Visitly Alternatives: 5 Visitor Management Tools Compared

Visitly’s cheapest plan is $1,000 per location per year, per Visitly’s published pricing page. That number, not a missing feature, is what sends most people searching for a Visitly alternative.

It’s a serious product with a serious security story — SOC 2 Type II and ISO 27001 badges, single sign-on with MFA on every tier, an immutable audit log. If your InfoSec team is driving the purchase, that posture is worth paying for. If your office manager is driving it and the real requirement is “retire the paper book, print a badge, text the host,” you’re funding a compliance program nobody on your side will ever open.

Below: what Visitly charges, which limits bite first, and five alternatives compared on price and device caps. Full disclosure — InstaCheckin publishes this and sells a competing iPad sign-in app. Every competitor figure links to that vendor’s own page so you can check the math.

Feature and pricing claims about other vendors are based on publicly available product information as of August 2026. Vendor pricing, packaging, and feature sets change; verify directly with the vendor before purchasing. Trademarks are property of their respective owners. InstaCheckin is not affiliated with Visitly, Envoy, Sign In App, Lobbytrack, or iLobby.

What Visitly Charges, and What Each Tier Gates

Three tiers, all priced per location per year. Visitly’s pricing page lists Starter at $1,000 per location per year — roughly $83 a month — covering up to 5 sites with unlimited employees and unlimited visits. Business is $2,000 per location per year, about $167 a month, and stretches to 15 sites. Enterprise is quote-only.

Two details on that page matter more than the headline rate. Monthly billing carries a 20% premium on Starter and Business, so the advertised price quietly assumes a year’s commitment. And Starter caps you at two connected iPads per site, one host-notification channel, and 10 NDA templates — watchlist screening, facial recognition for returning visitors, the Advanced Badge Designer, and all-channel notifications all start at Business, according to Visitly’s plan comparison table.

Credit where it’s due. Putting SSO and an audit log on the entry plan instead of gating them behind an enterprise upsell is the right call, and Visitly’s pricing FAQ says it doesn’t license hardware — bring your own iPad and printer. That’s why the $1,000 entry rate isn’t outrageous. It’s priced for a buyer who has a vendor security review to survive.

Why Teams Go Looking for a Visitly Alternative

Three patterns, roughly in order of how often they show up.

The second iPad. Two connected iPads per site sounds generous until you count. Reception, plus a loading-dock kiosk, plus the side entrance nobody staffs — that’s three, and it pushes a single-location office up to Business. Going from $1,000 to $2,000 per location per year for a device count rather than a feature is a hard sell to finance, and both figures come straight off Visitly’s pricing page.

Screening you’ll never run. Watchlist and offender-registry checks are the correct call for a defense supplier or a plant with denied-party obligations. For a 40-person marketing agency they’re a line item that generates zero hits and one more thing to configure.

Annual-only pricing. The 20% monthly premium on Visitly’s own pricing page means the cheap path requires a year up front. Plenty of offices want to run a kiosk for two months before signing anything.

None of these are defects. They’re what a product built for multi-site security teams costs. If that’s not you, the list below is cheaper.

Five Visitly Alternatives, Compared

InstaCheckin — iPad sign-in without the security-program tax

InstaCheckin is an iPad-first visitor registration app aimed squarely at the office that wants the paper logbook gone. Visitors sign in on the kiosk, a photo is captured, a branded badge prints on a Brother QL label printer, and the host gets an email and an SMS the moment their guest arrives. NDAs and safety waivers are signed on the kiosk before the badge prints, and the signature is archived with the visit record. Pre-registered visitors skip the data entry.

The practical difference against Visitly Starter is device count and scope: InstaCheckin supports up to five kiosks per location, and the feature list stops at visitor management instead of extending into screening and compliance tooling. Current rates live on the InstaCheckin pricing page.

Where it isn’t the answer: iPad-only, no facial recognition, and host notifications are email and SMS rather than Slack or Teams. If you need any of those, one of the four below fits better.

Envoy — the platform play, priced like one

Envoy is the category’s most-searched brand and the broadest product: visitors, desk and room reservations, and deliveries under one platform. Envoy’s pricing page lists a free Basic tier, Premium at $362 per location per month billed annually, and a custom-quoted Enterprise plan. Deliveries is a separately priced module, not part of the visitor plan.

The free tier is the underrated part — for a low-traffic office that needs a digital log and a host notification, it’s a real option. Premium is where the gap against Visitly opens up. We walked the tiers in our Envoy pricing breakdown, and our Envoy alternative guide covers who should actually pay for it.

