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Tell it how long a call usually runs and how often they ring. It works out what those calls cost them at the mobile rate, and what the same conversations cost at the landline rate — out of the same account, under the same weekly cap.
The money is theirs, not yours — it stays in their account and buys more of the same call. Below about 26 minutes a day the difference is too small to be worth paying us for, and it will say so.
Every figure comes from the published HMPPS rates, blended across the week. The saving rounds down and the fee rounds up, so what it shows you is never better than the truth.
How often do they ring?
That’s about 1,800 minutes a month. All covered — minutes are unlimited.
What those calls cost them
£43.13
a month, instead of £88.74 — the same conversations, out of the same capped account
You pay £19.99 a month for that, and it does not move however much more they ring. Same cap, same canteen money, about 2× the talk.
Send this to someoneThe assumptions, in full — so you can check the answer rather than take it.
Multiply the length of a typical call by how often they ring, then by the rate for the number they dial. On the published HMPPS rates that is 5.50p a minute to a mobile on weekdays and 2.48p to a landline. An hour a day to a mobile is about £99.00 a month of their money; the same calls to a landline are about £44.64.
That calls are charged at the published HMPPS rates for England and Wales, effective 1 April 2025, blended across the week — HMPPS charges the weekday rate from midnight Sunday to midday Friday, so roughly seven minutes in ten fall at the weekday rate. It rounds the saving down and our fee up, so the figure it shows is never better than the truth.
About 26 minutes a day. That is not a break-even for you — you are paying for the number either way, the same as any phone bill. It is the point where the difference to them stops being trivial: every minute at the landline rate leaves 2.53p more in their account than the mobile rate would, and below a certain amount of talking that is too small for us to take your money for. The calculator says so rather than talking you into it.
To them. Calls are paid out of the account of the person inside, so a lower rate leaves more of their own money in it — for canteen, for phone credit, for whatever else. The household pays the subscription; the person inside keeps the saving.
Because it puts a ceiling on the whole thing. Prisons cap what a person can spend from their own account each week — £21.75 on the standard regime. That cap buys about 1,911 minutes a month at the mobile rate or about 3,933 at the landline rate. Sending more money cannot lift it; only a lower rate gets more talk out of it.