What data does Benecaster send to the license server?

Every validation ping is authenticated with a per-show site token, sent as a bearer token in the request header. That token is the whole identification — the license server resolves your account from it, and nothing identifying is sent in the body at all. Benecaster never issues you a license key and there is nothing to copy or paste — the site token is the credential.

Always sent (regardless of opt-in): your site URL, plugin, WordPress and PHP versions, total token count, paying subscriber count, follower count, over-limit token count, your published show count, and your telemetry opt-in status.

Your show count is on that list because your plan limits how many active shows you can run, and that limit is checked against the figure your site last reported. It’s a bare number of podcasts — no subscriber data of any kind — so it’s sent unconditionally rather than leaving the limit unenforceable for anyone who opts out.

Sent only with your consent: the membership plugins your shows are connected to (by plugin slug — nothing subscriber-identifying), geographic distribution as country/region totals (e.g., “45 subscribers in Texas”), listening pattern distributions by hour-of-day and day-of-week, podcast app distribution, and subscriber tenure in buckets.

No subscriber emails, names, feed tokens, or any personally identifying information is ever transmitted — with or without opt-in. The license server cannot identify any individual subscriber from the data it receives.

Both opt-in options default to off. You’ll find them at Benecaster → Settings → Account → Telemetry, and either can be switched off again at any time.