Pubs & Bars
You are not selling WiFi. You are selling the next hour.
A pub lives on how long people stay and what they order while they are here. Free WiFi is one of the small things that decides it — and the way most pubs run it, the password on the chalkboard, gives away unlimited access to anyone who asks and gives the pub nothing back. A managed login page turns it into something you control: your brand on the screen, the free tier set where you want it, a local mailing list you are actually allowed to use, and your card terminal kept well clear of the room.
From £39 per venue per month, no VAT added. No site survey fee, no installation charge — it arrives configured and ready to plug in.
Why it pays for itself
Dwell time is the product. WiFi is a lever on it.
Three ways a login page earns its keep behind the bar, none of which involve anybody on your team learning anything technical.
The free tier is a decision, not a default
Thirty minutes free for anyone who walks in, and a longer session on a code that comes with an order. That is a choice a landlord makes about their own room, and for the first time it is a choice at all — a password on the chalkboard gives everyone the same unlimited access whether they bought anything or not.
A reason to stay for the second one
Somebody waiting for a friend, somebody killing an hour before a train, somebody on their own with a laptop. Whether they stay is partly about whether the WiFi works. We cannot tell you what a longer visit is worth in your pub — you know your own spend per head — but we can make sure the WiFi is not the reason they move on.
Your name on the one screen everybody looks at
Every guest who connects sees a page with your logo on it. Put the Sunday menu, the quiz night, the fixture list or the table-booking link on it, and change it from our side when the week changes. It is the cheapest advertising space in the building because you already own it.
The busy night
Matchday is the test, and the chalkboard fails it.
Any WiFi works at four o'clock on a Tuesday. The question is what happens when the room fills up and the card machine still has to work.
Sixty phones, one broadband line
Big fixture, big crowd, and every phone in the room trying to load the same thing at once. Time and bandwidth limits are set per access tier and enforced on the router in the building, so nobody can take the line on their own and the room stays usable.
The card terminal is not in that fight
Your card machine, your EPOS, the office PC and the camera recorder sit on the network your business runs on. Guests sit on their own. A busy room does not slow the till down, and a stranger on the guest side is nowhere near your business systems. No card data ever touches us.
No guest cap, no overage
A cup final, a bank holiday and a beer festival do not produce a bigger invoice. Plenty of UK guest WiFi is priced by how many people connect each month, with a charge when you go over. We do not count your guests.
Nobody behind the bar manages anything
There is nothing for your staff to log into, reboot or read off a sticker. If something needs changing — the wording, an access rule, a batch of codes — we change it from our side, usually the same day.
The guest list
Two thousand local addresses, or two thousand problems.
This is the part of guest WiFi that most venues get wrong, and it is the part worth the most money if you get it right.
The list is the asset
A pub with two thousand local email addresses and permission to use them can fill a Tuesday. A pub with a spreadsheet nobody can prove consent for has a liability. Which one you end up with is decided at the login box, on the day the guest signs in.
A WiFi login is not permission to email
Under PECR you normally need consent before you market by email or SMS, and consent has to be a clear, positive, specific action. Tapping through a page to get online is not that. Neither is accepting your terms. So the marketing opt-in on our login page is a separate box, it starts unticked, and nobody is refused WiFi for leaving it alone.
The evidence is kept with the record
Each guest record carries what they agreed to and when. If somebody ever asks where an address came from, the answer is in the record rather than in somebody’s memory of a busy Saturday. Since 5 February 2026 the maximum fine under PECR has been £17.5m or 4% of global annual turnover, up from £500,000 — a good reason not to guess.
Then you find out when you are actually busy
Basic + Data + Guest Insights adds connections and visitor counts by day and hour, new versus returning custom, and how long people stay connected. It is not a headcount of the room — it counts the people who chose to connect — but it is a far better picture of your week than the till roll on its own.
This is how we build the login step and what we keep. It is not legal advice — if your marketing is going to lean hard on this list, have your own adviser read your wording first. More detail on the captive portal page.
Getting live
Plug it in and it works.
The usual route to pub WiFi is a survey, a quote, a visit and a bill before the service starts. Ours is a box that arrives configured and a login page that comes up when you plug it in.
It arrives ready
The router is configured for your pub, tested and boxed before it is dispatched, then sent from within the UK on a UK courier with nothing to pay when it arrives. It goes into a spare port on the broadband router you already have, and your branded login page comes up. Nothing to rip out, no line to change.
No survey fee and no install charge
Published UK prices for pub WiFi hardware and installation run from £500 to £2,500 before the monthly fee even starts, and the venue waits two to three days for the visit. We charge nothing for a survey and nothing for installation: the router is configured before it is dispatched, comes from within the UK on a UK courier, and works the moment you plug it in.
Cellar bar, function room, beer garden
Old buildings with thick walls are the hardest WiFi shape there is. Where a room genuinely needs another access point, we produce the plan and the kit list and your own electrician puts it where the plan says. We are not going to pretend the building does not matter.
Support before the doors open
Support runs Monday to Friday, 06:00–15:00 GMT (07:00–16:00 BST). That is an early-start desk, which suits a venue setting up for the day rather better than a nine-to-five one.
Pricing
Three packages, per venue, per month.
Start with the branded login page and add the guest list when you want it. Fixed monthly fee, no guest cap, no overage, and written notice to leave. On rolling monthly, one calendar month's notice. On a 12-month plan, the balance of the term falls due — unless you took the £149 hardware option, in which case a month's notice is all it is.
Basic
£39/moVenues that want guests online in one tap, with their own name on the screen.
Basic + Data Collection
£59/moVenues that want a guest list they can actually use.
Basic + Data + Guest Insights
£89/moVenues that want to know their busy hours and their repeat custom, not just their guest count.
No VAT is added — we are not UK VAT registered, so the price you see is the price you pay. The router is included on a 12-month plan, or £149 one-off if you would rather stay on rolling monthly. No site survey fee. No installation charge. We run on your existing broadband: all we need is a spare network port, a power socket and a spot with good signal to guests. Broadband and line charges are not included.
Running more than one house? Every venue is the same price per venue, with one login covering the group and no per-site surcharge — worth checking, because CaptiFi publishes +£25 a month per extra location on top of the plan.
Where to go next
Captive portal software
The login page itself, the access rules, and the PECR consent step in full.
Vouchers and paid access
A code that comes with the order, instead of a password that comes with the door.
Is your guest WiFi safe?
What sharing one network with your guests actually exposes.
Other kinds of venue
Hotels, restaurants, gyms, holiday parks, shops, salons and event venues.
Want your name on the pub WiFi instead of a password on the wall?
Tell us about the house and we will map the right package to it. From £39 per venue per month, no VAT added, and nothing to pay for a survey or an install.
Or email sales@hotwireless.co.uk