DrayTek Captive Portal Setup: A Guide for UK Small Businesses

DrayTek is everywhere in UK small business. Walk into a village pub, a back-street barber or a market-town accountant's office and there is a good chance a Vigor router is bolted to the wall in a cupboard, quietly doing its job for years. The hardware is cheap, reliable and sold through every UK trade reseller going. So when an owner finally decides to do something with the guest WiFi, the question is nearly always the same: what can this DrayTek box actually do, and what do I need to bolt on?

DrayTek has a genuine, built-in captive portal called the Hotspot Web Portal, which is more than a lot of consumer kit can say. The catch is that what it captures, and what you can do with that data, is limited. This guide walks through both: the built-in portal on its own, and the external-portal route that turns guest WiFi into a marketing channel that actually grows your email list and your reviews.

What the built-in DrayTek portal does

Vigor routers, and VigorAP access points, ship with a feature DrayTek calls the Hotspot Web Portal. It blocks internet access until the guest either accepts your terms or logs in, then lets them through. That is the core captive-portal behaviour, and it works out of the box on the models that support it.

By default DrayTek redirects guests, over both HTTP and DNS, to a hosted page at portal.draytek.com. The HTTP redirection works by modifying the initial HTML response from the page the guest tried to load. Redirecting users who start on an HTTPS site is an optional, toggleable feature that relies on DNS, and it is off by default for a reason: forcing an HTTPS redirect can throw certificate warnings on a guest's phone, which looks broken even when it is working as designed.

You get up to four Hotspot Web Portal profiles per router, and each profile can be applied to selected LAN subnets or SSIDs. The authentication options DrayTek offers are reasonable for a built-in feature:

• Click-through: the guest accepts your terms and conditions, then goes online. The simplest option.
• Social login: sign in with a Google or Facebook account.
• SMS PIN: the guest enters a phone number and receives a one-time code by text.
• PIN: vouchers or printed codes you hand out.
• RADIUS: validate credentials against a RADIUS server.

For a venue that just needs a terms-and-conditions gate, the built-in portal is fine. Where it falls short is everything that happens after the guest taps "connect". It is a gate, not a marketing system. There is no consented email list building up in a dashboard, no automated welcome email, no Google review nudge, no record of which customers came back. The data largely stays on the router.

Which Vigor and VigorAP models support it

DrayTek's own model lists vary slightly depending on which page you read, so treat the table below as a confirmed superset rather than a single official spec sheet. The Vigor router series that support the Hotspot Web Portal and the VigorACS 3 external-portal route include the 2762/2765, 2862, 2865, 2866, 2926, 2927, 2952, 2962, 3220 and 3910 (per the DrayTek UK Hotspot pages, the DrayTek KB and Purple's support article).

The DrayTek UK site specifically names the Vigor 2865 series as including the Hotspot feature, typically paired with a VigorAP 912C or VigorAP 906 as the external access points. Those access points also support captive-portal redirection: the VigorAP 906 needs firmware 1.4.5 or later, and the VigorAP 912C needs firmware 1.3.1 or later. SD-WAN features sit on the higher-end 2865/2866, 2927, 2962 and 3910.

If your router is not on that list, check its current firmware and DrayTek's own Hotspot Overview KB before assuming it cannot do this. DrayTek adds the feature across the range over time, and a firmware update sometimes unlocks it.

Built-in portal versus external portal

This is the decision that matters. There was a myth doing the rounds that DrayTek routers can only run an internal portal. That is false. DrayTek explicitly supports an "External Portal Server" portal method, confirmed both in DrayTek's own ACS 3 knowledge base and in third-party guides from Purple and Captive WiFi.

The two routes do very different jobs, and the table makes the gap obvious.

The built-in portal answers "how do I make guests accept my terms before going online". The external portal answers "how do I turn those guests into a marketing list I own". They are not competing products. One sits inside the other.

Setting up the built-in Hotspot Web Portal

If a simple terms gate is all you want, the built-in portal takes about ten minutes. Log into the Vigor router's web interface, then work through this:

1. Go to Hotspot Web Portal > Profile Setup and edit one of the four profiles.
2. Pick your login method. Click-through is the lowest-friction option and the one most cafes and pubs should start with.
3. Customise the page: add your logo, choose colours, and write your terms text.
4. Under the profile, select which LAN subnets or SSIDs the portal applies to. Apply it to your guest SSID only, never your staff or back-office network.
5. Decide whether to enable HTTPS-site redirection. Leave it off unless you have a specific reason, to avoid certificate warnings on guest devices.
6. Save, then test from a phone that is not already remembered by the network.

