Why venues start looking
Almost nobody replaces a guest WiFi platform because the captive portal stopped working. The reasons are commercial, and they surface at predictable moments: opening a second site, renewing a contract, or being asked what the platform actually costs.
The pricing model, not the price
A per-location model and a flat-account model can cost the same at one site and diverge sharply at ten. Neither is inherently wrong, but a venue that plans to expand should model the cost at the size it intends to be, not the size it is. This is the single most common trigger for switching, and it usually arrives with the second or third location.
Contract length and renewal terms
Annual commitments are normal in this category and are often what makes a lower headline rate possible. They become a problem when a venue wanted to test an idea for a quarter, or when auto-renewal terms and notice periods are discovered at the point someone tries to leave. Read the notice period before signing, not after.
Hardware lock-in
Some platforms ship their own access points, which makes deployment predictable and support simpler. It also means leaving the platform means replacing physical equipment. Platforms that run on hardware you already own are cheaper to leave, which cuts both ways: easier to switch to, and easier to switch away from.
Pricing you cannot see without a call
Quote-based pricing is standard in enterprise software and exists for legitimate reasons, since large deployments genuinely vary. It is still a real obstacle for a small operator who wants to know whether something costs $40 or $400 before committing an hour to a demo. This is a difference in sales model, not a defect.
A missing capability
Sometimes it is specific: automated Google review requests, an integration with the email tool the business already uses, multi-language portals, or exportable consent records. Worth checking whether the capability is genuinely absent or simply on a higher tier before starting a migration over it.
Ownership of the guest list
The list and its consent records are the asset being built. If they cannot be exported in a usable format, including timestamps and the consent wording shown, the venue does not fully control what it is paying to accumulate. Ask about export before signing, when the answer is cheap to get.
The seven options, side by side
Compared on dimensions rather than prices, because published prices move and rarely survive contact with a real quote. What tends to stay stable is the shape of each product: how it is sold, what hardware it assumes, and what it is built to do.
| Platform | Free tier | Pricing published | Hardware breadth | Review automation | Best fit |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| VoqadoWiFiSelf-serve guest WiFi marketing for independent and small multi-site venues | YesStarter free forever — 1 location, 25 logins/mo | YesStarter $0, Growth $49/mo, Enterprise custom | Two vendors | Yes | Venues on Omada or UniFi that want to start without a sales call |
| BeamboxSelf-serve guest WiFi marketing aimed at small and mid-sized venues | PartialTrial-based rather than a permanent free tier | YesPlan tiers published on their site | Broad | Yes | Single-site venues that want an established self-serve product |
| PurpleEnterprise guest WiFi, analytics and indoor location intelligence | NoNo published free tier | NoQuote-based; contact sales | Very broad | Partial | Large estates, airports, stadiums and shopping centres |
| ZenreachWiFi-based customer marketing with an emphasis on attributing walk-in visits | NoNo published free tier | NoQuote-based; contact sales | Own hardware | Partial | US multi-location brands that want walk-in attribution |
| Bloom IntelligenceWiFi marketing plus customer analytics and reputation tooling, restaurant-heavy | NoNo published free tier | PartialSome plan information published; scoping via sales | Broad | Yes | Restaurant groups that want analytics and reputation in one place |
| StayFiGuest WiFi data capture built specifically for short-term rentals | NoNo published free tier | YesPer-property pricing published on their site | Own hardware | Partial | Vacation rental and short-term rental portfolios |
| TanazaVendor-neutral cloud WiFi management with captive portal and hotspot features | PartialTrial available; free usage limited | YesPer-access-point pricing published | Very broad | No | Integrators managing mixed or white-box hardware fleets |
“Hardware breadth” describes how many networking vendors a platform works with. “Own hardware” means the platform is normally deployed with equipment it supplies. VoqadoWiFi is deliberately narrow here: it supports TP-Link Omada and Ubiquiti UniFi and nothing else, which is a genuine limitation and the first thing to check before considering it.
Each option, and when to rule it out
Every entry includes a “not right when” note, including ours. Knowing what a tool is bad at is more useful during a shortlist than another list of features.
VoqadoWiFi
A self-serve guest WiFi marketing platform: branded splash pages, consented email capture, guest segmentation, automated review requests and campaign sending, with consent records you can export. Starter is free forever for one location with 25 logins a month, Growth is $49 a month, and Enterprise is quoted. Pricing is published, so you can evaluate it without talking to anyone.
Where it is strongest
The combination of a permanent free tier and published pricing means a venue can validate whether WiFi marketing works for them before committing budget or sitting through a demo.
Not right when
You run anything other than TP-Link Omada or Ubiquiti UniFi. VoqadoWiFi supports exactly those two vendors, and no amount of configuration changes that. If your estate is Meraki, Aruba, Ruckus, MikroTik or white-box hardware, look at Tanaza or Purple instead. It is also the wrong fit for very large estates needing indoor positioning, heat mapping or a dedicated account team, and for short-term rental portfolios where a per-property product is a better shape.
Beambox
One of the more visible self-serve competitors in the same segment. Beambox publishes its plan tiers, supports a wide range of access point vendors, and covers the core loop of capture, segment, send, with review request tooling included. It has been around long enough to have a mature product and a large installed base of small venues.
Where it is strongest
Broad hardware compatibility combined with self-serve signup. If your hardware is unusual and you still want to buy without a sales process, it is a natural shortlist entry.
