Quick Start Guide

Benecaster is a WordPress-native podcast platform with per-tier private RSS feeds — your site, your subscribers, your feed. No Patreon, no platform fees, no giving up ownership of your audience.

Your subscribers sign up and pay through a membership plugin (MemberPress, WooCommerce, and others are supported) or through Benecaster’s own built-in membership — no third-party plugin required. Benecaster generates a unique private RSS feed URL for each subscriber. They add that URL to their podcast app and get only the episodes their tier gives them access to. Your audio files stay at your existing podcast host — Benecaster only controls who can see the feed.

What You Need

Before setting up, make sure you have:

• A WordPress site running PHP 8.2+ and WordPress 6.4+ — full requirements
• A Benecaster account on benecaster.com — free tier is fine. Your plan, billing and invoices live in My Account there.
• A way to manage paid tiers: either a supported membership plugin already installed (MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, or Restrict Content Pro), or Benecaster’s own built-in membership — no third-party plugin required
• Your episode audio already hosted somewhere (Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Podbean, S3, etc.)

Signing up sends you two emails

Whether you take the free Launch plan or a paid one, signing up sends two emails, and the order matters:

1. “Set your Benecaster password” — open this one first. Signing up creates your account with a password nobody has seen, including us. Choose one; it takes about ten seconds.
2. Your welcome email — the plugin download and the three steps to connect your site. Step 4 of connecting asks you to sign in, which is why the password comes first.

The set-password link is valid for seven days and works once. If it expires, use “Lost your password?” on the sign-in page — a fresh one arrives, valid for 24 hours.

If you already had a Benecaster account and are buying a second licence, only the welcome email arrives. Your existing password still works.

Lost the welcome email? You can have it sent again — see Resend Your Welcome Email. If you can already sign in you do not need it: the download and connect details are on your account page.

Where Your Audio Lives

Benecaster does not host audio files. Your episodes stay wherever they are now — Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Podbean, an S3 bucket, your own server — and Benecaster stores the URL alongside the episode. What Benecaster controls is who is allowed to reach it: each subscriber’s feed is assembled per token, so your audio host serves the file and Benecaster decides whose app gets sent to it.

There is nothing to upload and nothing to move on the audio side, and your existing hosting bill and download statistics carry on unchanged.

Already Have a Podcast?

You do not have to re-enter your back catalogue by hand.

Importing from an existing RSS feed. Point Benecaster at any public RSS feed and it creates a draft episode for each item, carrying across title, description, audio URL, duration, episode and season numbers, artwork and more. You review the drafts, set tier availability, and publish. Re-running the import never duplicates anything — episodes are matched on their RSS GUID, so only items Benecaster has not seen before are created. The setup wizard offers this as a step, and it is available any time afterwards at Benecaster → Settings → Tools → Import Episodes. See Importing Episodes from Your Host.

Use your hosting provider’s original feed URL, not the one you submitted to Apple Podcasts or Spotify. If you have already pointed your submitted feed at Benecaster, importing from it would have Benecaster read its own output.

Switching from Seriously Simple Podcasting or PowerPress. Benecaster detects existing SSP and PowerPress episodes on your site and offers a dedicated import step ahead of the RSS one — no feed URL needed, because the episodes are read straight from your WordPress database. See Switching from SSP or PowerPress.

Moving paying subscribers from Patreon or Supercast. Episode import brings your content across; it does not move your subscribers. That is what the Migration Wizard add-on is for — see Add-ons.

Steps to Go Live

1. Install and Activate Benecaster

Install Benecaster from the WordPress plugin directory — in your WordPress admin, go to Plugins → Add New, search for Benecaster, and click Install then Activate. The plugin is free; your plan is connected in step 2. Full instructions: Installing Benecaster.

2. Run the Setup Wizard

The setup wizard launches automatically after activation. It walks you through creating your first show (name, description, artwork, category), connecting your membership plugin, mapping tiers, connecting the show to your Benecaster.com account, and optionally importing existing episodes. Takes about 10 minutes. The connect step redirects you to benecaster.com to authorize the site — see Connecting Your Site to Benecaster for details.

The wizard saves progress at each step — if you close it early, a Resume setup notice appears on the Benecaster dashboard and picks up at the last incomplete step next time you log in. Any optional steps you skip appear as dashboard tips, each linking back to that wizard step when you’re ready to complete it. Setup Wizard Walkthrough.

3. Create Your First Episode

Add episodes using the Benecaster episode editor. You’ll set the audio URL, episode metadata, and which tier gets access and when. Creating and Editing Episodes.

4. Test Your Feed

Before announcing to subscribers, test the feed URL yourself. Subscribe to your own show using a personal token — your feed should return the episodes you expect. How Tokens Work.

5. Invite Subscribers

When a subscriber signs up through your membership plugin, Benecaster automatically generates their token and sends a welcome email with their private RSS feed URL. They add it to their podcast app and they’re in.

How the Feed Works

Each subscriber gets a unique URL like:

https://yoursite.com/podcast-feed/?token=abc123...

When their podcast app polls that URL, Benecaster validates the token, looks up their current membership tier, and returns only the episodes they have access to. If their subscription lapses, their feed stops updating — they don’t lose episodes they already downloaded, but they won’t receive new ones.

The token is the gate. Without it, the feed returns nothing.

The Free Tier

The free Benecaster plan supports up to 10 paying subscribers with all premium features included — no time limit, no feature restrictions. It’s designed to let you get fully set up and serve early subscribers before paying for the plugin. When you cross 10 subscribers, you’ll receive a warning in advance and your plan bumps to Starter ($9/month) at your next billing period.

See what’s included at each tier →