That gets you a working captive portal. What it will not get you is a growing, exportable, consented email list with automated follow-up. For that, you keep the same router and change one setting: the portal method.

Pointing DrayTek at an external portal

DrayTek supports two confirmed external-portal paths. The first is VigorACS 3, DrayTek's own central management software, which from version 3.0.0 can act as an External Portal Server and authorise guests via API to the router. The second, and the one most marketing platforms use, is a third-party external portal. The mechanics are the same whether the external server is Purple, Captive WiFi or CaptiFi.

In the router's web interface, the steps are:

1. Open Hotspot Web Portal > Profile Setup and select External Portal Server as the portal method.
2. Set the external Captive Portal URL provided by your portal platform.
3. Configure RADIUS under Applications > RADIUS/TACACS+ (auth port is typically 1812), using the server details your platform gives you.
4. Set a walled garden / whitelist so the guest's browser can reach the portal page and any sign-in services before they are authenticated.
5. Disable HTTPS redirection and turn off the default redirect to portal.draytek.com, so guests land on your portal instead.
6. Apply the profile to the guest SSID and test.

The same external-portal pattern applies across most controller-based vendors, which is why CaptiFi works on DrayTek alongside UniFi, TP-Link Omada, Cisco Meraki, Aruba, MikroTik, Ruckus and Cambium. If you also run other gear, the UniFi captive portal setup is the most common starting point, and the Ruckus captive portal setup covers the WISPr route. The full list is on the hardware page.

Adding email capture with CaptiFi

CaptiFi is the external portal layer that sits on top of your DrayTek network. We do not sell, ship or install routers, you keep your existing Vigor kit. What CaptiFi adds is the branded sign-in page and everything that should happen after a guest connects.

• A branded splash page built in a visual editor, no code, matching your venue.
• Guest data capture with a consented email and a separate, unbundled marketing opt-in.
• Automated welcome, win-back and birthday emails that fire on their own.
• Google review automation that nudges happy guests to leave a review.
• Per-customer visit analytics and a multi-venue dashboard if you run more than one site.

The numbers are the reason owners bother. Venues using CaptiFi typically capture 40 to 60% of connecting guests as email subscribers, which works out at 300 to 500 or more new emails per location each month. In typical CaptiFi venues, welcome emails see open rates around 45%, venues collect 3 to 5 times more Google reviews within 60 days, and win-back campaigns drive roughly 25% more repeat visits. None of that is possible with the built-in portal alone, because the built-in portal does not keep the contact or send the follow-up.

Getting the consent right

Capturing emails in the UK means UK GDPR and PECR, and the rule people trip over is bundling. You cannot make marketing consent a condition of getting online. Access to the WiFi and permission to send marketing have to be two separate choices on the page, and the marketing opt-in must be a positive action, not a pre-ticked box.

CaptiFi's portal is built around that unbundled opt-in by default, so the guest can connect and decline marketing, or connect and opt in. Our GDPR compliance page explains how the consent is recorded, and the compliance checklist is worth a read before you launch. Getting this right is not just legal hygiene, a clean, consented list also performs far better than a scraped one.

Which route to choose

If your only goal is a legal terms gate and you have no intention of emailing anyone, the built-in DrayTek Hotspot Web Portal does that job and costs nothing extra. Set it to click-through, brand it lightly, and you are done.

If you want the WiFi to earn its keep, growing a list you own, lifting your Google reviews and pulling repeat customers back through the door, you point the same DrayTek router at an external portal. The hardware stays. The setting changes. For most UK small businesses I talk to, that second route pays for itself inside a couple of months, because the average pub or cafe is sitting on hundreds of monthly walk-ins it currently captures nothing from.

If you are still choosing access points to pair with a Vigor router, our guide to choosing an access point for guest WiFi is a sensible next stop. And whichever way you go, you can connect your DrayTek kit and test the whole flow on a 30-day free trial with no card required. Pricing starts from $69/mo.

Sources: DrayTek UK Hotspot Web Portal page and Hotspot Overview KB (draytek.co.uk, 2025-2026); DrayTek KB 7530 on VigorACS 3 as an external portal server; Purple "Draytek Vigor Series" and Captive WiFi DrayTek setup guides. Model lists and firmware requirements vary slightly between DrayTek pages and reseller documentation; confirm your exact model and firmware on draytek.co.uk before configuring. CaptiFi performance figures are typical venue ranges, not guarantees. Details were correct at the time of writing (June 2026) and may change.