect-with-inmates-online/). Before you send anything, confirm the mailing address and any content rules with the facility or on bop.gov. Policies on mail, photos and contact are set there, not by the app you use, and they can change. ## Quick answers ### Can I send a letter from my phone without printing it myself? Yes. You type or upload the letter in the service, pay, and the service prints and mails it to the facility. You never touch a printer or a stamp. ### Is a printed letter private? No more private than handwritten mail. It arrives as physical mail and goes through the facility's normal screening. Write as if staff may read it, because they may. ### What if I do not know their register number? Look it up with the BOP inmate locator on bop.gov. The number, like 12345-678, is what keeps the letter from being delayed or returned. If you are ready to start, [Find your loved one on InmateDB](https://inmatedb.com/search) to confirm the facility and register number, then decide whether a printed letter, a text, or both fit how you actually keep in touch.