Restaurants & Cafés
One flat white. Four hours. One table.
Free WiFi brought them in. Unlimited free WiFi is what keeps them there through the lunch rush on a single americano. Most cafés have no way to do anything about that except ask, so they do not ask. A managed login page gives you the setting instead of the conversation: you decide how long the free tier lasts, what happens at half twelve, and whether a longer session comes with an order.
From £39 per venue per month, no VAT added. No site survey fee, no installation charge, nothing to pay on delivery — it is dispatched from within the UK and arrives configured and ready to plug in.
The camper problem
You do not need a sign. You need a setting.
Three ways venues handle it, all of which are decided once and then look after themselves.
A time limit is not rudeness. It is a policy.
Nobody wants to be the person who walks over to a table and asks a customer to leave. You do not have to be. Access is issued per session on a limit you set — say ninety minutes free — and when it runs out, it runs out. No conversation, no awkwardness, no staff member playing bouncer over a laptop.
Different rules at different times of day
A quiet Tuesday morning and a twelve-thirty lunch rush are not the same business. Set the free tier generously for the slow hours and tighten it when the queue is out of the door. We make the change from our side, so it takes a message rather than a visit.
Or attach the session to an order
A short free tier for anyone, and a code good for the rest of the afternoon that comes with a purchase. The customer who is genuinely settling in for the day buys something for it, and the customer who wanted twenty minutes and a coffee is not inconvenienced at all.
Vouchers and paid access are an add-on to any package, quoted per venue, and what a code sells for is yours to set and yours to keep. See vouchers and paid access.
The rest of the list
Five things that go wrong with restaurant WiFi.
None of them are really about bandwidth. They are about control — over the line, over the password, and over who is on the same network as your till.
“One table eats the whole line.”
Time and bandwidth limits are set per access tier and enforced on the router in the building, so one long download cannot flatten the connection for everyone else, including your card terminal.
“Staff keep giving out the password.”
There is no shared password to give out. Guests connect through your login page, on the terms you set, and there is nothing to change when a member of staff leaves.
“The card machine is on the same WiFi as the tables.”
On most venue broadband routers it is, because there is one network and everything joins it. We put guests on their own network, separate from the one your business runs on, so the card terminal, the EPOS and the office PC are not sitting in the public pool. No card data ever touches us.
“We have no idea who our regulars are.”
Basic + Data + Guest Insights shows new versus returning custom, your busiest hours and how long people stay connected, so a quiet Tuesday and a full Saturday stop being a guessing game. It counts the people who chose to connect, not everyone through the door — but it is a better picture than the till roll on its own.
“Nobody here wants to manage a router.”
You do not have to. The router arrives configured for your venue, nobody on the floor logs into anything, and when something needs changing we change it from our side — usually the same day, and service carries on while we do it.
Your name on the screen
The one moment every guest is looking at a screen you own.
Diners ask for the WiFi before they order. That is a free advertising slot, and most venues spend it on a router default page.
Your brand, your wording
Your logo and colours on the login page, with the specials, the set lunch, the bookings link or the Instagram handle on it. Change it from our side whenever the menu changes.
Your till stays separate
Guests sit on their own network. Your card terminal, your EPOS, your back-of-house systems and your office PC sit on the network your business runs on. Treat the guest side as a public space, because that is what it is.
No guest cap, no overage
A good August does not produce a bigger invoice. A lot of UK guest WiFi is priced by how many people connect each month and charges again when you pass it. We do not count your guests.
The guest list
A local list is worth more than a big one.
Provided you can prove you are allowed to email it. Under UK law that is settled at the login box, not afterwards.
The list you build at the counter
On Basic + Data Collection, guests enter name, email and mobile number before going online. For a café that is a local list of people who have already walked in — the only kind worth having when you want forty covers on a wet Wednesday.
Getting online is not saying yes to your newsletter
Under PECR, marketing by email or SMS normally needs consent, and consent has to be a clear, positive, specific action. Tapping through a login page is not it. So the marketing opt-in sits on its own, starts unticked, and nobody is refused WiFi for leaving it alone.
Kept with the evidence
Each record carries what the guest agreed to and when. Since 5 February 2026 the maximum fine under PECR has been £17.5m or 4% of global annual turnover, up from £500,000, so being able to show where an address came from is worth the two seconds it takes to capture it properly.
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 usage-based costs, 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. Support runs Monday to Friday, 06:00–15:00 GMT (07:00–16:00 BST).
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 an order, instead of a password that comes with the door.
Pub and bar WiFi
The same mechanics with a matchday attached.
Other kinds of venue
Hotels, gyms, holiday parks, shops, salons and event venues.
Want a say in how long the free WiFi lasts?
Tell us about the room and the rush, and we will map the right package and the right limits to it. From £39 per venue per month, no VAT added.
Or email sales@hotwireless.co.uk