WiFi Analytics Dashboard - Guest Insights, Heatmaps & Floor Plans

The Problem

Most WiFi analytics dashboards are either too basic (Beambox's #1 complaint: ~25 G2 reviews mention limited reporting) or too complex (Purple's UI is called "not intuitive" with a "steep learning curve" by multiple reviewers).

The CaptiFi Solution

CaptiFi strikes the balance: powerful analytics that are easy to understand. Every chart answers a question an operator actually asks, every number carries a comparison against the previous period, and the reports that suggest an action come with the button to take it. Upload your floor plan and the same data becomes a heat map of your rooms.

Key Benefits

Visits, unique guests, opt-in rate, returning rate and average dwell time, each against the previous period

Busiest hour and a day-by-hour footfall heatmap, shown in your venue's own timezone

Popular access points with per-zone dwell time, and a click to filter every chart to one zone

Venue Map: upload a floor plan, place your access points, see heat zones and who is online now

Peak occupancy, average return gap and guest roaming, with a win-back campaign button built in

Cross-location comparison in a single view, CSV export on the rankings and the full guest log

A branded monthly PDF report per venue, generated automatically and emailable (Growth and above)

Screenshots

See it in your dashboard

Your headline numbers, and whether they are going the right way

Visits, unique guests, marketing opt-ins, returning rate and average dwell time sit across the top for whichever period you picked, each with the change against the equivalent period before it. Underneath, the trend chart plots visits against unique visitors so a busy week of regulars never looks the same as a busy week of new faces. Toggle it between daily and weekly points.

Five headline numbers, each with a period-on-period change
Visits versus unique visitors on one trend, daily or weekly
Last 24 hours, 7, 30 or 90 days, or any custom range

See where sign-ups are won and lost

The funnel follows guests from submitting the form to connecting to reaching the marketing opt-in, so a weak splash page shows up as a step that leaks rather than as a vague low total. Beside it, the device breakdown splits your guests by operating system or by device type, which is the fastest way to catch a splash page that behaves badly on one platform.

Form submitted, connected, opted in, as counts not guesses
Device mix by operating system or by phone, tablet and laptop

CaptiFi busiest hour of the day bar chart with the peak hour highlighted, noting hours are shown in the venue timezone — Busiest hour of the day, in the venue's own timezone.

Busiest hour, in your venue's clock

Every visit is bucketed by hour and the peak is highlighted, so the shape of your trading day is obvious at a glance. Times use the selected venue's own timezone rather than a server clock, which matters as soon as you run venues in more than one country: a New York bar and a London pub each read in their own local time.

Peak hour highlighted, all 24 hours plotted
Venue local time, not UTC, whenever a single venue is selected

CaptiFi popular access points ranking with visits, guests, share and average dwell time per area, beside peak occupancy, average return gap and guest roaming cards — Access points ranked as zones, with peak occupancy, return gap and roaming beside them.

Zone analytics without any extra hardware

Rename your access points after the areas they cover and the ranking reads like zone analytics: visits, unique guests, share of the venue and average dwell time for the Front Bar against the Garden Terrace. Around it sit the numbers that turn into decisions. Peak occupancy tells you the most guests online at once and the exact moment it happened. Average return gap tells you how many days a guest waits before coming back, and hands you the button to schedule a win-back email just inside it. Guest roaming shows what share of guests move between areas mid-visit.

Visits, guests, share and dwell time per area, with CSV export
Peak occupancy with the busiest moment in venue local time
Average return gap with a Set up win-back email button
Visit duration bucketed from under 5 minutes to 2 hours plus

CaptiFi Venue Map showing a pub floor plan with access point pins for Front Bar, Dining Room, Garden Terrace and Private Lounge, each surrounded by a heat blob scaled from the busiest access point down — Your own floor plan, with a heat blob per access point, biggest at your busiest.

Upload your floor plan and watch the venue light up

Upload an image of your layout, a photo of a printed plan works fine, then drop each access point onto the spot where it actually sits. The map draws a heat blob per access point, biggest at your busiest access point and scaling down from there for the period you are viewing, so the quiet corner and the room that carries the trade stop being opinions. Hover a pin for its visits and average dwell time, and a green badge on each pin counts the guests connected there right now, refreshed every minute.

