WiFi hotspot & ISP
profit calculator
Is a WiFi hotspot business profitable? Put in your own users, prices and costs and see monthly revenue, profit, margin and how many paying customers you need to break even. The starting numbers are only placeholders: change every one of them.
People who buy at least one bundle on a typical day.
Average across your bundles, e.g. a mix of hourly and daily.
Prepaid access is paid up front, so this is usually close to 100%.
Site rent or revenue share, power, agent commission, SMS, hardware amortisation, licences.
Billed per month
KSh 120,000
Collected
KSh 120,000
Costs
KSh 55,000
Profit
KSh 65,000
Margin
54%
Break-even users / day
37
What automation would change
Only the collection rate moves. Set your own expectation: this is your assumption, not ours.
- Extra collected per month
- KSh 0
- Iterative Billing platform fee (2% of collected hotspot revenue, capped at KSh 3,000)
- − KSh 2,400
- Net change to profit
- − KSh 2,400
Time saved on manual reconciliation and suspensions is not counted here.
Apply for accessHow to work out whether a hotspot or ISP will make money
The arithmetic is simple; the discipline is in the inputs. For a prepaid hotspot, revenue is the number of people who buy access on a typical day, multiplied by what they spend, multiplied by the days in the month. For monthly subscribers on PPPoE or fibre, it is subscribers multiplied by the plan price, and then multiplied by the share of that you actually collect, because a subscriber who is ten days late and still connected is revenue you billed but do not have.
On the cost side, count everything that arrives every month whether or not anyone pays you: backhaul, the venue's rent or revenue share, electricity, agents' commission, SMS, the billing platform, regulator fees, and a monthly slice of the hardware you bought. Divide costs by what one customer brings in and you have the break-even number: the customers you must keep before the business earns anything.
Where the profit actually leaks
Hotspot operators rarely lose money to non-payment (access is prepaid) but lose it to voucher stock nobody tracked and to sites that only sell when an agent is present. Monthly ISPs lose it in the collection rate: accounts that should have been suspended, payments that were never matched to a subscriber, and reminders that were never sent. Those are exactly the tasks M-Pesa auto-activation, automatic PPPoE expiry and portal-based voucher sales remove.
If you are still planning the network, read how to start an ISP business first, the calculator is most useful once you have a real bandwidth quote and a real site cost.
Frequently asked questions
Is a WiFi hotspot business profitable in Kenya?
It can be, and the calculator above shows the arithmetic for your own numbers. Profit depends on how many people buy access each day, what they spend, what you pay for backhaul and the site, and, for post-paid or monthly customers, how much of what you bill you actually collect. The costs you control most are collection and staff time, which is why automation matters.
How do I calculate hotspot revenue?
Monthly revenue = paying users per day × average spend per user × days in the month. For monthly (PPPoE or fibre) subscribers it is subscribers × plan price × the collection rate. Subtract bandwidth and all other fixed costs to get profit; divide profit by revenue for margin.
Which costs should I include?
Backhaul or bandwidth, site rent or revenue share with the venue, electricity, hardware amortisation (routers, access points, antennas), agent or reseller commission, SMS, billing software, and regulatory fees. If you are unsure, over-estimate costs rather than under-estimate them.
What is the collection rate and why does it matter?
The collection rate is the share of the revenue you bill that you actually receive. Prepaid hotspot bundles collect close to 100% because access is paid up front. Monthly subscribers who are not disconnected promptly on expiry, or who pay late and are reconnected by hand, push the rate down. Every point lost is profit lost.
How does billing automation change the numbers?
Automatic expiry disconnects, SMS reminders before the due date and instant M-Pesa activation raise the collection rate and remove the manual reconciliation work. The calculator lets you set your own "with automation" collection rate and compares the extra revenue against the platform fee: KSh 15 per active PPPoE customer (never more than KSh 7,000 a month up to 1,000 customers), or 2% of collected hotspot revenue (never more than KSh 3,000 a month up to KSh 600,000 collected).
What does Iterative Billing cost a hotspot operator?
From 1 October 2026, 2% of the hotspot revenue you successfully collect, capped at KSh 3,000 a month until you collect KSh 600,000 in a month, with a KSh 1,000 monthly minimum and unlimited routers and hotspot sites. At KSh 100,000 of monthly revenue that is KSh 2,000; at KSh 300,000 it is still KSh 3,000. Several competing Kenyan platforms publish around 3 percent of hotspot revenue, which at KSh 300,000 is KSh 9,000 a month.