Services & pricing
Everything DIRD does, in plain terms.
DIRD runs entirely by voice on an ordinary facility phone. Below is the full toolkit — what's Live today, what's Coming soon, and what waits on Phase 2. Prices are always quoted on the call before anything is charged, and every charge is logged to an account's transaction history.
01 Telephony Live
Call Relay & Identity Preservation
Call anyone on the outside and simply sound like yourself — not like a prisoner.
Ordinary institutional calls announce themselves: the person you're calling hears a robotic "this is a call from a correctional facility, press one to accept." It's a wall before you've said a word. DIRD bridges the call natively so that warning is never played to them — the conversation just sounds like a normal phone call from you.
DIRD also protects the goodbye. At signup you tell us the maximum call length your facility allows, and one minute before the line is hard-cut, DIRD plays a gentle chime only you can hear. You wrap up and hang up gracefully — the other person never hears the robotic cut-off. Dignity, start to finish.
02 The Knowledge AI Live
The live internet, delivered by voice.
A voice-to-web browser for people who have been cut off from the web entirely.
Ask DIRD a question and it searches the live internet in real time, then reads you back a grounded answer with its sources. It runs on a high-capability AI model with web-search grounding, so answers reflect what's true today, not a stale memory.
- Study your own caseResearch case law and legal concepts to prepare for trial or an appeal.
- Stay connected to the worldLive news, sports scores, the weather where your family lives.
- Get real answersFacts, definitions, how-to — the things a free person just looks up.
- Sourced, not guessedAnswers come back with the sources behind them, logged to your account.
03 Service Credits Live
The credit that pays for everything, run by voice.
Credits tied to your ID, with a permanent transaction register behind them.
Service Credits are prepaid credit for DIRD's own services, issued one credit per dollar. Every credit spent and every credit shared is written to a register attached to your ID — and DIRD can read any of it back to you on a call. Ask "what have I been charged?" or "how many credits do I have?" any time. No surprises, no hidden fees.
- Credit totalWhat you can spend, always current, readable on any call.
- Add credits by cardYou or a loved one add credits on a secure Stripe-hosted page — do it here.
- Share by IDSend credits to another DIRD account by ID number, spoken out loud.
- Full historyEvery charge and share, with an ID you can reference with support.
- Overdraw-proofYou can only spend credits you actually hold — the system refuses to overspend.
- No interest, no expiryCredits sit until you use them, however long that takes.
What Service Credits are not
Credits are not money and not a bank deposit. They are redeemable only for LaunchCloud Labs services and are not insured. There is no way to convert credits back to cash — no withdrawal, no check, no transfer to a bank account, and no exception on request. That limit is deliberate and it is what keeps this a service account rather than a bank account.
If you want to move real money to someone's commissary books, that is the Concierge Retainer below — a different service, with different rules.
04 The Concierge Retainer Live
We pay your institutional accounts, on your instruction.
A Concierge Retainer is money you hand DIRD with a stated purpose, for us to spend on your behalf as your agent — the same arrangement as a bookkeeper who pays your bills or a travel concierge who books your trip. You say where it goes, we execute it, and you get a receipt. DIRD repeats the amount, the vendor, and the beneficiary back to you and makes you confirm out loud before anything is queued.
- Your own accountsFund your commissary, trust, or phone account at your facility.
- Someone else's booksLoad a named person's books through their facility's own vendor.
- Commissary / Securus / JPay / GTLPaid through the vendor channels the facility already uses.
- Just-in-time creditsConvert retainer funds to Service Credits when you buy a DIRD service.
Where retainer money can and cannot go
Retainer funds are disbursed only to a correctional facility or its institutional vendor. They are never paid to an individual — not to a bank account, not to a card, not to a payment app, not in cash, and not by check. If a request doesn't name a facility or vendor, we can't execute it.
We charge nothing to load someone's books. DIRD makes its money on its own services — calls, the Knowledge AI, messaging — not on handing your money to a vendor.
Every instruction is reviewed by a real person before it moves. That review is a feature, not a delay for its own sake — it's how DIRD keeps the ledger clean and protects you from mistakes and fraud. Accepted amounts are held aside immediately so funds can't be committed twice while in review; a declined instruction is released back in full, automatically.
05 Messaging & contact book Live
Reach people even when you can't get them live.
From a call, ask DIRD to send a text to someone on the outside on your behalf — a quick "I'm okay," a message to a kid, a note to your lawyer. And your contact book means you save a name and number once, then just say the name next time instead of spelling it over a bad line.
§ On the roadmap
What's coming next.
These are where DIRD is going. Items marked Coming soon are in active development. Items marked Phase 2 depend on a banking partner and the licensing behind it, so we won't put a date on them. Nothing here is live yet, and we'll never charge for any of it until it is.
The DIRD Card
A physical debit card issued through a partner bank — the step that would let value built inside be spent in the free world, so you walk out with an account instead of a paper voucher. It is the whole reason Phase 2 exists. It also requires bank rails and the licensing that comes with them, so we will not put a date on it, and we will not pretend today's Service Credits already work this way. They do not.
Keep your own phone number
Port the mobile number you had as a free person into DIRD, and we become your carrier. We take the calls and texts sent to your old number and let you reach them from inside — it's like having your cell phone back. Your old contacts come with it.
Message Delivery Service (MDS)
Dictate a message to DIRD and we deliver it for you — as a voicemail or a text — to anyone you name. A dependable way to get a message through to people who are hard to reach on a live call.
Referrals
Tell someone inside to sign up with your code and you both earn Service Credits as the community grows. Word of mouth on the yard is how DIRD spreads — and it should reward the people doing the spreading. Referral rewards are paid in credits, not cash.
Manage online — the web portal
A secure web account for released individuals and loved ones. Link to a DIRD account with the passphrase and security questions, then add credits, pull receipts, share credits by ID, instruct a books-loading, manage contacts, and open support tickets — everything the phone does, in a browser.
Sign up before you go
Know a sentence is coming? Create your DIRD account online first — generate your ID, set your one-word passphrase and five security questions — so the moment you reach a facility phone, you just dial and sign in. No lost time.
Package delivery
Order approved items from approved vendors for delivery inside, where your facility permits it — the things you need, without commissary markup.
Getting started takes one phone call.
From inside, dial +1 (708) 746-8279 and say "sign up." Heading in soon? You'll soon be able to create your account online first. From the outside, the best way to help is to add Service Credits to someone's account.