JPG, PNG or WebP up to 5 MB, drag the pins to fine-tune
Heat scaled from your busiest access point down
Live badge per pin: guests online there right now
No beacons, no extra sensors, just the access points you already have

CaptiFi analytics in zone view, with a banner reading Zone view: Front Bar and a Clear zone button above a trend chart filtered to that access point — Click any access point to filter the charts to that zone.

Drill into one room without losing the venue

Click a row in the access point ranking and the page enters zone view: the trend, busiest hour, footfall, peak occupancy and visit duration charts all filter to that area, with a banner naming the zone you are in and a single button to leave it. The KPI cards deliberately stay venue-wide, so you always keep the context of the whole site while you look at one room.

Five charts refilter to the chosen access point
A banner says which zone you are in, one click clears it

CaptiFi footfall heatmap grid of days against hours, shaded from none to busiest, with the busiest slot called out — Footfall by day and hour, from quiet to busiest.

The whole week in one grid

Seven days by twenty-four hours, shaded from quiet to busiest, with the single busiest slot named above the chart. This is the view that settles arguments about staffing, decides when a quiz night should start, and tells you the hour at which an email or text will land while people are actually in the room.

Day-by-hour intensity with the busiest slot called out
Filters to a single zone alongside the rest of the page

CaptiFi monthly reports page with a month picker, a Generate report button and a list of ready reports each offering email, preview and download — Monthly reports: generated per venue, ready to download, preview or email.

A branded report you can send to an owner

On the Growth plan and above, every completed month is built into a branded PDF per venue, generated for you and kept in a list you can preview, download or email straight from the dashboard. It runs to eight pages, nine once you have more than one venue, and it is the answer to the question a head office or a landlord asks at the end of the month, without anybody assembling a spreadsheet.

One report per venue per month, generated automatically, Growth and above
Preview, download or email it without leaving the dashboard

What is a WiFi analytics dashboard?

A WiFi analytics dashboard turns guest logins into venue reporting. Every time somebody connects to your guest network through a CaptiFi splash page, CaptiFi records the visit, which access point served it, how long the session lasted, the device it came from and whether that guest has been in before. The dashboard reads that back as the numbers an operator runs a venue on: how many people came, how many were new, how long they stayed, when the room fills up and which part of the building they actually used.

What is the difference between a visit and a unique guest?

A visit is a connection. A unique guest is a person. Anything on the page that counts people rather than connections identifies a returning guest by their email address first, then their mobile number if your splash page collects a phone instead of an email, then their device if the form collects neither. So a guest who connects five times in one afternoon is one unique guest and five visits, and a phone-capture splash page counts people just as accurately as an email-capture one.

Can WiFi analytics show a heat map of my venue?

Yes, and CaptiFi does it from the access points you already own. Upload an image of your floor plan on the Venue Map card, drop each access point onto the spot where it sits, and the map draws a heat blob per access point, biggest at your busiest access point and scaling down from there for the period you are viewing. It is honest about what it measures: heat reflects which access point a guest connected through, so it shows activity by area rather than a position for any individual. No beacons, no cameras, no extra sensors.

What is dwell time on guest WiFi?

Dwell time is how long a guest is connected across a visit day. CaptiFi takes it from live session tracking where your hardware reports it, from UniFi session data or a CaptiFi device's own disconnect records, and falls back to your authorised session length where it does not. It is shown three ways: as an average across the venue in the KPI band, as an average per access point in the ranking, so you can see that the garden holds people longer than the bar, and as bands in Visit Duration, from under five minutes up to two hours and beyond, with the previous period's most common length for comparison.

How it works

How to read your guest WiFi analytics in CaptiFi

1

Pick a period and a venue

Open Analytics, choose Last 24 hours, 7, 30 or 90 days or a custom range, and pick a venue with the switcher. Every card on the page recalculates, and each headline number shows the change against the equivalent previous period.

2

Read the headline numbers

Total visits, unique guests, marketing opt-ins, returning rate and average dwell time sit across the top. Visits count connections, unique guests count people, so a guest who connects five times in a day is one guest and five visits.

3

Find your busy times

Busiest Hour Of The Day and the Footfall By Day And Hour heatmap show when your venue actually fills up, in the venue's own local timezone. Use them for staffing and for choosing when to send a campaign.

4

Name your access points, then read them as zones

Rename each access point after the area it covers, for example Front Bar or Garden Terrace. Popular Access Points then ranks your areas by visits with an average dwell time each, and clicking a row filters the trend, busiest hour, footfall, peak occupancy and visit duration charts to that zone.

