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The Yondr alternative that locks the phone itself.

With pouches, your staff are the lock. With LockedIn, the student’s own phone locks on campus during school hours and unlocks after the last bell. Nothing to hand out or replace, and your dean sees who tried to get around it.

Book a demoCompare with Yondr

No hardware. Live within a week. Pilots for one grade or one campus.

What a student sees on campus during school hours. Each school chooses the apps that stay available.

LockedIn and Yondr pouches, side by side.

Pouches were the first serious answer to phones in school, and they work when staff run them every day. Here’s how the two compare on the questions schools ask us.

  • How it works

    LockedIn
    The student’s own phone locks on campus during school hours and unlocks after the last bell
    Yondr pouches
    Students seal their phone in a magnetic pouch, opened with an unlocking magnet at the end of the day

  • Who enforces it

    LockedIn
    The phone, with alerts to a dean
    Yondr pouches
    Staff, every morning and again at dismissal

  • Daily staff time

    LockedIn
    Minutes, for whoever handles alerts
    Yondr pouches
    Handing out and unlocking pouches

  • A decoy second phone

    LockedIn
    Flagged until you approve it
    Yondr pouches
    Goes into the pouch unnoticed

  • Who’s compliant right now

    LockedIn
    Live dashboard and reports
    Yondr pouches
    No way to know until a phone comes out

  • Calling home

    LockedIn
    Students can always call home or 911
    Yondr pouches
    The phone is sealed until the pouch is opened

  • In an emergency

    LockedIn
    One tap unlocks every phone on campus
    Yondr pouches
    Phones sealed in pouches

  • What it collects

    LockedIn
    Whether the phone is on campus and locked, during school hours. Never messages, photos or browsing.
    Yondr pouches
    Nothing. It’s a pouch.

  • Works with

    LockedIn
    iPhone and Android, with the app installed and signed in with a school email
    Yondr pouches
    Any phone that fits the pouch

  • Getting started

    LockedIn
    Live within a week of the kickoff call
    Yondr pouches
    Pouches to order and hand out, and staff to train

  • What you pay for

    LockedIn
    A per-student license, quoted for your enrollment
    Yondr pouches
    Pouches at about $25–30 a student, replacements and unlocking bases

Yondr details come from public sources and reporting, including pouch pricing of about $25–30 a student before replacements. If something here is out of date, tell us at hello@lockedinapp.co and we’ll fix it.

A pouch can’t tell you who beat it. LockedIn can.

Students beat pouches with dummy phones and magnets, and nobody finds out. With LockedIn, the workarounds schools ask us about most show up on your dean’s dashboard, with the student’s name.

The dean’s dashboard mid-morning. Sample school and student names.

  • Signing in on a second phone

    Dashboard alert: Fake Device

    A new device needs your approval before it counts as the student’s. Until then, the dashboard marks it.

  • Deleting the app

    Dashboard alert: Possible Uninstall

    A phone that stops checking in for about two school days is flagged as a possible uninstall. A confirmed removal shows up as App Uninstalled.

  • Never installing it

    Dashboard alert: Never Installed

    A student on your roster without the app gets a reminder email every school day. From your launch date, each school day without it is filed as a violation.

  • Faking or switching off location

    Dashboard alert: Mock Location

    Location services switched off shows up on the dashboard. On Android, a fake-GPS app shows up too.

Each flag carries the student’s name, so the follow-up is a conversation with facts in it.

What a pouch program costs over five years.

If you’re looking for a cheaper alternative to Yondr, compare five-year totals, not unit prices. Three costs recur, and only one of them is on the quote.

  • The pouches

    About $25–30 a student in public reporting; Yondr’s price sheet on the ESC Region 13 co-op lists $30 a pouch, or $27 for co-op members. For a 1,000-student school, that’s $25,000–30,000 up front.

  • Replacements

    Pouches get taken home, lost on buses, cut open and worn out, so a share is re-ordered every year.

  • Staff time

    Handing out pouches, watching that the real phone goes in, and unlocking hundreds at dismissal, every school day.
What LockedIn costs instead. A per-student, per-year license, with a written quote for your enrollment. Nothing to replace and no daily routine to staff. Start with a pilot on one grade or one campus if you like, and Title I schools can apply for subsidized or fully covered access.Get a written quoteApply as a Title I school

Run your own numbers.

Enter your enrollment and your own assumptions to see the modeled five-year cost of a pouch program. Prefer a full page? Open the cost calculator.

Your pouch program
students
per student

Yondr’s price sheet on the ESC Region 13 co-op lists $30 per pouch, or $27 for co-op members.

