The one-line version
Your agency sponsors a caseload for a predictable monthly fee, becomes a vouching source, and every client you enroll gets a stable number, voicemail, and browser calling. Your fee covers a pooled allowance of calling minutes shared across your whole caseload — and if your funding ever lapses, your clients stay reachable anyway.
Why "sponsor," not "subscribe"
SteadyPhone follows the same trust model that made Community Voice Mail work for 350,000+ people over three decades: a client isn't just handed a number, they're vouched for by an agency that already knows them. When your agency becomes a SteadyPhone sponsor, you get your own vouch code — every number you issue carries your agency's referral behind it, without ever revealing that connection to whoever's calling. Nothing about the number itself says "shelter client" or "case managed." That's the whole point, and it doesn't cost extra.
What's included
Once a client is enrolled under your vouch code, all of this is covered by your monthly sponsorship — no per-client license, no add-ons, no surprises:
- A stable local number, in your agency's own area code where available. Nothing about it identifies the holder as a client of any program.
- Receiving calls, answered in the browser or PWA — the default way a client answers, drawn from your pooled allowance at the lowest rate on our card.
- Voicemail — recording, storage, and retrieval. Playing messages back in the browser costs nothing at all; we carry that ourselves.
- Web and PWA access from a library computer, a shelter kiosk, or a client's own device. No app store account, no payment method, no per-seat fee.
- Placing calls out, and optional auto-forwarding to a prepaid or borrowed phone — both drawn from the same pooled allowance.
How the allowance works
Every connected call draws from your agency's pooled minute allowance, at rates that differ by call type. Receiving a call in the browser is the cheapest thing a client can do — roughly 75 cents an hour. Placing a call out runs about a dollar an hour, and auto-forwarding an incoming call to another phone about $1.29, since it opens a second leg out to that device for as long as the two of them talk. An unanswered forwarded call still drops to voicemail as usual, and voicemail is the cheapest traffic of all.
Unused minutes roll over and never expire. A quiet month builds a cushion for a busy one — nothing you've paid for goes to waste.
The pool is shared across your whole caseload rather than split per client, so someone going through a hard month isn't rationed against someone who barely uses their number. If you're regularly running out, that's a signal to move up a tier — not a reason for us to bill you overages.
| Item | Cost | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Starter sponsorship | $45/month | Up to 45 participants, 1,500 pooled minutes |
| Standard sponsorship | $99/month | Up to 99 participants, 4,000 pooled minutes |
| Extended sponsorship | $229/month | Up to 229 participants, 10,000 pooled minutes |
| Additional minutes | $25 per 1,000 | Never expire; purchasable any time |
| Unused minutes | Roll over, never expire | Nothing you've paid for goes to waste |
| Client top-ups | Purchased directly by the client | Don't draw on your pool |
| Reachability floor | Always included | Inbound and voicemail continue even if sponsorship lapses — see below |
What your sponsorship actually buys
The thing that matters most to a client is almost always a call they're receiving — a callback from an employer, a caseworker relaying a deadline, a family member checking in. That traffic is the cheapest thing we carry, which is why a caseload of twenty-five people costs less per month than a single phone line.
What you're really buying isn't minutes. It's the guarantee behind them: that the number on your client's job application still works next month, and the month after, and after your grant cycle closes.
Clients can top up their own minutes, too
Your agency's pooled allowance doesn't have to be the only source of outgoing calling. Once someone's back on their feet — a first paycheck, a little cash from family — they can add minutes to their own account directly, the same way people already top up a prepaid phone: cash at a register, a reload card, no bank account or credit card required.
This isn't a replacement for your agency's allowance — it's an option on top of it. Nobody is ever required to self-fund, and clients who can't still draw on your agency's pool exactly as described above. But for the clients who can, it means:
- Your allowance goes further. Every client who starts covering their own outgoing calls is one less draw on the shared pool, stretching your monthly minutes across more people, longer.
- Nobody's stuck waiting on a budget cycle. If the agency pool runs low before your next billing cycle or a top-up, a client with their own minutes keeps calling out without interruption.
- Self-funded minutes aren't subject to the agency's rate limit — that cap exists to protect your pool, not to police how someone spends their own money.
Everything else stays exactly the same either way: the number, the vouch code, and the reachability floor described below.
Rate limiting, done the right way
You can cap how many pooled minutes any one client can spend on outgoing and auto-forwarded calls per month, so a handful of heavy users can't consume the whole caseload's allowance. Self-funded minutes are never subject to that cap — it protects your pool, it doesn't police how someone spends their own money.
Receiving calls and voicemail are never rate-limited, never throttled, and never cut off — not when your pool runs to zero, not when your sponsorship lapses. Being reachable is the entire promise of the program, and running out of minutes must never mean a client goes quiet. We fund that guarantee from a reserve set aside out of every sponsorship, precisely so it doesn't depend on anyone's budget cycle — including ours.
The price is cheap. The return isn't.
The model this is built on already has a track record: among Community Voice Mail participants who reported back on their goals, over 83% seeking employment found a job, and 90% seeking housing found it. That's not a coincidence — it's what happens when the one piece of infrastructure standing between someone and a callback finally holds still. A modest monthly sponsorship is a small price for restoring the thing that made those outcomes possible in the first place — especially next to the staff hours already being spent trying to track down clients who can't be reached at all.
If your funding lapses
Grant cycles end. Line items get cut. It happens to good agencies doing everything right, and your clients shouldn't be the ones who pay for it.
If your sponsorship lapses, nothing changes for ninety days — full service continues while we work to re-sponsor your participants with another agency in the network. Any minutes you had banked follow your participants too, keeping outgoing calling available until that balance is used.
After that, each number enters a floor state and stays there indefinitely: the number stays live, calls come through, voicemail keeps working. Only outgoing and forwarded calling pause, until a new sponsor picks them up or the client funds their own.
No number is ever reclaimed for nonpayment. Nobody goes dark because a budget did.
What sponsoring looks like day to day
- You sponsor a caseload. Your monthly fee sets up your agency's vouch code and pooled minute allowance.
- You enroll clients. Takes about as long as any other intake step — assign a number/extension, set an initial PIN, done.
- They're reachable immediately. Answering in the browser or PWA, and voicemail, work from day one, no matter what.
- They call out — or forward — when they need to. Job callbacks, family calls, anything they place themselves, plus any incoming call auto-forwarded to another phone — all drawn from your pooled allowance.
- Anyone can top up. You purchase more minutes for the shared pool any time, and clients who are able to can add their own — nothing expires, nothing resets.