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's a good chance a Vigor router is bolted to the wall in a cupboard, and has been for years. 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?

Quite a lot, as it turns out. DrayTek's built-in captive portal, the Hotspot Web Portal, can ask guests to sign in with Google or Facebook (which hands over their name and email address) and keep a log of who connected. What DrayTek's own page doesn't describe is a separate marketing opt-in, or anything sent to guests after they leave. This guide walks through both routes: the built-in portal on its own, and the external-portal route that adds a consented email list, automated emails and review requests.

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.

When a guest's phone tries to load a page, the request is redirected to the router's own Hotspot Web Portal page, and the guest can't reach the wider internet until they've logged in or accepted your terms. 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. Each one takes your logo, background images, welcome text and terms, and DrayTek says the colours, text and button wording can all be changed. The authentication options are:

• 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, which provides the guest's name and email address to the network.
• 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 does the job. It keeps records too: with USB storage plugged in, DrayTek says each user who logs in is recorded in a user database, which you can search for connection history showing when each user logged in and out. That log sits on the router's USB storage. DrayTek's hotspot page doesn't mention a marketing opt-in, welcome emails or review requests, which is the part an external portal adds.

Which Vigor and VigorAP models support it

DrayTek UK's Hotspot page says the feature is included in the Vigor 2865 series routers, with no per-user or extra charge, and that it works with the router's built-in wireless or with DrayTek's VigorAP 912C and VigorAP 906 access points. Existing users of those routers can download the latest firmware to add the feature free of charge. For any other Vigor model, check its own datasheet or DrayTek's support pages before you plan around the Hotspot Web Portal.

Built-in portal versus external portal

DrayTek routers can hand the sign-in over to an external portal. DrayTek's own hotspot page says the Hotspot Web Portal can authenticate users via RADIUS "for integration with external portal services such as Purple Wi-Fi", and its VigorACS 3 knowledge base covers the same setup with VigorACS 3 as the portal server. Captive WiFi publishes a DrayTek setup guide for its own platform too.

The two routes do different jobs. Here's how they line up, going by DrayTek's own hotspot page.

The external portal doesn't replace the router's portal feature. You pick External Portal Server inside the same Hotspot Web Portal profile, so 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 is the shorter route. 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. For a consented email list with automated follow-up, you keep the same router and change one setting: the portal method.

Pointing DrayTek at an external portal

DrayTek documents two external-portal paths. The first is VigorACS 3, DrayTek's own central management software, which acts as the portal server while a RADIUS server authenticates the guests (DrayTek suggests FreeRADIUS for that). The second is a third-party external portal, which is the route marketing platforms use. The router settings follow the same pattern 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 the router's own portal page, so guests land on your portal instead.
6. Apply the profile to the guest SSID and test.

CaptiFi works on DrayTek alongside UniFi, TP-Link Omada, Cisco Meraki, Aruba, MikroTik, Ruckus and Fortinet. DrayTek and MikroTik have no card in the CaptiFi set-up wizard, so CaptiFi support sends the portal details you need for those; the others are set up in the wizard. 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, and you keep your existing Vigor kit. What CaptiFi adds is the branded sign-in page and everything that should happen after a guest connects.

DrayTek is set up with CaptiFi support. In the set-up wizard, click the support@captifi.io link under the hardware cards, or email support@captifi.io, and support sends the details you need. You then set up the router with those details, and we can jump in if needed. If you would rather skip the router configuration, you can plug in a CaptiFi device instead, on a refundable deposit.

• 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. In CaptiFi's venue data, 55% of the new devices that joined CaptiFi guest WiFi in September 2026 signed in, and a typical venue gained around 50 new guest emails a month from April to September (350 or more at the busiest one in ten). Welcome emails go out while the visit is still fresh, review requests go out on their own to guests who opted in (at most once every 90 days at each venue), and win-back campaigns give lapsed guests a reason to come back. The built-in portal can tell you who signed in and when; sending them something afterwards is the part CaptiFi adds.

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.

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 and only the portal setting changes.

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 test the whole flow on a 30-day trial (you add a card to start), with your DrayTek portal details from CaptiFi support. Essentials starts from $69/mo. If you only want guest capture and CSV export on the kit you already run, Lite is $24.99/mo for one site.

Sources: DrayTek UK, Hotspot Web Portal; DrayTek Australia, Hotspot solution; DrayTek, knowledge base article 7530 on VigorACS 3 as the portal server; Captive WiFi, WiFi hardware guides; all read on 28 October 2026. CaptiFi figures come from CaptiFi's own venue data. DrayTek, Vigor, VigorAP, VigorACS, Purple, Captive WiFi and the other product names here are trade marks of their owners; CaptiFi is not affiliated with or endorsed by them.