Appearance
Paid WiFi Access
Turn your guest WiFi into a revenue stream. Guests pick a timed pass on your branded splash page, pay by card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay, and are online seconds later — payments go straight to your own Stripe account, and CaptiFi takes no commission.
Paid WiFi is ideal for hotels, co-working spaces, event venues, and anywhere internet access has real value.
Where to Find It
- Log in to my.captifi.io
- Go to Integrations and click Configure on the Paid WiFi (Stripe) card — or, once configured, open My Venues → Paid WiFi in the sidebar
Full first-time setup (Stripe keys, walled garden domains) is covered step by step in the Paid WiFi (Stripe) setup guide.
The Paid WiFi Page
Everything is per venue (use the venue selector if you have several):
- KPI cards — Total revenue, Last 30 days, Online now (paid), and Passes sold
- Stripe Connection — your publishable and secret keys (stored write-only and encrypted), currency, and which payment methods to offer. Card is always on; Apple Pay and Google Pay can be toggled. Use Test connection to verify your keys
- Access Plans & Pricing — up to 8 plans, each with an optional label (e.g. "All Day"), a duration (from 30 minutes up to 7 days), an optional data allowance (100 MB up to 10 GB, or Unlimited), optional download and upload speeds (1 Mbps up to 500 Mbps, or your venue default), a price, and an active toggle
- WiFi Access Mode — switch between Standard Splash and Paid WiFi. The two are mutually exclusive per venue; switch back at any time. A preview URL lets you see your paid splash page before going live
- Payments received — every payment with the guest's name, email, plan, amount, status, and time left online (tabs for All / Active / Expired)
How Guests Pay
- Guest joins your WiFi and the paid splash page appears with your pricing cards
- They pick a pass and accept your WiFi terms
- A secure Stripe payment form takes their card, Apple Pay, or Google Pay
- On successful payment they're online immediately — and disconnected automatically when their time runs out, or when they use their full data allowance if the pass has one (whichever comes first). To reconnect they buy a new pass
Guests don't fill in a sign-up form: CaptiFi records their name and email from the Stripe payment details, so they still appear in your guest database and marketing audiences.
Designing Your Paid Splash Page
The paid page carries your venue's splash design automatically: logo, background, colours, button styling, and your terms all come from the Splash Page Builder. Open My Locations → Edit splash and the live preview shows your paid access page, with your real passes and prices, exactly as guests see it. Sections that only exist on the standard splash (welcome text and the sign-in form) are marked "Hidden by Paid WiFi" in the builder. See Venues With Paid WiFi for the details.
Pricing Your Passes
You set your own prices per venue. As a starting point: around £1 for an hour and £3-10 for a day pass works for most venues; airports, events, and conference spaces can charge more.
Speed Tiers
Each plan can carry its own download and upload speed, so you can sell faster WiFi as a premium. A typical setup:
- Free or entry guests: your venue-wide limit from My Locations → Edit site (for example 5 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up)
- Standard pass: 20 Mbps down / 5 Mbps up
- Premium pass: 100 Mbps down / 20 Mbps up
To set it up, open the Access Plans & Pricing card and pick a Download speed and Upload speed for each plan. Leaving a plan on Site default means it inherits your venue-wide guest bandwidth limit (and if you have no venue-wide limit, the plan is unrestricted). The speed is applied automatically the moment the guest's payment completes, and the pass button on your splash page shows the tier (for example "24 hours of access · 100/20 Mbps"), so guests can see exactly what they are buying.
Notes:
- Speed tiers are enforced on UniFi (controller login or local API key). On other platforms the tier is saved with the pass and shown to the guest, but the network does not apply it yet, so only sell speed tiers if your venue runs on UniFi
- Speed tiers combine with durations and data allowances freely: a pass can be faster, longer, and larger all at once
- The same plan editor is available in the classic dashboard at app.captifi.io under Paid WiFi → Access Plans & Pricing
Data Allowances
Add a data allowance to any pass (for example, 24 hours with 1 GB of data). CaptiFi tracks each guest's usage and disconnects them when the allowance is used up; the Payments received table shows a Data used column so you can see each guest's consumption against their allowance. Usage is checked continuously via your controller's traffic counters and enforced within a few minutes of the allowance being reached.
