One flat white. One laptop. The window table, from nine until five. Every café owner has watched it happen, and every café owner has had the same argument in their head: is it worth saying something? Usually it is not, so nobody does, and the table stays unsold.
If your Wi-Fi password is written on a board, it works for everyone equally: the lunch crowd, the person nursing one coffee for seven hours, and whoever is sitting on the bench outside. Once someone has the password, their phone or laptop reconnects for free every time they walk past, forever, until you change it. And changing it means reprinting the sign, retelling every regular, and starting the whole cycle again.
The password gives you no way to say “two hours is plenty” except in person. That is why the conversation never happens.
Put a sign-in page in front of the Wi-Fi instead of a password, and every customer gets their own session with a length you choose. When it runs out, the sign-in page simply comes back.
That moment does the job a member of staff would otherwise have to do. Most people read it as their cue: order something else, or pack up. Somebody genuinely working through the afternoon can sign in again — if you decide to allow that — and nobody has had to be the villain.
It is your house rule, applied by the equipment rather than by whoever drew the short straw.
They join your Wi-Fi. A page with your name, your logo and your colours appears on their phone.
They tap once to sign in, and they are online for the period you set.
When the period ends, the page comes back. No message from you, no conversation at the counter.
Regulars are not asked again within the window you choose. See what the page looks like →
You do not need to be technical to set these; it is a dashboard you will understand in about a minute. The ones café owners actually use:
Some venues run ninety minutes at weekends and four hours on a quiet weekday morning. Change it whenever you like.
Choose whether the sign-in page lets someone back on immediately, after a gap you set, or not again until tomorrow.
Enough for messages, maps and browsing. Not enough to download a season of television at the expense of the card terminal.
That is reasonable. Six devices from one seat is not, and the limit is applied to the sign-in rather than to the hardware.
The till, the tablet at the pass and the printer sit on their own plan with their own speed, so a busy afternoon never reaches them.
A session that has gone quiet can be closed on its own, so your device count reflects the people actually in the room.
Some cafés are built for laptop workers and that is the business model. A time limit is not about being mean with the internet; it is about the Wi-Fi behaving like part of the business rather than a tap someone left running.
If your model is “stay all day, buy lunch”, set a longer session and use the sign-in page for something else: a name and email so you can tell them about next week’s event, or a day pass they can buy at the counter.
Someone who signed in last week is not asked again. Their phone reconnects on its own within the period you set, and they simply find themselves online.
The people who come in most often are the ones asked least often.
Almost certainly not.
A branded sign-in page is a standard feature of the Wi-Fi equipment sold to cafés and shops, and that is what we use. One small setting is changed on the box you already have.
Not sure what it is? Send us a photo and we will tell you straight. If your internet provider’s box is locked down — which is common — a small router that sits behind it costs about the same as a decent coffee machine service, and we will tell you exactly which one.
Forty makes have their own page saying plainly what they can and cannot do. See the full list →
Time and speed limits, a separate staff plan, and a sign-in page with your name on it are all included in the Café plan at $30 a month per venue, after a 14-day free trial. No per-customer charge, and no device cap except the one you set.
Set it up yourself this week, or send us a photo of your Wi-Fi box and we will tell you what is involved.
Every “what’s the Wi-Fi?” interrupts a sale, and the password ends up on the bench outside. Take the sign down for good.
You cannot email a card payment. The four seconds when a walk-in tells you who they are, and how to keep the junk addresses out.
The A-board faces the wrong way and Instagram showed it to eleven people. Get on the one screen everybody in the room is reading.
Two hours suits most cafés and is the usual starting point. Ninety minutes works at a weekend when tables are scarce; four hours is reasonable on a quiet weekday. The point is that the number is yours and takes a moment to change.
Rarely, because the limit arrives as a sign-in page rather than as a member of staff. Most people read it as a cue to order something else or to pack up. It is a great deal less awkward than being asked in person, which is why the asking never happens.
Only if you allow it. You choose whether the sign-in page lets someone straight back on, makes them wait a gap you set, or does not let them back until the following day.
No. A device that has signed in recently reconnects on its own within the window you choose, so your regulars are the customers asked least often.
Almost certainly not. A branded sign-in page with time and speed limits is a standard feature of the equipment sold to cafés and shops, and usually one setting changes. If your provider’s router is locked down, a small router behind it does the job.
