Honest comparison

CaptiFi vs Beambox

A balanced 2026 comparison — feature matrix, pricing, ideal-customer profiles, and an honest verdict on which platform fits your business.

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Quick verdict: CaptiFi or Beambox?

Beambox is genuinely strong in UK hospitality if you're happy with annual billing and don't need POS / loyalty / SMS in your stack. CaptiFi wins on hardware flexibility, billing flexibility, and the breadth of integrations (Toast, Leat, Twilio, Revinate) included at the same price tier.

About Beambox

What is Beambox?

Beambox is a well-known guest-WiFi marketing product, especially in UK hospitality. It pairs branded splash pages with email marketing automations, automated review requests, and Facebook/Instagram retargeting audiences. It markets itself heavily to pubs, cafés and salons, and is widely respected for the quality of its branded onboarding and customer success team.

www.beambox.com
Side by side

Feature comparison

Feature
CaptiFi
Beambox
Free starter device included
Native UniFi support
Native TP-Link Omada support limited
Native Cisco Meraki support limited
Aruba / MikroTik / Ruckus support
Multi-venue dashboard
Built-in email marketing automation
Automated Google review requests
Toast POS / spend-based segmentation
Leat / loyalty integration
Twilio SMS welcome messages
Mailchimp sync (native)
GDPR audit trail
30-day free trial trial varies
Monthly (no-annual-lock) plan

Last reviewed 2026-04-30. Pricing and features change — check Beambox's site for the most current information.

Beambox strengths

  • Polished onboarding wizard and high-quality customer success team
  • Strong UK hospitality presence and brand recognition
  • Built-in Facebook/Instagram audience push for retargeting ads
  • Solid email-marketing automation with templates ready to go
  • Good in-product analytics for visit frequency

Where CaptiFi differs

  • Annual billing is the headline price; monthly billing typically costs more per location
  • Hardware is sold separately (Beambox "Captiv8" router) or you bring your own
  • No native Toast POS integration for spend-based segmentation (last verified 2026-04-30)
  • No loyalty platform integration (Leat / similar) at time of review
  • No native Twilio SMS welcome flow built into the splash page
  • Multi-vendor enterprise APs (Aruba, MikroTik, Ruckus, Cambium) not officially supported as deeply as UniFi / Captiv8
Who should pick what

Honest recommendations

Pick Beambox if

UK hospitality operators who like a polished branded experience, are happy with annual contracts, and don't need POS or loyalty integrations.

Pick CaptiFi if

Operators who run multi-vendor hardware (UniFi + Omada + Meraki + Aruba mix), want a free trial device, prefer monthly billing, and need POS-spend data, loyalty credits, and SMS welcomes alongside email marketing.

Pricing

Pricing summary

Approximately £29-£59 per location per month on annual billing (verify on their site), tiered by features. No free monthly tier; trial available with their "Captiv8" router.

See full CaptiFi pricing

Switching from Beambox?

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