Notes:
- Enforcement is strongest on UniFi (the controller itself also enforces the quota natively), CaptiFi devices, and RADIUS platforms (Cisco, Aruba, Ruckus)
- On Cisco Meraki click-through the allowance cannot be enforced (Meraki gives CaptiFi no controller access), and on TP-Link Omada it is best effort
- Passes are not refunded automatically when the allowance is used before the time runs out; guests simply buy a new pass to continue
Free Data Before Payment
Want to let guests try your WiFi before asking them to pay? Give every device a free data allowance: guests browse for free until the allowance runs out, then they're disconnected and asked to buy a pass.
Setting It Up
- Open the Paid WiFi page for your venue
- In the Stripe Connection card, find Free data before payment
- Choose an allowance (50 MB up to 1 GB) and click Save Stripe settings
Choose None — pay immediately (the default) to turn the free allowance off and send every guest straight to the payment page.
The same setting is available in the classic dashboard at app.captifi.io under Paid WiFi → Stripe Connection.
The Guest Journey
- Guest joins your WiFi and sees a green Free WiFi button above your paid passes (for example, "250 MB of free data, buy a pass when it runs out")
- They tap it and are online immediately, with no card and no sign-up form
- When the free allowance is used up, they're disconnected automatically
- The next time they join, the free button is gone and your paid passes are shown. To keep browsing, they buy a pass
Fair Use Rules
- Each device gets one free session per 24 hours, tracked by its hardware (MAC) address
- Free sessions also end after 24 hours even if the data allowance isn't used
- Devices that hide their hardware address from the network can't claim a free session (they go straight to the payment page)
- Free sessions never count towards your revenue figures: the KPI cards and Payments received totals only include paid passes
Enforcement uses the same data tracking as paid data allowances, so the same platform notes apply (strongest on UniFi, CaptiFi devices, and RADIUS platforms; best effort on Omada; not enforceable on Meraki click-through).
Guest Languages
Your paid WiFi page can appear in your guest's own language. Guests are detected from their phone's language setting, so most people never have to tap anything.
Setting It Up
- Go to My Locations and open Edit on the venue
- Under Guest languages, pick the languages you want to offer
- If you offer more than one, choose a default language for guests whose phone is set to something you do not offer
- Save
Currently available: English, French (Francais) and Spanish (Espanol).
What Guests See
When you offer more than one language, a small row of language buttons appears at the top of the page, above the WiFi passes. One tap switches the whole page, and the choice is remembered on that device for a year.
Everything CaptiFi writes is translated: the pass names, the prices, the free data message, the payment screen, the card form itself, and the confirmation. Their language also survives the payment step, including bank verification screens that take the guest away from the page and back again.
What Is Not Translated
- Your own custom wording. Anything you typed yourself stays exactly as you wrote it. If you want your venue name or a welcome line in another language, you will need to write it that way.
- Your terms and privacy text, for the same reason.
- Receipts and emails, which are still sent in English.
The same setting also covers your standard (free) splash page. See Guest Languages on the splash page.
If You Only Want English
Leave the setting alone. A venue with only English selected behaves exactly as it always has, and guests see no language buttons at all.
Managing Sessions & Refunds
- Revenue — the dashboard KPIs give you the headline numbers; your Stripe dashboard has full payment history, payouts, and reporting
- Refunds — refund a payment from your Stripe dashboard as normal (refunds don't yet end an active session automatically)
- Receipts — Stripe emails guests a receipt automatically
Troubleshooting
| Issue | What to Do |
|---|---|
| Payment form doesn't appear | Check your Stripe keys are saved and Test connection passes |
| Apple Pay / Google Pay buttons missing | The wallet buttons only show on supporting devices (Apple Pay: Safari on iPhone/iPad/Mac; Google Pay: Chrome/Android), and both must be enabled in your Stripe Dashboard under Settings → Payment methods |
| Guest pays but doesn't get online | Verify your venue's controller/device is Online under My Locations — the payment is still recorded and refundable via Stripe |
| Payment declined | Guest should try another card; details are in your Stripe dashboard |
| Splash page can't reach Stripe | On Omada, Meraki, Aruba, or Cisco, add the Stripe domains to your walled garden — see the setup guide |
Related Features
- Paid WiFi (Stripe) setup guide — first-time setup, including walled garden domains
- WiFi Vouchers — controlled access with codes instead of payments
- Splash Page Builder — branding carried onto the paid splash page