No more till to keep
The customer pays on the portal, from their own phone. You handle no change, no notebook, no paper receipt: the sale records itself in the app.
Where people pass through, there are small bundles to sell
Call box, shop, internet café, a corner of the market: dozens of people walk past your business every day. With WiNet, each of them can buy thirty minutes or two hours of Internet without you having to run a till.
Short bundles, cut to fit the neighbourhood
In a local retail spot, nobody buys a month of Internet. People buy the time they need, right now: checking WhatsApp, sending a document, watching a video, finishing homework. Your bundles have to follow that rhythm.
In the app you create as many bundles as you like: a duration, a data cap if you want one, a price. Your zone's captive portal lists them in order and the customer picks for themselves. You can add one, drop one or change a price whenever you want.
A simple line-up to start with
As a rough guide, many neighbourhood zones start with four tiers: thirty minutes, one hour, two hours and a full day. The amounts shown alongside are examples meant to illustrate the logic. You set your own prices, based on your neighbourhood and on what your connection costs you.
See how the portal works
Day to day at the counter
Eight manager headaches, solved
Selling Internet access in the neighbourhood is not only a technical question. It is mostly a question of wasted time, small change and trust.
No stock to buy up front
No scratch cards to order in advance from a supplier. The voucher sold on the portal is created at the moment of payment. And if you want paper for the counter, you print it yourself, whenever you like, without spending a franc.
The customer with no MoMo
They pay in coins, you hand them a printed code. You generate up to a hundred vouchers at once, on a sheet to cut up. By default the codes are short, with no 0 or o, no 1, l or i, so there is nothing to mix up when typing them in. And if your neighbourhood is used to another format, you set it yourself: length, digits only, a single code or a username and a password.
The code that goes round the whole street
One customer buys, then passes the code to three neighbours: that is the classic leak. Here, the code locks to the first phone that uses it. One code, one phone. The rest of the street has to buy their own.
The evening payout
Every sale feeds the zone balance. When you close up, one tap on “Withdraw” sends the money to your mobile money number, with the operator in your country.
You can see your busy hours
The app shows the day's sales and how they are spread out. You know when the footfall is heavy and you adapt your bundles to match.
You stay in charge of your prices
Has your neighbour dropped their rate? You change yours from your phone, and the portal shows the new line-up straight away, with nothing to reprint.
Nobody helps themselves for free
The MikroTik router only lets valid vouchers through. When the time runs out, access closes, the session is cut and the phone does not reconnect on its own: they have to buy again to carry on.
A typical day in your zone
Here is how an ordinary day goes, from the moment you raise the shutter to the evening payout.
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Morning — you open up, the zone is already online
The router stays on all the time, so there is nothing to restart. You open the app, check at a glance that the zone is marked online, and see the balance carried over from yesterday.
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During the day — customers buy on their own
A customer joins your WiFi, the portal opens by itself on their phone, they pick a bundle and pay by Mobile Money or by card. You do not step in. If they get stuck, they can reach you through the WhatsApp button you set up on the portal.
The small bundles make up most of the volume. That is normal, and it is what keeps the zone running.
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Late afternoon — the peak
The zone usually works hardest between the end of the school day and nightfall. Many managers create a slightly longer “evening” bundle for that stretch, or simply keep their two-hour tier, which sells well at that time.
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Evening — you cash out
Before closing, you look at the day's total and trigger a payout to your Mobile Money number. You are never asked to pay anything inside the app: the commission has already been taken from each sale, so what is left is what is yours.
Read next
Three useful pages before you install your first neighbourhood zone.
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The WiNet app is not on Google Play yet, and the iPhone version is being prepared. Message us on WhatsApp ([email protected]) and we will let you know the day it goes live. In the meantime, the app already works in your browser.
Works in your browser · No payments inside the app · You collect, you cash out.