5

Upload your floor plan

On the Venue Map card, upload an image of your layout (a photo of a printed plan is fine), click Edit map and place each access point where it sits. The map then shows a heat blob per access point, biggest at your busiest and scaling down from there, plus a green badge with the guests online there right now.

6

Act on what it tells you

Average return gap gives you the number of days the average guest waits between visits, with a button that opens the campaign builder timed just inside it. Export the access point ranking or the full guest log as CSV, or download the branded monthly PDF from Reports on the Growth plan and above.

Every report

Twenty-two reports, grouped by the question they answer

Nothing here needs a query to be written or a spreadsheet to be exported. Pick a date range and a venue, and read.

How many people came, and were they new?

Total visits: Every WiFi login in the period, with the change against the equivalent period before it.
Unique guests: Distinct people, counted once each however many times they connected.
Marketing opt-ins: Guests who consented to marketing, counted once each.
Returning rate: The share of unique guests who had been in before.
Visits and unique guests trend: Both lines on one chart, with a day or week granularity toggle.
New vs returning: Retention at a glance, as a share of the guests in the period.

When is my venue actually busy?

Busiest hour of the day: All 24 hours plotted with the peak highlighted, in the venue's own timezone.
Footfall by day and hour: A seven by twenty-four grid shaded quiet to busiest, with the busiest slot named.
Peak occupancy: The most guests online at once, the exact moment it happened, a sparkline of daily peaks and the change versus last period.
Connected now: On the dashboard home: guests online right now, refreshed every minute, with a click through to the live list.

How long do they stay, and where do they sit?

Average dwell time: Time on WiFi per visit day, from live session tracking where your hardware reports it.
Visit duration: Bands from under 5 minutes to 2 hours plus, with last period's most common length.
Popular access points: Your areas ranked by visits with unique guests, share and average dwell time each, plus CSV export.
Venue Map: Your own floor plan with a heat blob per access point, biggest at your busiest, and a live badge of who is online there.
Guest roaming: The share of guests who move between access points mid-visit, and how many zone changes they average.
Zone view: Click an access point and five charts refilter to that area while the KPI cards stay venue-wide.

Is my splash page working, and what next?

Opt-in funnel: Form submitted, connected to WiFi, opted in to marketing, so a leaking step is visible.
Devices: The mix by operating system or by phone, tablet and laptop.
Average return gap: The days the average guest waits between visits, with a button that opens the campaign builder timed just inside it.
Top venues: Your locations compared side by side in a single ranking.
Guest Visits log: Every arrival as a row, badged New or Returning, searchable and filterable, with full CSV export.
Monthly reports: A branded PDF per venue per completed month, ready to preview, download or email. Growth and above.

Plans

What is on which plan

Every plan

The numbers you check daily

Total visits
Unique guests
Marketing opt-ins
Returning rate
Visits and unique guests trend
Opt-in funnel
Guest Visits log with CSV export

Growth and above

Advanced analytics

Busiest hour of the day
Footfall by day and hour
Device and platform mix
Average dwell time and visit duration
Popular access points and zone view
Venue Map floor plan heat map
Peak occupancy, return gap and roaming
Branded monthly PDF reports
REST API and webhooks for your own reporting

Pro and above

Across all your venues

Top Venues side-by-side comparison
The all-venues view rather than one venue at a time
Everything on the Growth plan

A report that is not on your plan is not hidden. The card stays where it is, names the report, explains what it would tell you and offers the upgrade, so you always know what the platform can do. Pricing is shown in your own currency on the pricing page.

In practice

What operators use it for

Pubs and bars

Name your access points after the bar, the garden and the function room, then read the ranking. Dwell time per area settles whether the garden is worth the staffing, and the footfall grid tells you which hour a quiz night should start.

Restaurants

Peak occupancy and busiest hour show real cover pressure by hour rather than by service. Average return gap gives you the exact window in which a win-back email still catches a diner before they choose somewhere else.

Cafes

Visit duration bands separate the takeaway trade from the laptop crowd, and the trend chart shows whether a promotion brought new faces or simply moved your regulars to a different hour.

Hotels and venues

Upload the floor plan and the heat map shows which lounges and meeting rooms are actually used. Guest roaming shows how much movement there is between areas, which is the argument for or against a new access point.

