Guest WiFi login options compared: email, SMS, vouchers and more

Every captive portal asks the guest to do something before going online, and that something decides what the venue gets back. A tap on Accept costs the guest nothing and gives the venue nothing, while an email form takes a few seconds and gives the venue a way to bring the guest back. Vouchers and payments do a different job: they control who gets online at all.

This guide compares the eight login options in use on guest WiFi today, with what each one asks of the guest, what it gives the venue and where it fits. It is written for venue owners choosing how their sign-in page should work, and it notes which options CaptiFi offers.

The options at a glance

On CaptiFi, guests sign in with an email address or a phone number on your branded form, and returning devices are recognised and let straight through. Vouchers and paid passes are separate access modes you can switch on for any venue.

Click-through terms

The guest sees the venue's terms or acceptable use policy and taps Accept. It is the fastest option and the most private, because the venue learns nothing except that a device agreed to the terms. That suits places where WiFi is a public service: train and bus stations, council buildings, hospitals and offices with visitor WiFi.

The cost is that the venue cannot contact anyone afterwards, and it can count devices but not people. For a business that wants regulars to come back more often, click-through leaves the main benefit of a portal unused.

Email form

The guest types a name and an email address, and ticks a separate box if they want to hear about offers. It takes a few seconds on a phone keyboard and gives the venue a contact it can follow up with a welcome email, a review request and a win-back offer. Across CaptiFi venues, 40 to 60% of connections typically opt in.

Keep the form short: every extra field is one more thing to type on a phone, so ask only for what you will use. And check addresses as they are typed, because phone keyboards produce misspelt domains, and a list full of bounces damages the sender reputation of every email you send after. CaptiFi's form takes name and email as standard, and you can add a phone number, a date of birth with a minimum age, or a question of your own, with each answer stored as a column on the guest list. The splash page design guide covers layout and wording.

Phone number

Asking for a mobile number gives the venue a second channel. Texts are short and read quickly, which suits time-limited offers and event reminders. SMS marketing needs its own consent, separate from email consent, and CaptiFi records the two separately so you can see who agreed to which before a campaign goes out. The SMS marketing page covers sending.

Some portals send a one-time code by text to prove the number is real. That stops fake numbers, but every sign-in then costs a text message and makes the guest wait for it. A number collected as a form field, with consent recorded, is quicker for the guest and costs nothing to collect.

Voucher code

With vouchers, nobody gets online without a code. The venue prints codes on receipts or table cards, or staff hand them out at the bar, so the WiFi serves paying customers and not the people sitting outside on the step. Hotels use them to give each guest access for the length of a stay.

On CaptiFi, WiFi vouchers are unique eight-character codes, generated up to 100 at a time, each batch with its own access duration. An unused code can be revoked the moment you hear it is being passed around, and a voucher API lets your till create a code for every receipt, up to 50 codes per request. Vouchers are included on every plan, and switching a venue back to free access is one setting.

Paid pass

A paid pass turns the sign-in page into a checkout. The guest picks a pass, pays and is online seconds later. Hotels, holiday parks and coworking spaces use it to sell access, or to sell faster access above a free tier.

On CaptiFi, paid WiFi takes card, Apple Pay and Google Pay, and the money goes straight to your own Stripe account with no CaptiFi commission. You can build up to eight passes per venue, from 30 minutes to seven days, with optional data allowances and speed tiers; speed tiers are enforced on UniFi. A free taster of 50 MB to 1 GB can run before the paywall, once per device every 24 hours, and the buyer's name and email come from the payment, so there is no separate form. The guide to paid speed tiers for hotels and coworking goes further.

Social login

Social login sends the guest from the portal to a provider such as Google, Apple or Facebook, where they sign in and approve the request, then back to the portal. The venue receives whichever profile fields the provider releases and the guest approves, usually a name and email address. Sign in with Apple lets the guest hide their real address behind a relay address, so the venue may receive an address that forwards mail without revealing the inbox behind it.

It needs more upkeep than a form. The venue or its platform keeps a developer account with each provider and follows that provider's rules, and the provider's sign-in pages must be reachable before the guest has signed in, which means adding large domains to the walled garden. That last step needs care: a wildcard broad enough to cover an operating system's connectivity test hides the portal from every phone on that platform, as the guide to a captive portal that is not showing explains.

CaptiFi does not offer social sign-in on guest WiFi today. Guests sign in with an email address or a phone number on your branded form. Facebook Wi-Fi, which traded WiFi for a check-in, ended in 2023; the guide to Facebook WiFi alternatives covers what venues use instead.

Account and room login

Some portals check the guest against a list the venue already holds. A hotel can ask for a room number and surname and check them against its property management system, which ties each session to a booking; the guide to hotel WiFi login with a room number covers how that works and the alternatives. A members' club or gym can ask for a membership login.

Universities and large offices more often skip the portal altogether and use WPA2 or WPA3-Enterprise, where each person signs in to the network itself with their own username through 802.1X and RADIUS. That suits people who connect every day; it is too much set-up for a walk-in guest.

Passpoint and OpenRoaming

Passpoint, the Wi-Fi Alliance certification also called Hotspot 2.0, lets a phone with a matching profile join the network automatically and encrypted, with no page at all. OpenRoaming, run by the Wireless Broadband Alliance, links many identity providers so that one profile works on every participating network.

The guest has nothing to do. For the venue it means no sign-in page, so no branding, no marketing consent and no contact details beyond what the identity provider shares. It suits places where getting large crowds online quickly matters most, and it can run alongside a portal network for guests who want the venue's offers.

Which option suits your venue

The vertical guides go deeper for pubs, coffee shops, hotels, gyms and shops.

Consent, whichever option you pick

Any option that collects a name, email or phone number collects personal data. In the UK, the ICO's guidance on when consent is appropriate is clear that marketing consent cannot be the price of getting online, and EU countries apply the GDPR alongside their own ePrivacy laws. Keep the marketing box separate, unticked and optional, record when each guest agreed and for which channel, and put an unsubscribe link in every message. Other countries have their own rules, such as CAN-SPAM in the United States and CASL in Canada, compared in the guide to guest WiFi marketing laws by country. This is general information, not legal advice.

The guest WiFi GDPR compliance checklist goes through the UK rules in order. To see the sign-in options on your own network, start a 30-day free trial; plans start from $69/mo on the pricing page.

Sources: CaptiFi feature pages for guest data capture, branded splash pages, WiFi vouchers and paid WiFi, October 2026; the ICO's guidance on when consent is appropriate. Google, Apple, Facebook, Passpoint, OpenRoaming, Stripe and other names are trade marks of their owners; CaptiFi is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.