At a glance
| Envoy | Visitor.Place | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary buyer | Office manager, IT, facilities | Solo practitioner, freelancer |
| Typical setup | iPad kiosk in lobby, badge printer | Nothing — you send a link |
| Pricing (entry) | ~$131/mo per location (Visitors Standard, 2026) | Free |
| Pricing (growth) | $399+/mo per location (Premium) | Free |
| Per-visitor fees | No (within tier) | No |
| Hardware required | iPad + optional badge printer | None |
| Pre-arrival guest pass | Limited (invites + ID check) | Yes — evolving 3-stage pass |
| Parking & directions auto-delivered | Add-on | Built in |
| Apple Wallet / Google Wallet passes | Limited | Yes, native |
| QR access pass (time-bound) | Yes | Yes |
| Multi-location | Yes | Yes |
| NDA / document signing on arrival | Yes | Not yet |
| SCIM / SSO / SOC 2 | Yes | No (not needed for target user) |
| Deliveries + package logging | Yes | No |
| Best for | 10–500 staff offices | 1–5 staff, home studios, coworking |
When to pick Envoy
Envoy is the right call if any of these apply:
- You have a reception area with an iPad kiosk (or you want one).
- You need badge printing, deliveries tracking, or package intake.
- You have an IT department, and requirements around SSO, SCIM provisioning, and SOC 2 certification.
- You receive more than roughly 30 visitors per day across a physical location.
- You need NDA or document signing at arrival baked into the workflow.
Envoy has spent a decade building for this user and it shows. If that’s you, the price tag is justified.
When to pick Visitor.Place
Visitor.Place is the right call if:
- You meet clients at a home studio, rented treatment room, coworking space, or shared office — anywhere without a staffed front desk.
- You receive 1–20 clients per week and you’re the person who greets them.
- The problem you’re actually solving is “my client doesn’t know where to park / which door / which room” — not “we need to track every visitor for compliance.”
- You don’t want to spend $1,500+ a year, per location, for a lobby tool you’ll only half-use.
Pricing, honestly
Envoy publishes pricing on their site. As of April 2026, their Visitors plans start around $131/month per location (Standard, billed annually) and climb to $399+/month per location for Premium. Add-ons for Deliveries, Rooms, and Desks are separate. For a single-practitioner solo studio, the annual cost lands between $1,500 and $5,000 — before hardware.
Visitor.Place is free for independent professionals. There is no trial, no credit card, no per-visitor fee, and no free-tier cliff that forces an upgrade. The business model is a planned paid tier for larger teams; the solo tier is the product.
What Envoy has that Visitor.Place doesn’t
Being specific matters. If you need any of the following, Visitor.Place is not the right tool today:
- Badge printing and barcode scanning at a physical kiosk.
- Deliveries: inbound package logging, notifications to recipients.
- Desk and room booking in the same product.
- SSO (SAML/OIDC) and SCIM provisioning for enterprise identity.
- SOC 2 Type II certification (on the roadmap, not yet).
- Watchlist screening against denied-party lists.
- Evacuation lists and emergency roll-call reports.
What Visitor.Place has that Envoy doesn’t (for this user)
- Three-stage evolving pass.One link that changes: invitation → journey guide (24h before) → QR access pass (2h before). Envoy’s invitations don’t evolve in the same way.
- Parking and entrance directions are first-class.The most common real problem for home-studio and coworking hosts is “how do I find you,” not “sign this NDA.”
- Zero setup. No kiosk, no badge printer, no IT ticket. Send your first invitation in under two minutes.
- Price. Free.
- Native Apple Wallet and Google Wallet passes. Designed around the wallet pass as the primary guest artifact.
A two-question decision rubric
If you’re still unsure, answer these two questions honestly:
1. Do you have (or want) an iPad in a lobby?
Yes → Envoy. No → keep reading.
2. Does your visitor volume justify a five-figure annual spend?
Yes → Envoy, because you’ll use the full feature set. No → Visitor.Place.
Migrating from Envoy to Visitor.Place
If you’re a solo practitioner who inherited an Envoy subscription from a previous office and you’re paying for features you don’t use, Visitor.Place has no import tool today — migration is manual. Export your visitor history from Envoy (CSV), cancel the subscription before renewal, and recreate your host profile and locations in Visitor.Place. The process takes under ten minutes for most solo users.
FAQ
Is Envoy bad?
No. Envoy is excellent at what it does. It’s built for a different buyer — one with a lobby, a receptionist, and a compliance requirement. We recommend it unreservedly for that user.
Is Visitor.Place really free forever?
The solo-practitioner tier is free and will stay free. Paid tiers for larger teams are planned; they won’t take features away from the free tier.
What about SwipedOn, Proxyclick, Greetly?
See our separate comparisons: Proxyclick (Eptura Visitor), SwipedOn, Greetly.