Stampede Review 2026: Pros, Cons and Alternatives

If you run a pub or a small restaurant group, you have probably had a Stampede rep in your inbox at some point. It is one of the more visible names in UK hospitality tech, and for good reason: it tries to do almost everything in one login. The question most buyers actually ask is simpler than the sales deck. Does the guest WiFi part earn its keep, and what does the whole thing really cost?

This is an honest review built only on facts I could verify against Stampede's own pages, Companies House and the public review directories. Where the data is thin, I will say so plainly rather than guess. There is a lot of recycled, unverifiable pricing and rating noise about Stampede online, so I have left that out on purpose.

What is Stampede?

Stampede is an all-in-one hospitality platform that bundles guest WiFi with a marketing CRM, table bookings, payments, reviews and loyalty (sources: stampede.ai homepage and /how-it-works/wifi/, accessed June 2026; The Caterer "Technology Buying Guide 2026" feature). The guest WiFi piece works as a captive portal: a guest connects, hands over data such as email and preferences, and that profile flows into the CRM to grow a mailing list and trigger automated email and SMS campaigns.

The company is Edinburgh-based, at Commercial Quay, EH6 6LX, and the legal entity is Stampede AI Ltd, company number SC503985, incorporated on 22 April 2015 per Companies House. One small wrinkle worth flagging: Stampede's own about-us page says the founder started the company in 2016, while the registry shows a 2015 incorporation. The two dates conflict in the public record, so treat the exact founding year as unsettled. The product positions itself as "built from the ground up specifically for hospitality," and the primary market is clearly the UK.

Who Stampede is for

Stampede targets hospitality venues: restaurants, pubs, bars and hotels, both single independent sites and multi-site groups (sources: stampede.ai homepage; The Caterer feature). The pitch lands best if you want one connected system instead of a captive portal here, a bookings tool there and a separate reviews app.

That breadth is the whole point, and it is also the catch. If all you need is guest WiFi that captures emails and drives Google reviews, you are paying for a bookings engine, a payments layer and a loyalty programme you may never switch on. A pure short-term-rental host or a single café chasing list growth might find a focused tool cheaper and simpler. We will come back to that under alternatives.

Core features

Across stampede.ai and the modules it markets, the verified feature set looks like this:

• Marketing CRM: unified guest profiles, segmentation, automated email and SMS campaigns, plus AI-powered segmentation.
• Guest WiFi captive portal: GDPR-compliant data capture, backed by a delivery and control layer Stampede brands "SNAPguard."
• Table bookings: a reservation system, though the entry-level Essential plan limits you to 2 custom booking types.
• Payments: via "PayOS, powered by Square."
• Reviews management: Google and TripAdvisor integrations and an AI-powered "Reviews+" module.
• Loyalty and rewards: described as app-free for guests.
• Analytics: busy periods, trends, loyal versus lapsed customers.

Stampede markets 0% commission on bookings with no hidden fees, which is a genuine plus against commission-taking reservation platforms. On integrations, the confirmed list is narrower than the marketing implies: Square powers PayOS payments, and Google and TripAdvisor feed reviews. One important practical detail from the WiFi side: G2 hosts a buyer question specifically asking "what WiFi hardware do I need to use Stampede," which tells you the portal depends on supported access-point hardware rather than being fully hardware-agnostic out of the box. Check your kit before you sign.

Stampede pricing: what is actually published

Here is where you need to read the small print. Stampede uses three tiers, Essential, Pro and Premium, all priced per venue, with a monthly subscription or an annual plan at a 15% discount (source: stampede.ai/pricing, accessed June 2026).

Only one of those tiers shows a headline number. Pro is publicly listed at £299 per month. The currency follows your region: UK-facing listings on GetApp UK, Capterra UK and Software Advice show £299.00/month, while US-facing GetApp shows "$299 usage based/month." So the published figure is £299 per venue per month for Pro, denominated in your local currency. Pro includes 20,000 contacts per venue, 30 marketing segments, automated campaigns, a unified inbox and PayOS.

