What a captive portal actually is.
And what it costs.
The sign-in page your guests meet before they get online. Most venues have one and barely use it. Here is how the whole thing works, in plain English, with honest UK costs.
6 minute read · Updated June 2026
You have probably used one this week
If you have ever joined the WiFi in a hotel, an airport or a chain coffee shop and a page appeared asking for your email or your room number, that page was a captive portal. It is the front door between a guest's phone and your internet connection. Until they walk through it, they are not online.
That is the whole concept. The interesting part is what you put on that front door. Every guest in your venue passes through it, on their own phone, while they are sat in your building. No poster, flyer or social post gets that sort of guaranteed attention.
How it works, step by step
- A guest joins your guest WiFi. Their phone notices the network wants a sign-in and opens the page automatically. No app, nothing to install.
- The page asks for something small. Typically a name and an email address, with a tick box that says something like "send me the occasional offer". The guest stays in control of that box.
- They tap connect. They are online. The whole exchange takes about fifteen seconds, and their phone remembers the network for next time.
- Behind the scenes, the details land in your mailing list, along with a record of when and how consent was given. That record matters, and we will come back to it.
On a properly built setup, the page is yours from top to bottom: your logo, your colours, your tone of voice, on your own web address. On a cheap or rented one, it tends to be somebody else's template with your name dropped into a box, and a "powered by" badge in the corner.
What it is actually for
A portal does not make your WiFi faster. What it does is turn a cost you already pay for into something that works for the business.
A mailing list you own. Hundreds of people connect to a busy venue's WiFi every week. Without a portal you learn nothing from any of it. With one, a steady share of those visitors opt in, and after a few months you are sat on a list of real customers who have physically been through the door. It is the cheapest marketing a venue can build, and it keeps working in the quiet weeks of January when nothing else is bringing people in.
More Google reviews. A friendly prompt after someone connects, while they are happy with a coffee in front of them, earns reviews that no amount of asking at the till manages. Done within the rules, it is the most natural review engine there is.
A proper first impression. A branded, well-written sign-in page reads as "this place has its act together" in a way an open network or a default telecoms page never will. Small thing, big signal.
The same job done legally. A decent portal records consent properly, which protects you the day someone asks why they are receiving your emails. More on that next.
The legal bit, briefly
Two sets of rules apply in the UK: GDPR and PECR, the rules on electronic marketing. Between them they boil down to this: you can email the people who said yes, and you must be able to show they said yes.
In practice a compliant portal means five things: an unticked opt-in box, a plain note about what they are signing up to, a link to your privacy notice, an unsubscribe link in every email, and a timestamped consent log. None of that is difficult, it just has to be built in from the start. Set up this way, the venue owns the data and the paperwork takes care of itself.
If a supplier ever suggests pre-ticked boxes or "everyone who connects goes on the list", walk away. That is how venues end up with a list they cannot lawfully use.
What it costs in the UK
Venues end up with a portal by one of three routes, and the price tags are very different.
Renting a platform. Names like Stampede, Beambox, Wireless Social and Purple sell portal software as a subscription. Expect anything from under £20 a month at the entry level to £300 and beyond per venue on the bigger tiers, paid indefinitely, with your guest data held on their servers and exported on request. You still need capable WiFi hardware underneath, which is not included. These platforms are at their best for large multi-site operators who need heavy automation.
Using what is built into good kit. Business-grade equipment such as Ubiquiti UniFi includes a basic captive portal at no extra monthly cost. It works, and for a venue that just wants a branded welcome screen it can be enough. The limits show when you want the marketing side: design options are basic, and connecting it to a mailing list, review prompts and a proper consent log is left to you.
Having one built on kit you own. This is the route we sell, so weigh our view accordingly. A designed sign-in page on your own web address, wired into your own mailing list (Mailchimp, Brevo, Klaviyo and similar), with the consent log built in. With any new Net Intellect UniFi install we include the first year free, then hosting is £15 a month, or £25 with remote monitoring of the network it runs on. No per-user fees, no per-contact fees, and if you ever leave, the list and the hardware stay yours. One thing we deliberately do not do: send marketing on your behalf. We build the plumbing; the sending stays in your hands, from your own account.
On hardware: if your venue already runs business-grade access points, a portal can usually be added to what you have. If you are running on the free router your broadband provider posted out, budget a few hundred pounds for an access point and gateway that can hold up at your busiest hour. A free site survey will tell you exactly what is needed, and just as usefully, what is not.
Prices above are what we see in the market as of June 2026 and the platform figures move about, so treat them as a guide rather than a quote.
Questions venue owners actually ask
Will it annoy my customers?
Fifteen seconds, once. Their phone reconnects automatically on every later visit. Most people now expect a sign-in page in a venue, and a clean branded one lands better than an open network with a taped-up password sign.
Do I have to send marketing?
No. Plenty of venues run a portal purely as a branded welcome and a tidy way of keeping guests separate from the business side of the network. The marketing is there when you want it.
What do I actually see about my guests?
Name, email, opt-in status and visit patterns, such as how many people connected this week and how many came back. Not browsing history. A portal is a front door, not a periscope.
Is it legal to email people afterwards?
Yes, when they have opted in, which is exactly what the tick box and the consent log are for. That is the difference between a mailing list and a liability.
I already have a mailing list. Does this replace it?
No, it feeds it. Opt-ins sync straight into the list you already run, tagged so you know where they came from.
The short version
A captive portal is the sign-in page between your guests and your WiFi. Rented from a platform it costs anything up to £300 a month, forever. Built properly on kit you own, it costs a fraction of that, and the mailing list it quietly builds belongs to you. Either way, the WiFi bill you already pay starts earning its keep.
If you run a venue within 35 miles of Worcester, we will happily show you what your guest WiFi could be doing. Free survey, written summary, no pitch.
Free site survey, written summary, no pitch.
The first conversation is just a conversation. We come to you, measure the building and work out who's using the network, then send a summary even if you don't proceed.