What you are setting up
WISP Billing turns a MikroTik router you already own into a paying hotspot, and then manages it for you.
What happens to your router
You run one file on it, once. From that moment:
- Click builds a customer network across the router's spare ports and its WiFi radio
- Your login page is installed on it
- Mobile money payment is wired up
- The router checks in with Click roughly every minute, reporting who is connected and how much data they have used
- Changes you make in Click (a new price, a new login page, a customer extended) reach the router on its next check-in
You do not open the router again. Everything after setup happens in Click.
What Click does not touch
Your internet port stays exactly as it is. Click identifies which port carries your internet line and leaves that port, and the way it is configured, completely alone. It builds the customer network out of the other ports.
That is the difference between this and a factory reset done by hand: your line keeps working the way your ISP set it up.
What you need before you start
- A MikroTik router running RouterOS 7
- Your account set up (see Create your account)
- Physical access to the router for about five minutes
- A computer or phone that can connect to the router
Very small MikroTik models (the SMIPS ones, such as the hAP lite) cannot run the User Manager package Click needs. Click checks this and tells you before you get as far as running anything.
Will this wipe my router?
The recommended path does reset the router, and that is what you want on a new or spare one; it guarantees a known-good starting point.
If the router already has a working configuration you need to keep, there is a Terminal paste option that changes nothing else. It is on the same screen. If you are unsure which applies to you, ask us before you press Reset.
The order it goes in
- Add your router in Click
- Run the setup file on the router
- Turn on WiFi billing
- Create Packages and a login page
- Test it yourself with a real purchase
Steps 4 and 5 can be done before you go to the site, and it is worth doing: then the router has something to sell the moment it comes online.