Sign In App (formerly SwipedOn) — unlimited iPads per site

Worth knowing before you shortlist it: the old SwipedOn domain now redirects to Sign In App. Sign In App’s pricing page lists Core at $630 per site per year, Enhanced at $1,260, Pro at $1,890, and a custom Executive tier, with desk booking, appointments, and time-and-attendance sold as separate add-ons.

Core lands under Visitly Starter on the headline number, and the more interesting line is buried in the FAQ: Sign In App says you can connect additional devices for each entrance at no extra cost, with a site subscription defined by postcode or zip code rather than device count. If the two-iPad cap is what pushed you off Visitly Starter, that’s the direct answer. The catch is the add-on model — the quote climbs once you want scheduling or attendance.

Lobbytrack — the free tier that actually prints badges

Most vendors keep badge printing behind a paid plan. Lobbytrack doesn’t. Lobbytrack’s pricing page lists a free plan capped at 100 visitors a month that includes photo capture and badge printing, then Basic at $50 a month and Professional at $100 a month.

A hundred visitors a month is roughly five a working day, which covers a lot of small offices indefinitely. It also ships iOS, Android, and Windows apps, so it’s the pick if your front desk runs something other than an iPad. Our Lobbytrack alternative post covers where the free tier stops.

iLobby (FacilityOS) — modular, and priced module by module

iLobby now sells under the FacilityOS banner. Its FacilityOS pricing page starts VisitorOS at $225 a month, with EmergencyOS, ContractorOS, LogisticsOS, and SecurityOS priced separately from $199 to $499 a month each.

That structure is the whole story. If you need contractor compliance, emergency mustering, and access-control integration, buying them as discrete modules can beat one all-in enterprise contract. If you only need visitor sign-in, you’re starting above every other option here. Our iLobby alternative comparison works through the module math.

Pick the Cheapest Tool That Clears Your Actual Requirement

Write down the requirement before you sit through another demo. It’s usually one line: replace the paper book, print a badge, notify the host, keep an exportable log.

If that’s the whole list, everything on this page clears it and you should optimise for price and kiosk count. Add a signed NDA per visitor type and a searchable visit history, and you still don’t need a screening engine — a focused sign-in app covers it. Our visitor management software comparison maps the wider field, and our cost breakdown covers what the category actually charges.

You need Visitly’s Business tier specifically when someone in security is asking about watchlist screening, single sign-on across multiple identity providers, or a documented audit trail for a regulated program. Those are real requirements. They’re just not most offices’ requirements, and buying them a year early is how a front-desk line item turns into a security-platform line item.

FAQ

How much does Visitly cost?

Visitly’s published pricing page lists Starter at $1,000 per location per year and Business at $2,000 per location per year, with Enterprise quoted custom. The same page notes monthly billing carries a 20% premium on Starter and Business, so the advertised rate assumes an annual commitment. Confirm current figures with Visitly before budgeting.

What’s the best Visitly alternative for a single office?

It depends on which limit pushed you out. If it was the two-iPad cap on Starter, pick a tool that allows more kiosks on its entry plan. If it was paying for screening you’ll never run, a focused iPad sign-in app covering photo badges, NDAs, and host notifications is the shorter path.

Does Visitly make you buy hardware from them?

No. Its pricing FAQ states you bring your own iPad and printer, and that it doesn’t license hardware — a genuine advantage over vendors that bundle a managed iPad rental into the contract.

Is there a free alternative to Visitly?

Yes, with ceilings. Lobbytrack’s free plan is capped at 100 visitors a month but still prints badges, and Envoy publishes a free Basic visitor tier. Both work for a low-traffic front desk. Read the caps first — the limit is usually visitor count or notification channels.

What does Visitly gate behind Business?

Per its pricing page: watchlist and photo ID screening, facial recognition for returning visitors, the Advanced Badge Designer, wallet-based digital badges, multi-IdP directory sync, and all-channel host notifications instead of one. It also raises the site limit from 5 to 15.

Try It on Your Own Front Desk

The fastest way to learn whether you need a security platform or a sign-in app is to run one at your desk for a week and watch what reception does with it.

Set up an iPad kiosk on the InstaCheckin free trial, print a real badge on a Brother QL printer, load your NDA, and see whether the host notifications land where your team already looks. Start a free trial, or see what a full rollout involves on our office visitor management system page.