How to Sell Wi-Fi Plans on Your Captive Portal With UPI

To sell Wi-Fi plans, you need three things: plans the router can enforce (time, data, speed, devices), a captive portal where guests pick and pay for a plan, and a payment gateway that accepts UPI. The tricky part is that the guest has to pay before they have internet access. Solve that, and a paid Wi-Fi hotspot becomes a simple, self-service product.

This guide covers plan design, choosing a gateway, the payment window problem, automatic login after payment, receipts and reconciliation. It is written for hotels, hostels, PG accommodation, cafés, co-working spaces and ISPs running hotspots in India.

Every plan is a combination of a few limits. Keep the number of plans small; three or four is usually enough.

• Time: how long the plan lasts once used, e.g. 1 hour, 24 hours, 7 days.
• Data: a total quota, e.g. 2 GB. Useful where bandwidth is expensive or for long-validity plans.
• Speed: download and upload limits. This is what most buyers are really paying for.
• Devices: how many phones or laptops can use the plan at once.
• Validity: the last date the plan can be used, which matters for plans bought in advance.
• Auto-renew: whether the plan renews from a prepaid balance when it ends.

The right prices depend on your location, your internet cost and what guests are used to. These examples are only to show structure, not suggested prices:

• Café: free 30 minutes at basic speed with OTP; ₹20 for 2 hours at higher speed.
• Hotel: free basic plan for guests; ₹49 day pass at premium speed; ₹199 stay pass for up to 5 days.
• Hostel or PG: ₹299 for 30 days, 10 Mbps, 2 devices; ₹499 for 30 days, 25 Mbps, 3 devices.
• Bus stand or market: ₹10 for 1 GB valid for 24 hours.

Use a payment gateway account in your own business name, so money settles directly into your bank account and you control refunds. Most Indian gateways accept UPI, cards and net banking. When comparing, look at:

• UPI success rate and whether UPI intent (opening the guest’s UPI app directly) works well on mobile.
• Fees per transaction, especially on small amounts.
• Settlement time and how settlement reports are delivered.
• Whether split settlements are available, if a partner or landlord takes a share of each sale.
• The KYC documents they need and how long onboarding takes.

Here is the core problem with paid Wi-Fi hotspots. Before login, the guest can only reach addresses in the walled garden. You can add the payment gateway’s checkout page there. But when the guest taps “Pay with UPI”, the phone opens a UPI app, which needs to reach its own servers and the bank. Card payments send the guest to a bank’s OTP page. Those hosts are many, vary by bank and app, and change over time. The payment gets stuck, the guest blames your Wi-Fi.

The practical solution is a short payment window. When the guest starts a payment, the platform gives that one device a few minutes of limited internet access, just enough for the UPI app or bank page to work. If the payment succeeds, the guest is logged in on the plan they bought. If it fails or times out, access closes again and the guest can retry.

The window should be short, speed-limited and tied to a single payment attempt, so it cannot be abused as free Wi-Fi.

After paying, the guest should not have to type a code or go back to the portal. The platform should confirm the payment with the gateway on its server side (never trusting only what the browser says), activate the plan and log the device in automatically.

Send a confirmation message with the plan name, amount and expiry, and a reminder before the plan runs out. This cuts support questions dramatically. If the guest switches phones or the session drops, they should be able to log back in on the same plan with their mobile number.

Money received on Wi-Fi is revenue like any other, so treat it that way. Your payment gateway normally sends its own receipt to the payer; your Wi-Fi platform should keep its own record of each sale linked to the plan and the device.

At least once a week, compare three numbers: plans sold in the Wi-Fi platform, successful transactions in the gateway dashboard, and money settled to your bank. Differences usually come from failed payments that the gateway later reversed, refunds, or fees. Export both reports as CSV and match them by transaction reference. If you charge GST on Wi-Fi services, take advice from your accountant on how to invoice these sales.

In OKWiFi, plans combine time, data, speed and device limits with a validity period, and can auto-renew from a wallet. Guests choose a plan on the captive portal and pay with UPI, cards or net banking through your own payment gateway; Easebuzz, AblePay and Razorpay are supported. During payment, the guest gets a short payment window of limited internet so UPI apps and bank OTP pages work, and is logged in automatically once payment is confirmed.

Message templates cover payment received, plan activated, plan expiring and plan expired, sent by SMS, WhatsApp or e-mail. Revenue reports and CSV exports help with reconciliation. For ISPs and partners, split payments such as Easebuzz split can divide a payment between accounts, and each venue’s prepaid wallet records the platform or partner share in an immutable ledger.