You can send a letter to a federal inmate online in three steps: write it or upload it, pay by the page, and the service prints it and mails it to the facility. With ParakeetInmate, powered by InmateDB, that costs $1.49 for the first page and $0.30 for each page after. The letter arrives as physical mail, so the inmate gets paper in their hands, not a message on a screen.
That last point matters more than most families expect. Online letter services are not the same as email. If you want a reply that reaches you in a texting app, that is a different tool. This guide covers the letter side: typing versus uploading, what the per-page price means in practice, and the part nobody explains until the first letter goes wrong.
Typing or uploading: which one fits your letter
Both options end the same way, as a printed page in an envelope. The difference is who does the formatting work.
Typing means you write directly in the service’s text box. This is the better choice for a short letter, a quick update, or anything you want to get out today. You control the words and nothing else. You do not have to think about margins, fonts or page breaks, because the service handles the layout when it prints.
Uploading means you write the letter somewhere else, save it as a file, and send that file to be printed. Families choose this when they want a specific look, when they are sending a letter several people signed, or when they already have a document written. The catch is that whatever you upload is what gets printed. If your file has a date at the top from three weeks ago, or a nickname in the header, that goes to the facility too. Read the file once before you send it.
A practical rule: if the letter is under a page and you are writing it fresh, type it. If you are sending something longer, or something you drafted carefully, upload it and check it first.
What the per-page price actually means for your letter
The pricing is simple but worth spelling out, because families are often surprised by the total on a long letter.
- First page: $1.49
- Each page after that: $0.30
So a one-page letter is $1.49. A three-page letter is $2.09. A five-page letter is $2.69. The first page carries most of the cost, which means writing two pages instead of one adds very little. If you have been trimming your letter to save money, you can stop.
Where people get caught: a letter that looks like one page on your screen can print as two. Long paragraphs, large text, or a photo pasted into the document can push content onto a second sheet. If you are uploading a file and the page count matters to you, check the print preview before you pay.
Photos are priced separately from letters. If you want to include pictures, that is its own order with its own rules, and it is worth reading sending photos to a federal inmate: upload, print, mail before you combine the two in your head.
How the letter gets from your screen to their hands
Once you pay, the letter is printed and mailed to the facility. It does not appear on a screen inside. It does not land in the inmate’s email. It goes through the same mailroom as anything else addressed to them.
That has two consequences you should plan around.
First, the facility’s mail rules apply. What gets opened, what gets inspected, what gets rejected, and what counts as contraband are decided by the Bureau of Prisons and by the individual facility, not by the service that printed your letter. Before you send anything unusual, check bop.gov or ask the facility directly. Do not assume that because a letter was accepted online it will be accepted at the mailroom.
Second, timing is not something anyone can promise you. The letter has to be printed, mailed, delivered to the facility, sorted, and handed to the inmate. How long that takes depends on the mail and on the facility. If you need to reach someone quickly, a letter is the wrong tool, and that is where texting comes in.
The mistake families make with the address
The most common first-letter problem is not the letter itself. It is the address.
Federal inmates have a Bureau of Prisons register number, formatted like 12345-678. That number has to be on the mail, along with the inmate’s full committed name and the facility’s address. If the number is missing or wrong, the letter can be delayed or returned. If you are not sure of the number, look it up with the BOP inmate locator on bop.gov before you send anything.
Two more things that trip people up. Use the name the inmate is committed under, not a nickname, even if everyone calls them something else. And confirm the facility is current. People get transferred, and a letter sent to the old institution does not follow them.
If you are sending a letter for the first time and want the broader picture of how online letters work across services, how to send letters to inmates online walks through the same ground from a different angle.
When a letter is the right tool, and when it isn’t
Letters do something texting cannot. They are physical, they can be kept, reread, and pinned to a wall. For a birthday, a holiday, or a hard week, paper carries weight that a screen does not.
But letters are slow, and they are one-way until the inmate writes back. If what you actually want is a back-and-forth conversation, federal inmates can text. Bureau of Prisons inmates send electronic messages from TRULINCS terminals inside the facility, and CorrLinks is the outside side of that email system. ParakeetInmate, powered by InmateDB, works with federal facilities that use CorrLinks, about 93% of federal facilities. The family finds the inmate by name or register number, starts the trial or a plan, and the inmate adds one contact in TRULINCS. After that, messages move like texts, and replies come back to your normal texting app. Plans start at $9.99 a month, and new accounts get a 3-day free trial.
Many families use both. A text most days, a letter when it counts. If you want to understand the message side better, how federal inmates send emails explains what the inmate actually sees on the terminal.
One honest limit: this does not work in state prisons or county jails. Those systems are separate, and the rules and tools are different.
Quick answers
Can I send a letter and a photo in the same order?
Treat them as separate things. Letters are priced by the page, and photos are ordered in batches of up to 10, printed, and mailed. Check the photo rules for the specific facility before you send, since what is allowed varies.
Will the inmate be able to write back?
Yes, by regular mail to whatever address you provide in your letter. If you want faster replies, set up texting so they can reach you from the TRULINCS terminal when they next get to one. How quickly they see or send anything depends on terminal access at their facility.
How do I know my letter was accepted?
You will know the order went through, but acceptance at the facility is a separate step governed by mailroom rules. If you are unsure whether something in your letter is allowed, ask the facility before you send it rather than after.
If you are ready to reach your person, start by finding them. Find your loved one by name or BOP register number, and you will know within a minute whether their facility is one we can reach.