Pinwheel Phone: plans, controls, and what it really costs
Android phones (Samsung/Motorola) with therapist-curated apps and Caregiver Portal; single kids' phone that works with any carrier.
At a glance
Drawn from two things we check ourselves: the parental control matrix below, and which prices Pinwheel is willing to publish before you start a checkout. Nothing here is a hands-on impression — we say so rather than dress up a spec sheet as a test.
In its favour
- Device price and plan price are both published upfront
- No contract required
- No social media apps at all
- No web browser
Against it
- Activation fee is not published
Pricing
Verified 2026-08-24
| Device price | $119 |
|---|---|
| Cheapest plan / month | $14.58 |
| Activation fee | — |
| Total cost, 1 year | $293.96 |
| Total cost, 2 years | $468.92 |
| Total cost, 3 years | $643.88 |
Totals use the cheapest plan. “—” means the vendor doesn't publish this number on a static page; we don't guess.
All plans
| Plan | Monthly | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Caregiver Portal only | $14.58 | BYO carrier — SIM/plan from any carrier billed separately. Billed $174.99/yr or $49.99 per 3 months ($16.66/mo); there is no monthly option on the pricing page. |
| Pinwheel Wireless | $23.75 | unlimited talk/text + 5GB. Billed $284.99/yr or $79.99 per 3 months ($26.66/mo). |
Device price is the Genesis 4, Pinwheel's entry model, at list. Slim 6 lists at $199 and Plus 6 at $299. Pinwheel is running a promotion through 2026-08-16 — Genesis 4 $59, Slim 6 $99, Plus 6 $179 — but the discount requires buying a new quarterly or annual Caregiver Portal subscription, so we quote list and log the promotion rather than treating a two-week price as the price. Compatible with Bark monitoring (+$5/mo).
What you can control and monitor
| Text monitoring | Yes |
|---|---|
| Read texts remotely | Yes |
| Web browser | No |
| Social media | No |
| App store | curated + filtered Google Play (no social media) |
| GPS location | Yes |
| Contact approval | Yes |
| Screen time limits | Yes |
Compare
- Pinwheel vs Gabb: see the Gabb Phone 4 data page
- Pinwheel vs Bark: see the Bark Phone data page
- Pinwheel vs Troomi: see the Troomi (Samsung Galaxy A17 5G) data page
- Pinwheel vs MMGuardian: see the MMGuardian Phone data page
- Troomi vs Pinwheel: why one of the two prices has no phone plan in it
- Calculate your total cost for any combination
- See how this stacks up in the full monitoring matrix
- Contracts and hidden fees, phone by phone