Mount Pleasant runs Iowa's only midweek video schedule, so a Wednesday evening here is often cheaper than talking and it costs nothing. Create your phone account in minutes.
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Iowa charges a flat seven cents a minute to the lower 48, among the cheapest published prison phone rates in the country, and it prints an international card as well. Calls only go one way. The person inside places them, they connect only when your number is on an approved list, and Iowa refuses several kinds of number outright. At Mount Pleasant there is a genuinely useful alternative that most Iowa prisons do not offer: video runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday into the evening, and Iowa charges nothing for it.
Iowa charges a flat seven cents per minute for all calls within the lower 48 states. Twenty minutes is $1.40.
The department explains the figure rather than leaving it bare. Its rate sheet says the costs of providing the service are reflected in rates “which are lower than for most other states”, and Iowa Code chapter 904.508A directs the revenue into a fund the Board of Corrections has assigned to legal services, religious accommodations, education and victim services.
Every call is placed by the person inside, and it connects only if your number is on their approved calling list. Iowa requires them to give the legal first and last name of whoever owns each number, and a number added without one can be restricted.
There is no form for you to file and no account you can open that speeds this up. What you can do is check that the number they have for you is one Iowa is willing to dial.
Forwarding is the one that quietly wastes months. A landline that forwards to a mobile looks like a working number and will never take a call.
Iowa also bars calls to particular people: department staff, victims and victims’ households, minors where the offence involved a minor, anyone under a no-contact order, people currently under correctional supervision with limited family exceptions, and anyone released from prison in the last six months.
That last rule has a particular edge at a reentry prison. Somebody who left Mount Pleasant recently cannot be called by the friends they left behind, for half a year.
At most Iowa prisons video is a weekend or Monday morning arrangement, which working families cannot reach.
Mount Pleasant’s Main Building runs video Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 1:00 PM to 7:30 PM, the only midweek schedule in the state and the latest finish. The Minimum Live Out unit runs video Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 PM to 7:30 PM.
Iowa charges nothing for either. Booking is through the Ameelio Connect app, and everyone aged 16 and over shows valid photo identification at the start.
For a family weighing the cost of calls, an hour of free video on a Wednesday evening is the thing this prison offers that most of Iowa does not.
Most states say international calls cost more and leave it there. Iowa publishes a card, from the rate sheet effective May 1, 2026:
| Destination | Per minute |
|---|---|
| Lower 48 states | $0.07 |
| Alaska | $0.12 |
| Hawaii | $0.14 |
| Canada, Mexico, Puerto Rico | $0.12 |
| Vietnam | $0.15 |
| Honduras, Philippines | $0.23 |
| Guatemala | $0.28 |
| El Salvador | $0.30 |
| United Kingdom | $0.66 |
The mechanism is Iowa’s seven cents plus the average the provider paid to route the call abroad, which is why Vietnam costs eight cents more than a domestic call while a UK mobile costs far more than a UK landline.
Mount Pleasant handles no phone money. Phone credit for every Iowa prison is lockboxed at Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, roughly an hour south.
Funding from outside means posting a money order with the printed Offender Telephone Service form, and 7 percent sales tax comes off the top. Iowa’s worked example: a $10 family deposit becomes a $9.35 credit. When the person inside transfers his own money instead, 7 percent is added, so $10 costs him $10.70.
The minimum is $1, the transfer cannot be reversed, and unused phone money is credited back on release, which at a reentry prison happens more often than a transfer does.
Commissary money is a separate envelope to a separate town, going to the IDOC Offender Fiduciary Account at Fort Dodge.
Blocking is easy. Contact the institution and ask, or take the option offered when a call comes through.
Unblocking is deliberately hard. Iowa requires a written request to the Iowa State Penitentiary Business Office, and it must come from the owner of the telephone number. Not from the person inside, not over the phone, and not through Mount Pleasant.
Include the number, your name as the account holder, your address, and the incarcerated person’s name and offender number so the office can match the request.
An incoming call from an attorney needs five days advance notice, runs Monday to Friday between 8:00 AM and 4:00 PM, and is scheduled in 25-minute intervals in a private phone room. Iowa’s policy states these calls are not monitored.
Outgoing calls to attorney numbers registered with the Iowa Supreme Court are likewise not monitored or recorded.
The department states it plainly: it does not issue refunds for any dropped, lost or disconnected calls placed to cellular devices, and the same applies to VoIP and digital landline services.
You pay for the minutes regardless. A genuine copper landline is the only thing treated differently.
Iowa runs offender email through CorrLinks at $0.25 per message, less than four minutes of talking. Register at corrlinks.com.
The person inside funds his side the same way as phone credit, with 7 percent added. Iowa’s family-facing page caps a message at 13,000 characters or 100 lines, roughly two pages, while two departmental policies say 14,000. The contradiction is Iowa’s and it stands.
The department is direct about privacy: by its nature O-mail is not confidential, and all incoming and outgoing messages may be inspected and read.
6 of 8 questions
Seven cents a minute anywhere in the lower 48, so twenty minutes is $1.40. Alaska is 12 cents, Hawaii 14, and Canada, Mexico and Puerto Rico 12. Iowa also publishes an international card running from 15 cents for Vietnam to 66 cents for the United Kingdom.
Phone CallsNo. Every call in Iowa's system is placed by the person inside and no family member can ring in. The number 319-385-9511 reaches staff, and it doubles as the statewide line for visitor application questions and as this prison's visit booking line between 7:00 AM and 2:00 PM on weekdays.
Phone CallsYes, and Mount Pleasant is better placed for it than most Iowa prisons. Main Building video runs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 1:00 PM to 7:30 PM, the only midweek schedule in the state, and Iowa charges nothing for video visits. Minimum Live Out video runs Saturday and Sunday, 2:30 PM to 7:30 PM.
Phone CallsUsually because your number is not on his approved calling list yet, which he arranges from inside along with the legal first and last name of whoever owns the number. The other common cause is the number itself, since Iowa blocks call forwarding, toll-free numbers, 900 numbers, credit card calls and three-way calls outright.
Phone CallsNot for six months. Iowa bars calls to anyone released from prison in the last six months, and separately to people currently under correctional supervision, with limited exceptions for immediate family. At a reentry prison this comes up more than it does elsewhere in the state.
Phone CallsTo Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison, about an hour south, which holds the phone deposit lockbox for every Iowa prison. Post a money order with the printed Offender Telephone Service form. A family deposit has 7 percent sales tax deducted, so Iowa's own example is that $10 becomes a $9.35 credit.
Phone CallsIn writing, and only from you. Iowa requires a written request to the Iowa State Penitentiary Business Office from the owner of the telephone number. He cannot make the request, it cannot be done by phone, and it does not go through Mount Pleasant.
Phone CallsNo. The department states that it does not issue refunds for any dropped, lost or disconnected calls placed to cellular devices, and the same applies to VoIP and digital landline services. A genuine copper landline is the only thing treated differently.
Phone CallsThe offender number every account here runs on.
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All information on this page comes directly from official government and facility sources. How we verify information › Last verified September 9, 2026.