%

Lost, broken or never returned. The 20% default is an assumption, not a published figure: use your own school’s.

Staff time
min each

Minutes each staff member spends handing out, collecting and unlocking pouches. The 40-minute default is an assumption.

per hour

The $26 default is an assumption: use your own staff pay.

Staff on pouch duty

4people

One per 250 students, at least 2. Change it under assumptions.

LockedIn
per student a year

We quote each school in writing and publish no prices, so this starts blank. Enter the per-student figure from your quote to compare.

Assumptions180 school days a year, 5 years, one staff member per 250 students and at least 2.
Assumptions
days
years
students
people

What a pouch program costs over 5 years

Modeled for 1,000 students.

Pouches, year 1
$30,000
1,000 students × $30
Replacements, years 2–5
$24,000
20% of pouches a year × 4 years
Staff time, 5 years
$62,400
4 staff × 40 min a day × 180 days × $26 an hour
Pouch program, 5 years
$116,400

Pouch program total over 5 years: $116,400.

LockedIn

One per-student license in place of every line above: no pouches to replace, no unlocking hardware and no daily collection. We quote each school in writing, so enter your quote above to compare.

Get a written quote for 1,000 students

Modeled figures for illustration, from the inputs above. The pouch price default comes from Yondr’s ESC Region 13 co-op price sheet; the replacement, staff time and wage defaults are assumptions. Actual costs vary by vendor, contract and staffing. Not included: pouch setup and unlocking stations. LockedIn is priced per student, per year. Ask us for a written comparison for your school.

Switching from pouches takes about a week.

You can switch mid-year, or start with one grade or one campus while the pouches stay in use elsewhere.

Families will ask what the app can see. The answer fits on a sticky note: whether the phone is on campus, and whether it’s locked, during school hours. The page for families

Check your state’s phone law too: where a law requires phones to be stored away, as Kansas’s does, LockedIn enforces and documents the policy alongside that storage rather than replacing it.

Launch plan

An example timeline

  1. 01Kickoff call: we map your campus boundary and bell schedule with youDay 1
  2. 02Roster sync from Clever, Veracross, Blackbaud or OneRoster, or a CSV uploadDays 1–2
  3. 03A 30-minute training for the deans and front office who will see the alertsDays 2–3
  4. 04The family letter goes home, with our parent FAQ attachedDays 3–4
  5. 05Students install the app and sign in with their school emailDay 5
  6. 06Launch week: we watch the dashboard with you and fix what comes upWeek 1

Plan your switch with us

Questions schools ask before they switch.

  • LockedIn removes the recurring costs of a pouch program. Yondr pouches cost roughly $25–30 a student before replacements, unlocking bases and the staff time to hand them out and unlock them. LockedIn is a per-student, per-year license with nothing to replace and no daily collection, quoted in writing for your enrollment, so you can compare five-year totals side by side.

  • A 1,000-student school pays roughly $25,000–30,000 for pouches up front, at the publicly reported $25–30 a student, then pays again for lost and damaged pouches and for the staff time spent handing them out and unlocking them every day. LockedIn is a per-student license with no hardware; ask us for a written quote and put the two five-year totals next to each other. The calculator on this page models the pouch side.

  • No. A pouch confirms that a phone went in, not which phone. LockedIn runs on the student’s own phone, which locks on campus during school hours, and the dashboard flags the workarounds students try: signing in on a second phone (Fake Device), deleting the app (Possible Uninstall), faking a location on Android (Mock Location), and never installing it at all (Never Installed).

  • Yes. Rollout takes about a week: a kickoff call, a roster sync, a 30-minute training and the letter to families, then students install the app. You can also start with a pilot on one grade or one campus while the pouches stay in use elsewhere.

  • Yes. Students can always call a parent or 911. At most schools the Phone app is never locked; at schools that use Guided Access or screen pinning, a student can step out of LockedIn at any time, and the dean sees that they did. In an emergency, one tap on the dashboard unlocks every phone on campus, and each phone asks the student whether they’re safe or need help.

  • During school hours, whether the phone is on campus and whether it’s locked, plus a few device signals that give away a workaround, like a second phone. Never texts, calls, photos, browsing or which apps a student opens. There’s no device-management profile, no location after school, and activity records delete themselves after 90 days. The page for families

  • Yes. Students install LockedIn from the App Store or Google Play and sign in with their school email, and your dean sees every student on one dashboard.

Further reading

Phone locker alternativePhone-free campusSchool phone policyAll guides