Patrick Domingues

In this tutorial you will learn how to configure your Unifi Controller 7.0.22 Guest Hotspot with Stripe Payment. This will come handy if you’re looking to monetize your Public WiFi access.

Before we start make sure you are on Unifi Controller 7.0.22 or later and proceed to adopt all your Unifi devices into your controller. Make sure all firmware is updated as well.

The Tutorial Run Down

1. Configure a Guest Network.
2. Configure Bandwidth Profile.
3. Configure a SSID for a group of access points.
4. Configure Guest Hotspot Profile with Stripe Payment.
5. Simple way to view Stripe payments.

Let’s start by configuring the Guest Network.

1. Log into your Unifi Controller 7.0.22 

2. Once you’re on the dashboard click Settings.

3. Now locate and click on Networks.

4. Now that you’re on the Networks Section locate and click on Create New Network.

5. For our New Network let’s do the following

• Name your network Guest Hotspot
• Uncheck Auto Scale Network 
• Change your Host Address to something different, in my case I am changing it to 192.168.168.1 and a Netmask of /24 this will give us 249 available addresses for guest devices. If you require more addresses change the Netmask from the dropdown list.

6. Scroll down and change Advanced Configuration to Manual. 

7. In Advanced Configuration let’s make the following changes.

• Change your VLAN ID. I like matching the VLAN ID’s to the 3rd octette of the subnets so in my case it will be 168. 
• For Network Type, select Guest Network.
• For Content Filtering select Work.
• Make sure Multicast DNS is Enabled.  

8. Now we can click on the Add Network button to create the network.

Configure Bandwidth Profile for Guest Hotspot

1. Locate and click Profiles.

2. Scroll down until you locate Bandwidth Profile and select Create New Bandwidth Profile.

3. Name your Bandwidth Profile, Guest Hotspot. Provide your Download and Upload limits and click Apply Changes.

Configuring a Guest SSID for a group of Access Points.

1. Locate and click on the WiFi option. 

2. Now that we are in the WiFi Settings page click on Create New WiFi Network.

3. Here on the New WiFi Network page fill out the Name for your SSID and provide a simple password. 

4. In the Network section click on the dropdown, locate Guest Hotspot or whichever name you decided to name your Guest Network and select it.

5. Now this next section, this option is entirely up to you if you would like to use all available access points or just use a select few for Guest WiFi Services. I am going to create a group for just 1 access point for the purpose of this tutorial. Select Create New Group.

7. In this New Group I will select all the access points I want to provide Guest Hotspot services to. Name your access point group and select the access points you want to use. When done click the Save Changes button.

8. Now under Broadcasting AP’s make sure only the group you wish to use is selected.

9. Locate Advanced Configuration and select Manual. We will be making some advanced setting changes here.

10. Let’s start by configuring the following advanced options.

• WiFi Band – Uncheck 2.4GHz this is an old noisy technology that will just limit bandwidth and make your guests frustrated.
• WiFi Type – Select Guest Hotspot 

11. Under Bandwidth Profile from the dropdown select Guest Hotspot

12. Scroll down until you locate Security. For Security Protocol we will mark this as open since the Strip Payments will be controlling access. 

13. Now we can click on the Add WiFi Network button to create the SSID.

Configuring Guest Hotspot Profile with Stripe Payments

1. Now we will have some fun configuring the Guest Hotspot with Stripe Payments. Locate and click on Profiles.

2. The Guest Hotspot table should be first on your list and you should see a Default policy there. Go ahead and click on it to open it.

3. Now that we are on the Guest Hotspot page find Authentication Type and from the drop-down options select Payment.

4. Once Payment is selected, we can now Add a New Payment Package. 

5. There are many ways to go about setting up these payment packages however I will be showing you the most practical way.

6. Now that the Add New Payment Package window is open, we will configure 3 packages. You can price them and create whatever you want. This example is to just get you started. 

• Name – Create the following. For example:
  -1 Day – Guest Hotspot Access 
  -15 Day – Guest Hotspot Access 
  -30 Day – Guest Hotspot Access
• Price – For example: 1 day I will charge $1.00 for 15 days $10.00 and for 30 days $15.00
• Duration – This will be based on hours, 24 hours per 1 day.
• Download limit – We want to be mindful of our available ISP bandwidth. In a perfect world we would have and ISP for Guest and an ISP for Corporate.
• Charge as – This will be a company name that will be displayed on the charge.

7. I don’t know about you, but I would like to know who I’m selling internet to. Also, if they do something shady on your internet and the CIA comes a knocking you can provide a list of potential suspects. 

8. Your payment packages should look something like this.

9. Now locate Payment Gateway and from here click on the dropdown and select Stripe.

10. Now log into your Stripe Portal and copy your Publishable API Key and then place it into the API Key field.

11. Locate Guest Landing Page and turn it to ON.

9. Now you are able to edit the look and feel of the landing page to match your business.

10. For Terms of Service make sure this is Enabled. You want to protect your company with a disclaimer for use. 

11. Now your complete, click the Apply Changes button.

Simple way to view stripe payments 

Here I will be providing a simple way to view stripe payments from your Unifi Controller. 

1. Locate and click Profiles.

2. Click on the Default Guest Hotspot policy.

3. Locate Hotspot Manager. Click Open Hotspot Manager.

4. You should now be on the Hotspot Manager page. Click on Payments and Transactions.

5. From here you can see all the payments coming through for your WiFi access.

I hope this article was helpful, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact me. If you would like to be notified of when I create a new post, you can subscribe to my blog alert.