Essential (5,000 contacts, 10 segments, 2 booking types) and Premium (35,000 contacts, workflow builder, pitched as enterprise-grade for 25+ locations) are quote-only. Both use "Enquire now" or "Book a consultation" buttons with no listed price. A free trial is offered, per the GetApp listings. I am not going to invent numbers for the hidden tiers; if you want Essential or Premium you will have to ask a salesperson, and that is worth knowing before you start.

The honest read on Stampede pricing: one tier is transparent at £299 per venue per month, two are not. For a small independent, the gap between "Essential, enquire now" and "Pro at 299" is a real budgeting unknown.

Two structural things matter for cost. First, contact caps are tier-bound at 5k, 20k and 35k per venue, so a busy site can outgrow a plan and get pushed up. Second, everything is per venue, so a group multiplies fast. If transparent pricing matters to you, compare against platforms that publish every tier, which is most of the field below and the reason CaptiFi lists pricing from $69/mo on its pricing page.

Ratings and reviews: read this carefully

This is the part where most "Stampede review" articles quote a confident star rating. I cannot, in good conscience, do that, because the data does not hold up.

G2 maintains a Stampede product page with user reviews, and it consistently shows a low review volume, roughly a dozen. One search summary reported 4.2/5 from 11 reviews, but the G2 reviews page returned an access error on direct fetch and a follow-up search did not reproduce that figure, so I am treating the exact score and count as unconfirmed. What is confirmed is only that a G2 page exists with a small sample.

On the other big directories, the picture is starker. Capterra (US and UK), GetApp (US and UK) and Software Advice all currently list Stampede with zero user reviews and no star rating (accessed June 2026). Note that Stampede appears on several of these under the legacy product name "BLACKBX," which is easy to miss if you go searching. In short: there is no large, verifiable pool of public ratings for Stampede. That is not the same as Stampede being bad, but it does mean you should rely on a trial and references rather than directory scores.

Strengths and weaknesses

The themes below come from aggregated summaries of G2 user reviews, not direct verbatim quotes, so treat them as sentiment rather than hard data.

Where Stampede does well

• Easy to use. Reviewers describe an intuitive UI that is quick to learn and fast to show results.
• Effective for list building. It is repeatedly called budget-friendly and effective for lead generation, which is the core job of guest WiFi marketing.
• AI segmentation and campaigns. The AI-powered segmentation and campaign management draw praise.
• One connected stack. Bookings, payments, reviews and loyalty under one login genuinely reduces tool sprawl, and 0% booking commission is a real saving versus commission-based reservation systems.

Where it falls short

• Cost and implementation strain. Higher implementation and cost are flagged as a strain for small businesses.
• Performance at scale. Some users report slower server responses with larger data sets.
• Depth of features. A subset of reviewers wanted more features and deeper customisation, feeling it lagged some competitors.
• Hardware dependence. The WiFi needs compatible access points, so it is not plug-and-play with any kit you own.
• Thin public proof. The lack of a verifiable directory rating means you are buying partly on faith.

Four Stampede alternatives

No single platform wins for everyone. Here are four credible options depending on what you actually need, with the same honesty about where each one fits.

CaptiFi: transparent pricing and a free device option

CaptiFi is a guest-WiFi marketing platform built around the captive portal, so it is more focused than Stampede's everything-in-one suite. The differentiators that matter against Stampede are transparency and flexibility: pricing is published from $69/mo, there is a free plug-and-play device option (and it also works with your existing APs from UniFi, TP-Link Omada, Cisco Meraki, Aruba, MikroTik, Ruckus, Cambium and DrayTek), and you get a 30-day free trial with no card. It is UK-built, GDPR and PECR compliant, and available worldwide rather than US-only. Integrations include Google Reviews, Mailchimp, Klaviyo, Toast POS and Square POS. Where CaptiFi is not the answer: if you specifically want native table bookings, payments and loyalty bundled in, Stampede's wider suite covers more ground out of the box. See the full CaptiFi vs Stampede comparison or the Stampede alternatives page.

