Back by popular demand is another great phone from Samsung – the kajeet Certified Refurbished m300. This handy flip phone, small enough to slip into your pocket or kid’s backpack, comes with:

• A 4x digital zoom camera with self-portrait capability
• A large, internal color display, perfect for sharing pictures and showcasing wallpapers
• Bluetooth connectivity for hands-free talking
• Voice dialing capability
• Free, unlimited kajeet parental controls

This silver cell phone is just $39.99 and will start shipping on September 20.

Let us know what you think about this cell phone for your kid!

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

We’re excited to add another reliable phone from Samsung to our line up (and just in time for back to school season!). This stylish red flip phone comes stocked with great features including:

• A digital zoom camera
• Bluetooth™ wireless technology
• Voice dialing capability
• A speakerphone for hands-free talking
• Free, unlimited kajeet parental controls

All this for just $44.99!

What do you think of our newest phone?

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

You spoke, we listened – and the kajeet Certified Refurbished LG Rumors are back! Available in green, white or blue, for just $129.99, the LG Rumor features:

• An integrated sliding QWERTY keyboard
• A 1.3 megapixel camera/camcorder
• A 2” color LCD screen
• A built-in MP3 player
• A microSD card slot to hold thousands of songs and pictures
• Speakerphone and Bluetooth technology
• Free, unlimited parental controls
• And more!

And coming soon – the first kajeet touch screen phone, sure to set off fireworks this Fourth of July!

Which color is your favorite? Let us know!

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

If not, now’s your chance. Join the thousands of others who have already agreed to put their phones down and their heads up when behind the wheel in honor of National “No Phone Zone” Day, Friday, April 30. Led by Oprah Winfrey and transportation safety organizations from around the country, today is the day you pledge to keep yourself, your family and others safe on the road by making your car a “no phone zone,” free of the distractions often caused by an incoming call or text.

At kajeet, we acknowledge – and encourage – safe, responsible cell phone use every day. It’s the reason why we give every kajeet customer free, unlimited parental controls that can be customized to suit your family’s needs. Want to manage your kid’s phone so that calls can’t be made or text messages sent during school hours? Use TimeManager to make the phone off-limits for the time block you choose. Prefer that only specific phone numbers can call (or be called from) your kid’s phone? Use ContactManager to designate which ones these are and block all others. Want to know that your kid arrived at his or her destination as scheduled? Use GPS Phone Locator to confirm. These tools are just a few of the many that have helped establish kajeet as the safest cell phone service for kids. (Want another? Download our free parent-kid cell phone use contract here).

Did you take the pledge? What cell phone rules have you put in place for when your kid is driving?

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

We take great pride at kajeet in having created the best, safest cell phone service for kids™. Normally, we point out that we have free, unlimited parental controls and monitoring, kid-appropriate content, 4 awards from parent organizations, our GPS Phone Locator service…that sort of thing.

But we’ve kept some other things in mind, too. The high cost of living. The high cost of cell phones. The high cost of having kids (I have 2).

The average cost of a contract-based cell phone service in the U.S. is more than $56.00/month. And data-intensive smartphones cost significantly more. That so-called extra “family plan” line you’re considering adding? Analysis done by iGR Research found that the average cost of a “family plan” line is over $44.00/month, and the additional cost of an extra line for a child is over $35.00/month when all costs are considered.

Oh, and with that “family plan,” you can’t turn off the bills when your child goes to camp for the summer… (yes, you can do that with a contract-free kajeet phone).

But money is tight.  And the strain on American household budgets is why many people are turning to prepaid (or “contract-free”) cell phone services. You can find an article from ABC News about that trend here.

We’ve been hearing from parents about the need to spend less on cell phones for their children for a long time.  So here’s how we’ve responded. Kajeet offers contract-free plans that have:

• No contract
• No activation fee
• No termination fee
• FREE unlimited parental controls and monitoring capability (I know, I already said that)

Allow me to crow a bit about my favorite kajeet contract-free plan: $14.99/month for unlimited text and 60 minutes of voice. This is what I bought for each of my own 2 kids (I also subscribe to our GPS Phone Locator for $9.99/month, but that’s optional).

Here’s what I get: affordable service, no surprises and very happy kids.

So long as I have the ability to keep them from texting at school and during bedtime (using my FREE parental controls!), they can text to their heart’s content. That’s what kids do. The 60 minutes of talk are more than enough for the few phone calls they make to tell me they’re ready to get picked up and for me to call and check in.  They just don’t talk much. They text. And guess who texts a lot more now? Yup – Mr. Old School.

That $14.99/month plan strikes me as a pretty sweet deal. How sweet?  It’s a savings of $240 per year per kid over that so-called “family plan” add-a-line.

Oh, and did I mention that we are keeping the phone costs down by offering refurbished phones that look and work great? Check out our selection of cell phones here.

And for those parents who just want to have a safety phone in their child’s backpack?  We have a $4.99/month plan. You can see our other no-contract plans here.

Finally – lest you wonder about our coverage and network reliability – kajeet uses the terrific Sprint National Digital Network.

Thanks.

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

You spoke, we listened – and have made it easier to manage your account if your kids are on multiple recurring services (or if you have multiple kids on kajeet!).