Not right when
You want to run indefinitely at zero cost to test the concept, since access is trial-led rather than permanently free. It is also not the right tool if you need enterprise location analytics or a heavily customised deployment.
Purple
An enterprise platform covering guest WiFi, visitor analytics and indoor location services. Purple works across a very wide range of enterprise networking vendors and is built for estates measured in hundreds or thousands of access points, with the compliance, single sign-on and support expectations that come with that.
Where it is strongest
Depth and scale. If you need indoor positioning, zone-level analytics across a large venue, or a platform that has already been through enterprise procurement elsewhere, Purple is a serious answer.
Not right when
You are a single venue or a handful of sites. Pricing is quote-based rather than published, so evaluation starts with a sales conversation, and the capability surface is far wider than an independent restaurant or salon will use. Paying enterprise rates for a feature set you will touch a tenth of is the classic mistake here.
Zenreach
Zenreach built its positioning around connecting WiFi-captured customer identity to subsequent physical visits, so marketing can be measured in walk-ins rather than only opens and clicks. It is strongest in the US market and typically deployed with its own hardware, which makes setup predictable but ties the platform to that equipment.
Where it is strongest
Walk-in attribution. For a brand that spends meaningfully on marketing and wants to connect that spend to people physically returning, that measurement story is genuinely differentiated.
Not right when
You want to keep your existing access points, you are outside its core market, or you want to see pricing before engaging. Hardware-coupled platforms also make switching later more disruptive, which is worth weighing at signature rather than at renewal.
Bloom Intelligence
A WiFi marketing and customer analytics platform with a strong restaurant orientation, combining guest capture with customer scoring, sentiment and reputation tooling. It works with a range of common venue hardware and leans toward operators who want analytics and review management under one roof rather than stitched together.
Where it is strongest
The analytics and reputation layer is more developed than most self-serve tools in this category, which suits multi-unit restaurant operators comparing site performance.
Not right when
You are a single small venue that just needs a splash page and an email list. The breadth becomes overhead, and scoping generally runs through a sales conversation rather than a signup form.
StayFi
Purpose-built for short-term and vacation rentals rather than hospitality venues. Guests connect to WiFi at the property, the host captures their details, and that becomes a direct-booking marketing list independent of the booking platform. Pricing is published on a per-property basis and it ships with its own hardware.
Where it is strongest
It fits its niche precisely. Rental hosts have a specific problem, that booking platforms own the guest relationship, and StayFi is shaped around exactly that problem.
Not right when
You operate a restaurant, bar, retail store, gym or hotel. The per-property model and the feature set assume unattended properties with a handful of guests each, which does not map onto a venue serving hundreds of people a day.
Tanaza
Tanaza approaches the problem from the network side rather than the marketing side. It is a vendor-neutral cloud management platform that turns supported access points from many manufacturers into a centrally managed fleet, with captive portal and hotspot features included. Pricing is published per access point.
Where it is strongest
Hardware neutrality. For an integrator or IT provider running mixed or white-box equipment across many client sites, being able to manage all of it in one place is the entire value proposition.
Not right when
Your goal is marketing outcomes rather than network management. The captive portal is a capability within a management platform, not a marketing suite, so review automation, campaign tooling and guest lifecycle features are thinner than in the marketing-first products on this list. Per-access-point pricing can also work out expensive for a dense single venue with many radios and few guests.
Already decided it is between VoqadoWiFi and SocialWiFi?
This page is the wide view across the market. If you have narrowed it to two, the head-to-head goes feature by feature on pricing model, hardware support, review automation and consent tooling.
How to switch without losing the list
This applies whichever platform you move to, including away from us. The technical part is usually straightforward. The parts that go wrong are consent records, walled gardens and hardware assumptions.
Export your guest list and consent records first
Before you cancel anything, export contacts along with consent timestamps, the wording shown at capture, and the source location. Consent evidence is the part people forget, and it is the part you cannot recreate afterwards. Store it somewhere you control, not only in the new platform.
Confirm your hardware is supported
Check the vendor and controller version of every site, not just the flagship one. Estates drift, and one site running different equipment is the usual cause of a migration stalling halfway. If a platform supports only specific vendors, establish that before any other evaluation work.
Rebuild the splash page and the consent wording
Do not copy the old page verbatim. Migration is a natural moment to reduce the form to the fields you actually use, separate WiFi access from marketing opt-in, and rewrite the consent text in plain language. Keep a copy of the new wording with a version date.
Update the walled garden, then test from a real phone
The new portal domain and every third-party hostname it loads must be allowed pre-authentication, or guests will see a page that never finishes loading. Test on a real phone, on the venue network, on both iOS and Android, at a busy time rather than at 8am with an empty room.
Run both in parallel for a short overlap
Where the hardware permits, point one site or one SSID at the new portal while the rest stays on the old one. A week of parallel running surfaces the problems that only appear with real guests, and it means a rollback is a configuration change rather than an emergency.
Re-permission rather than assuming consent transfers
If your original consent wording named the previous provider or a different purpose, consider a re-permission campaign to the migrated list before you start sending. It shrinks the list and improves everything downstream, and it removes the awkward question of whether the consent you hold covers what you are now doing.
Useful background reading while you plan: opt-in consent, walled garden, external captive portal and first-party data.