StayFi: the right call for short-term rentals

If you run vacation rentals rather than a restaurant, StayFi is purpose-built for you and Stampede is not. StayFi captures names, emails and phone numbers from every guest, not just the booker, to drive direct bookings away from Airbnb and Vrbo. It carries a strong 5.0/5 from 73 reviews on Capterra (note GetApp, Capterra and Software Advice share one review pool, so that is one dataset, not three). The honest trade-offs from those same reviews: hardware and per-contact email costs add up, templates are limited, and you need StayFi or Ubiquiti hardware installed on site. WiFi marketing pricing on StayFi's own page is quote-only, with published hardware and SMS rates. For STR hosts, it beats Stampede; for a pub, it does not fit.

Spotipo: transparent, budget-friendly, hardware-agnostic

Spotipo is a small, cloud-based captive portal aimed at the SMB and MSP end of the market. Its big advantages over Stampede are published per-location pricing (Starter $59/month, or $49 billed annually; Pro $79/month, or $66 annually; Enterprise quote-only) and broad hardware support across 30+ router and AP brands with no proprietary kit required. A 14-day free trial needs no card. The caveats, some surfaced by competitor Purple but consistent with Spotipo's own pages: no permanent free tier, no SOC 2 or ISO 27001 advertised, relatively shallow analytics and limited enterprise scalability. I could not confirm a reliable G2 rating (search results conflated it with the unrelated "SPOTIO"), so I am not stating one.

Beambox: set-and-forget WiFi marketing for SMBs

Beambox is a guest WiFi marketing platform that scores well where it counts for small hospitality: 4.84/5 across 34 organic G2 reviews (May 2026). Its strengths are set-and-forget automation, branded splash pages and a Review Automator, which overlaps neatly with what most venues actually want from Stampede's WiFi module. Its main weakness is reporting and analytics depth, and like Stampede its per-location pricing is quote-only rather than published. For an independent that just wants automated capture and reviews without a full suite, it is a close, lighter alternative.

Stampede vs CaptiFi vs StayFi vs Spotipo

If you want a wider view across the market, the best guest WiFi platforms 2026 roundup and our platform comparison hub cover more options side by side.

Verdict: who should buy Stampede

Stampede makes sense if you are a multi-site hospitality operator who genuinely wants bookings, payments, reviews, loyalty and WiFi-driven marketing in one place, and you are comfortable with the Pro tier at £299 per venue per month (or a quote for Essential or Premium). The 0% booking commission and the breadth are real, and reviewers like how quick it is to use. It is a credible UK-built choice.

Be clear-eyed about the gaps: two of three tiers hide their price, contact caps can push you up a plan, the WiFi needs supported hardware, and there is no large pool of verifiable public ratings to lean on. If your real need is focused, transparent guest WiFi marketing rather than a full suite, look at CaptiFi for published pricing and a free device, Spotipo for budget hardware-agnostic capture, Beambox for set-and-forget reviews, or StayFi if you are a short-term-rental host. The best way to decide is to trial two against your own venue. You can start a CaptiFi trial with no card, or read the direct CaptiFi vs Stampede breakdown first.

Sources and honesty note: ratings and pricing here are drawn from stampede.ai, UK Companies House (Stampede AI Ltd, SC503985), G2, Capterra, GetApp and Software Advice, plus The Caterer's 2026 buying guide, and competitor figures from G2 and Capterra as cited inline. Where a figure could not be verified to source, including Stampede's exact G2 score and the prices of its quote-only tiers, it has been left out rather than estimated. Star ratings and review counts move over time and are correct at time of writing, June 2026.