Here’s an example: If your child is on one of our popular talk and unlimited text plans, and is also subscribed to our GPS Phone Locator, you may get billed for each service on two separate dates. But moving forward, those charges will be consolidated on one, common date. For customers affected, this change will be reflected on your Account Summary page – take a look and see!

This new monthly renewal date will make managing your account predictable and worry-free. Log in today and let us know what you think!

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

Did you know that as of June 30, 2009, more people in the U.S. had Visa® Debit Cards (352 million) than Visa® Credit Cards (309 million)? (Source: Visa.com) And a recent survey cited by CBS said that 28 percent of consumers planned to increase their use of debit cards while decreasing the amount of purchases they make with their credit cards.

Gift cards have also become extremely popular – US consumers purchased 87 Billion dollars of gift cards last year! However, according to the Tower Group, many consumers are giving more general purpose prepaid gift (debit) cards rather than store-specific gift cards because of their greater utility – they can be used for the basics – gas & phone – as well as in a variety of stores.

Many kajeet customers use their credit cards to pay for their (contract-free!) kajeet plans – but are surprised to learn that debit cards, prepaid cards, and gift cards can also be used.   We wanted to highlight this as debit cards can be popular with teens (many of whom pay for their own phone service) – and with those that don’t like to be tied down to things like contracts.

As always, if you have any questions at all, please call our Care Team at 1-866.4kajeet (1-866-452-5338), 9 am – 6 pm ET Mon.-Fri., and 9 am – 3 pm ET on Saturday.

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

How much does it cost to get kajeet for an entire family? Combine the new Parent Plans we are testing with our kid-optimized rate plans and it’s the most affordable solution around.

For example:

1) Family with 3 communicators (e.g., family with a parent and two teens who are all social): ~$80/month

• Parent uses the kajeet unlimited Talk and Text plan – $49.99 per month
• Each teen uses our 60 anytime minute/unlimited text plan: $14.99 per month per line

Total? Only ~$80/month for 3 lines for heavy communicators! And the teens can use more minutes for only 10 cents per minute (or they can upgrade to our $19.99 plan and get an additional 90 anytime minutes for just $5 more).

2) Family with 3 light communicators (e.g., a mom with modest usage and two kids that each use 20 minutes and 20 texts per month): ~$36/month

• Parent uses the kajeet Parent 500 minutes and 100 texts plan: $19.99 per month
• Each kid uses the kajeet $4.99 Basic Plan (with 10 included minutes). They take advantage of the low 10 cent rate for additional minutes/texts to purchase 10 extra minutes and 20 texts. Each spends only $7.99/month

Total? Only ~$36 per month for 3 lines! Plus, you can change plans at any time – and there are no annual contracts.

Who wants to worry about what cell phone company their friends (or kids’ friends) have? And who wants to be concerned with exactly how many minutes everyone in the family is using at any point in time just to make sure you don’t get hit with expensive overages?

Those days are ending with affordable pay as you go plans. And kajeet allows you to manage them all from a single account. Simple.

What’s the catch? Well, for now this is a test of kajeet Parent Plans, so it is a limited time offer. You must sign up for a Parent Plan before 1/26/10 to take advantage of these plans. If you are a new customer, this means you need to purchase by 1/5/09 in order to get your phone, activate it, and select the plan.

If you want to take advantage of our parent plan options, call care at 1-866-452-5338 to purchase your phone or select your plan.  (If you prefer to purchase online, select “this is a gift” during purchase and call care to activate and get put on these Parent Test plans.)  As always, if things go well with the test we consider making these plans part of our standard rate plan options.

Thoughts? We appreciate your comments and feedback on all our plans.

kajeet – the cell phone service made for kids

Still looking for that perfect holiday gift?  Looking for great savings?

Use promo code HOLIDAY10 and save 10% on any purchase on kajeet.com through Tuesday, 12/15/09. This includes the new, popular Rumor 2, as well any of our other hot handsets – even those that are already on sale! Plus, order now and also get free ground shipping!

Happy Holidays!

by Carol Politi

We hear all the time from parents interested in getting service from kajeet for themselves.  They have kajeet for their kids, like the phones, want a service without a contract, and would like to manage multiple lines from a single account.   Many adults also like our controls – they want to block certain numbers and stop the phone from waking them up at night!  

The challenge is that our plans are heavy on texting and light on talk.  For good reason!  Kids tend to text far more than they talk.

Well, we are running a test to see if all these parent inquiries really represent interest.   Here are the plans we are testing:

• 500 anytime minutes and 100 text messages for $19.99
• 1,000 anytime minutes and 100 text messages for $29.99
• Unlimited talk and text for $50.00.

All of this with a high quality nationwide digital network that delivers some of the best coverage around.  This test is going to run through January 26th, 2010.

Existing kajeet customers can take advantage of these plans by calling kajeet customer care at 1-866-452-5338.  You do not need to purchase a new handset to take advantage of these plans.  

New customers can purchase any kajeet phone through customer care and ask the care agent to put you on one of these plans.  Customers that want to purchase a new phone can do so through our care sales team at 1-888-525-3383.

Are these plans of interest to you?  We would welcome your feedback!