Most organisations switch to a digital visitor management system because it looks more professional, or because someone raised a GDPR concern. That is a fine reason to start the conversation — but it is rarely enough to get budget approved.
The question you will face from finance, from your FM director, or from your MD is a simple one: does it pay for itself?
This guide gives you a framework to answer that question with real numbers from your own organisation.
Step 1: Work out what your paper system is actually costing you
Paper visitor books feel free. They are not.
Before you can calculate an ROI, you need an honest picture of what the current system costs. Most of these costs are hidden — absorbed into wages, compliance risk, and admin time that nobody is tracking.
Staff time at reception
Every visitor who signs in manually takes time from someone. There is the greeting, finding the right page in the book, writing down the time, calling ahead to the host, and handing over a paper badge if you use one. A reasonable estimate for a manual sign-in from first greeting to visitor seated: 3 to 5 minutes of receptionist time.
For a site receiving 30 visitors per day, that is 90 to 150 minutes of paid staff time, every day, purely on admin.
Visitor passes and stationery
Physical visitor passes — even basic sticky labels — cost money. So do visitor books themselves, pens, and the storage space for archived books. None of these costs are large, but they are real and recurring.
Fire evacuation risk
Under the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005, you are legally required to know who is on site during an evacuation. A paper visitor book does not tell you whether the person who signed in at 9am is still on site at 2pm when the alarm sounds. If your fire marshal is working from an incomplete or illegible list, that is a compliance exposure — and in the event of a serious incident, a legal one.
GDPR and data security
A paper visitor book is a visible list of every person who has visited your site, often including their company, who they were meeting, and their signature. Anyone who picks up the book — the next visitor, a delivery driver, a contractor — can read it. Under UK GDPR, personal data must be held securely and not retained longer than necessary. A paper book makes both of these requirements difficult to meet.
Contractor delays
Without pre-registration, every unannounced visitor creates friction. For contractors arriving to do time-sensitive work, delays at reception can mean delays to the job — which has a cost downstream.
Step 2: Estimate the value of time saved
The biggest return from a digital visitor management system, for most organisations, comes from time savings.
A well-configured digital check-in — using a kiosk or QR code — takes visitors through the process themselves. Pre-registered visitors can be in and badged in under 60 seconds, with no receptionist involvement beyond a greeting. Conservative estimate of time saved per visitor: 2 to 3 minutes.
Use this formula:
Daily visitors × Minutes saved × Working days per year × Receptionist hourly rate ÷ 60
Example for a mid-sized UK office site:
- 40 visitors per day
- 2.5 minutes saved per visitor = 100 minutes per day
- 250 working days per year = 25,000 minutes per year
- 25,000 ÷ 60 = approximately 417 hours per year
- At £14 per hour (typical UK receptionist rate): £5,838 per year in recoverable time
That is time currently going on manual form-filling, which could go on guest experience, phone coverage, or other tasks.
Step 3: Quantify the compliance value
Compliance benefits are harder to express as a single number, but they represent real risk reduction.
GDPR
ICO fines for GDPR breaches can reach £17.5 million or 4% of global annual turnover for serious violations. For small and medium businesses, even a modest enforcement action — a warning letter, an audit, a formal reprimand — creates administrative burden and reputational risk. A digital visitor management system encrypts visitor data, retains it only for the configured period, and makes it impossible for other visitors to read it.
Fire safety
Digital systems give your fire marshal an accurate, real-time list of who is on site, on a phone or tablet. For organisations with multiple entrances or high visitor volumes, this is the difference between a chaotic evacuation and a controlled one.
Contractor document management
If you use contractors, DigiGreet's document management feature checks inductions, insurance and certifications automatically at sign-in and blocks access if documentation is missing or expired. The alternative — manually checking paperwork every time — is time-consuming and easy to forget.
Step 4: Factor in the cost of the digital system
DigiGreet's pricing starts at £49 per month for the Lite plan, which covers a single site with unlimited visitors. The Pro plan, which adds contractor management and induction features, starts at £79 per month.
- Annual cost at Lite: £588
- Annual cost at Pro: £948
Against the time-saving figure from Step 2 — £5,838 for a 40-visitor-per-day site — the system pays for itself in under five weeks.
Step 5: Build your business case
If you are putting this to a finance director or a board, here is a simple format:
Current state costs (annual)
- Reception admin time: [your calculation from Step 2]
- Stationery and visitor passes: [your estimate]
- Compliance risk exposure: [qualitative or insurance-based estimate]
Digital system cost (annual)
- DigiGreet subscription: £588 to £948
- Kiosk hardware (one-off, amortised over 3 years): approximately £133 to £200 per year
Payback period: Digital system cost ÷ Annual saving × 12 months. For most sites, this works out to between 4 and 8 weeks.
What the numbers do not capture
A spreadsheet case will get budget approved. But the numbers do not capture everything.
A digital visitor management system changes the first impression your site makes. Visitors arrive, see a professional kiosk or a clean QR code sign-in, and have their badge printed before the receptionist has finished saying good morning. For client-facing sites — showrooms, offices, professional services firms — that experience has value that does not show up in a time-saving calculation.
Nor does the data. A digital system tells you how many visitors you received last month, which departments host the most guests, which contractors are on site most frequently, and when your peak visitor hours are. That data informs facilities decisions, security planning, and resource allocation in ways a paper book never could.
Ready to run the numbers for your site?
DigiGreet offers a free 30-day trial with no commitment required. During a short demo, we will run through your specific site setup — visitor volumes, contractor requirements, number of locations — and give you a realistic picture of what the system would cost and what it would save.
Book a free demo and we will do the calculation with you. Or see our pricing page to explore the plan that fits your site.
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