Multi-site groups

Top Venues ranks every location on one screen, and the branded monthly PDF gives each site manager the same report in the same format without anybody assembling it.

Gyms and studios

The footfall grid shows the hours that are genuinely full against the hours that only feel full, and the returning rate tells you whether new joiners are actually coming back.

FAQs

WiFi analytics questions answered

What can I actually see in a WiFi analytics dashboard?

For any date range you pick: total visits, unique guests, marketing opt-ins, returning rate and average dwell time, each compared with the previous period. Then the deeper reports: the visits trend, the opt-in funnel, device and operating system mix, busiest hour of the day, a day-by-hour footfall heatmap, peak occupancy, average return gap, guest roaming, visit duration bands, your access points ranked by visits, and a heat map drawn on your own floor plan.

Can I upload a floor plan of my venue?

Yes. On the Analytics page, the Venue Map card takes an image of your layout (a photo of a printed plan is fine; JPG, PNG or WebP up to 5 MB). Click Edit map, pick an access point and click where it sits, then drag the pins to fine-tune. The map then shows a heat blob per access point, biggest at your busiest access point and scaling down from there for the period you are viewing, and each pin carries a live badge with the guests connected there right now.

Is the CaptiFi heat map tracking where guests are standing?

No, and it is important to be straight about that. The heat reflects which access point each guest connected through, so it shows activity by area rather than a position for any individual. There is no beacon, no camera and no extra sensor involved. What you get is an honest answer to "which parts of my venue are actually being used", drawn from the access points you already have.

How does CaptiFi tell a returning guest from a new one?

Anything that counts people rather than connections recognises a guest by their email address first (ignoring capitals and spaces), then their mobile number if your splash page collects a phone instead, then their device if the form collects neither. So a phone-capture splash page counts people just as accurately as an email one, and a guest who connects five times in a day is one unique guest and five visits.

Are the times shown in my venue's local time?

Yes, whenever a single venue is selected. Busiest hour, the footfall heatmap and the peak occupancy moment all use that venue's own timezone, which matters as soon as you operate in more than one country. Viewing all venues at once falls back to UTC, because there is no single local clock to use, and the chart says so.

Can I see which part of my venue is busiest?

Yes. Rename each access point after the area it covers, for example Front Bar or Garden Terrace, and Popular Access Points ranks your areas by visits with unique guests, share of the venue and average dwell time for each. Click a row to enter zone view, where the trend, busiest hour, footfall, peak occupancy and visit duration charts all filter to that area while the KPI cards stay venue-wide.

Can I export my guest data?

Yes. The access point ranking has a CSV export for the selected range, and Guest Visits exports the full log with a column for every custom splash question plus an email status column. That export is one row per guest even when they have visited many times, so an address is never repeated in a list you feed to your own CRM. Growth plans and above also get the REST API and webhooks.

Do I get a monthly report?

Yes, from the Growth plan up. CaptiFi builds a branded PDF per venue for each completed month, kept in a list on the Reports page where you can preview it, download it or email it. It runs to eight pages, nine once you have more than one venue, covering registration trends and peak hours, device and browser mix, email campaign performance, an ROI estimate, database growth, a GDPR compliance summary and a month-on-month comparison.

Is analytics included on every plan?

The core is, on every plan: visits, unique guests, opt-ins, the guests trend and your sign-up funnel. The advanced reports (busiest hour, device and platform mix, dwell time, the footfall heatmap, popular access points, the Venue Map, peak occupancy, return gap and roaming) are included from the Growth plan up, along with the branded monthly PDF report and the REST API. Comparing venues side by side is on Pro and above. Where a report is not on your plan, the card explains what it shows rather than hiding it.

How current is the data?

Visits appear as guests connect, so the dashboard reflects today rather than yesterday. The Connected Guests count and the live badges on the Venue Map pins refresh every minute, so you can watch a room fill up while service is running.

What Our Customers Say

CaptiFi completely changed my business. Before, every guest was a one-time booki...

CaptiFi completely changed my business. Before, every guest was a one-time booking. Now I have a direct line to thousands of people who've stayed in the plane. I can offer them return deals, send updates about new features, and keep them engaged. My repeat booking rate went from almost zero to 35%. It's been incredible.

J

Johnny Palmer

Owner, PytchAir Boeing 727 Airbnb

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