What business WiFi installation costs.
Honest ranges, no mystery.
Nobody publishes real prices for this, which makes everyone look shifty. Here are the honest ranges we see across the UK market, and the four things that move the number.
6 minute read · Updated June 2026
Why nobody gives you a straight price
Search for business WiFi prices and you get two flavours of useless: "from £99" adverts that evaporate the moment someone sees your building, and "contact us for a quote" walls that tell you nothing. Both exist for the same reason. The honest price depends on the building, and nobody selling at distance has seen yours.
We will not pretend otherwise, but we can do the next best thing: show you the real ranges, explain exactly what moves a job from one end to the other, and let you place your own venue roughly on the scale before anyone visits.
The four things that drive the price
The building itself. Floor area matters less than what the walls are made of. A big open-plan unit can be cheaper to cover than a small Georgian building with thick brick and awkward corners. Listed buildings and pretty ceilings add care, and care adds time.
Your busiest hour. Kit is sized for the peak, not the average. Forty phones at Saturday lunch needs more capacity than the same room on a quiet Tuesday, and a venue that runs events needs headroom for the big nights.
Cabling runs. Every access point wants a cable home. If usable cabling exists, brilliant, the job shrinks. If cable has to travel through walls, above ceilings or between floors, that is honest labour and it is usually the biggest variable on the quote.
Tills and payments. If card machines and business systems share the network, and they should never share it with guests, the design includes proper separation. It is not expensive, but it is design work, and venues that take payments should insist on it.
The honest ranges
With the caveat that every figure below is what we see across the UK market in mid 2026 rather than a quote for your building:
A simple refresh for a small single-room venue, one business-grade access point replacing a struggling freebie with minimal cabling, typically lands in the high hundreds all in.
A proper venue install, two to four access points, a switch and gateway, some new cabling and the till split onto its own network, most commonly sits in the low thousands. This is the bracket most cafés, pubs and small offices actually need.
A full fit-out, structured cabling through the building, many access points, comms cabinet built and documented, scales up from there with the size of the job, into five figures for large or complex sites.
Wherever the number lands, insist on seeing it broken down. Hardware, design, installation and documentation are different things, and a quote that hides them in one figure is hiding something.
Where the money actually goes
On a well-run job the hardware is often the smallest surprise: business-grade access points cost far less than people assume, and we charge kit at trade rather than marking it up. The real value sits in the design (measuring the building and sizing it right), the install day (neat cabling, tidy cabinet, no mess left behind), and the documentation (so whoever looks after the network next, including future you, knows exactly what was built). Cheap quotes usually skip the first and last of those, which is precisely why they end up expensive.
The ongoing cost question
This is where buyers get caught. Some big-name systems charge per access point, per month, forever, and the subscription quietly doubles the five-year cost of the network. UniFi, the platform we install, has no licensing at all: buy the hardware once and the bill ends. The only monthly costs in our world are optional ones, remote monitoring if you want eyes on the network, and portal hosting at £15 a month (£25 with monitoring) after the first free year if you run guest WiFi marketing. Both can be cancelled without breaking the network.
Keeping the cost down, honestly
Three legitimate ways, and one false economy. Reuse existing cabling where it tests good, it can save real money. Phase the job, core network first, extra coverage later, the right kit makes adding an AP a small job rather than a rebuild. And right-size rather than gold-plate: a good survey sometimes says "you need less than you feared", and we have sent people away with a £0 recommendation to reposition what they own. The false economy is skipping design and buying kit off a list; that is how venues end up owning two networks' worth of hardware that still drops out at noon.
Questions owners actually ask
Why will nobody price it over the phone?
Because walls, ceilings and existing cabling decide half the number, and none of them are visible by phone. A free survey exists to replace guessing with measuring; ours comes with a written summary you keep either way.
Is the cheapest quote a red flag?
Not always, but ask what it leaves out. No survey, no separation for payments, no documentation and no labelled cabling are the usual gaps. You find out which one was missing about six months later.
Should I lease or buy?
With no licensing on the table, owning outright is usually the better sum: the hardware works for years past any finance term. If cashflow matters, phasing beats leasing for most small venues.
How long does an install take?
A simple venue is usually a morning. A multi-AP job with cabling is typically a day, sometimes two. We say which before anyone books anything, and the quote states it.
The short version
Business WiFi pricing is not a mystery, it is just building-dependent. Simple refresh: high hundreds. Proper venue install: low thousands. Full fit-out: scales with the building. The price moves on walls, peak crowds, cabling and payment separation, and the only way to turn a range into a number is to measure. That part costs nothing: free survey, written summary, honest answer, even if the answer is "you do not need us yet".