Launch Plan Subscriber Limits

It’s a real product. The Launch plan gives you up to 10 paying subscribers — plus up to 250 total subscribers (paying + free combined) — with the full premium feature set: token-based private RSS feeds, per-tier episode scheduling, subscriber management, deep links to podcast apps, the subscriber account dashboard, everything. No time limit. No “free trial” expiry. No hidden capability restrictions.

The only limits are subscriber counts. When you hit 10 paying subscribers, you’re ready for Starter.

Only subscribers with an active token on a paid tier count toward your plan’s paying subscriber limit. Free-tier subscribers — anyone holding a token who isn’t paying you, whether they signed up on a free membership level or joined as a follower — do not count toward this limit. Subscribers in a free trial period count — they’re on a paid tier with an active token and a scheduled first payment.

Each plan also has a total subscriber cap covering all active tokens, paying and free combined (Free: 250, Starter: 500, Growth: 2,500, Pro and above: unlimited). Free-tier subscribers count toward this secondary cap but not the primary paying limit. The total cap exists to keep free-tier usage proportionate to the plan — a podcaster with hundreds of free marketing-list subscribers and a handful of paying ones is getting real value and should be on an appropriate plan.

Churned subscribers are removed from both counts immediately on cancellation. Both counts are based on currently active tokens, not your historical high watermark.

Anonymous listeners to your public feed have no token and don’t count toward either cap. Note that followers are not in that group — a follower has a token and a private feed URL, so they count toward the total cap the same as any other free-tier subscriber.

Yes. Free trial subscribers are on a paid tier — they have an active feed token and a first payment scheduled at the end of the trial. They count toward your plan’s paying subscriber limit.

A genuinely free membership level (no payment required at any point) is different: free-tier subscribers don’t count toward the paying subscriber limit, but they do hold an active token and count toward the total token cap. Free trial ≠ free tier.

When you map your membership tiers in Benecaster → Settings → Subscription → Tier Mapping, Benecaster reads the price of each tier from your membership plugin and marks it paid or free accordingly. A daily background sync re-checks tier prices so that if you change a paid tier to free in your membership plugin, Benecaster reflects that within 24 hours.

This works automatically for all supported bridges — WooCommerce Subscriptions, MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, and Restrict Content Pro.

Subscribers you manually add to a paid tier (admin-comped access) count toward your paying subscriber limit the same as any other paid-tier subscriber. They also count toward the total token cap.

At 8 subscribers — 80% of Launch’s limit — you’ll get a friendly heads-up with a one-click path to upgrade. At 10 you have hit the cap, and from subscriber 11 onward new subscribers receive your public feed instead of their private one. Your existing 10 keep their private feeds.

They are still being billed while that is true — paying for private access and receiving public episodes. That is the part worth acting on.

On the default preference, staying over for 24 continuous hours moves you to Starter monthly. Launch is the one plan where the money moves that day — there is no subscription to reprice, so one is created and the card you saved at signup is charged. If that card can’t be charged, nothing bad happens: no suspension and no charge, and you stay on Launch.

How Subscriber Limits Work → explains what counts toward the limit and what each enforcement setting does. Launch’s own three limits are on Launch Plan Subscriber Limits →.

At 80% of your cap you’ll get a heads-up in your dashboard — a milestone, not an alarm. Past the limit, subscribers who join after it receive your public feed instead of their private one, immediately. Everyone already under the limit is unaffected.

They are still being billed by your membership plugin while that is true. That is the reason to act, rather than the limit itself.

What resolves it is your upgrade preference. On the default — auto-upgrade — staying over for 24 continuous hours moves you to the next tier. On cap, nothing is scheduled and you upgrade when you choose. Either way you can upgrade yourself at any point and end it straight away.

The prorated difference is charged to your card on the day, covering the rest of your current period. Your renewal date doesn’t change. Moving off Launch differs only in the amount — there is no subscription to reprice, so one is created and the card you saved at signup is charged the full first invoice rather than a proration.

How Subscriber Limits Work → has both windows, both enforcement settings, and what your subscribers see in each case.

Yes. There are two limits — paying subscribers, and total tokens (paying plus free-tier subscribers combined) — and each carries its own enforcement preference. You set them during onboarding and can change either at any time in Settings → Account.

Each preference decides one thing: whether going over raises your plan automatically, or leaves the move to you.

The paying subscriber limit defaults to auto-upgrade; the token cap defaults to cap. If you set one deliberately, check the other — it does not follow along.

What your listeners experience differs by limit, and the difference is worth knowing before it happens: an over-limit paying subscriber is moved to your public feed, while an over-cap free subscriber has their feed switched off entirely.

How Subscriber Limits Work → covers what counts toward each limit, what each setting does, and how either situation resolves.

They complete signup and their membership plugin subscription activates normally — they’re billed by your membership plugin as usual. Benecaster issues them a feed token, but the feed serves your public episode content rather than private subscriber content until you upgrade your plan.

Their RSS URL works in any podcast app. When you upgrade, their token automatically starts serving private content — no URL change, no action needed from them or you.

Important: in cap mode, your membership plugin bills those subscribers regardless of their feed access level. The admin warning in Benecaster makes this explicit. If you choose cap mode and reach your limit, check your subscriber list regularly — anyone shown with an amber indicator is receiving the public feed and has been billed for private access.

The prorated amount is charged to your card on the day the upgrade takes effect. It covers the rest of your current paid period. Your renewal date does not change — your next invoice falls on its normal date and carries the new plan’s full rate.

The amount is the difference between the two plans for the period remaining. For example: on annual Starter ($79/year), upgraded to Growth ($149/year) six months in, roughly half the difference — about $35 — covers your remaining six months. Your subscription then renews at the full Growth annual rate ($149) on your existing renewal date.

The upgrade email is a receipt: it names the amount charged, what period it covers, and when your next full renewal falls.

Yes — once you are within the lower tier’s limits for 30 continuous days, on every limit that tier sets rather than subscribers alone. The 30 days start when you come inside those limits, not when you ask. The clock never runs while you are over, and if you stop fitting within any limit, the clock clears and starts again the next time you are inside them all.

Benecaster notifies you when you’re eligible, and you make the change yourself from My Account → Change your plan. Downgrading to Launch works the same way — Launch is the lowest licensed plan and works like the others, just without a bill.

The change is scheduled rather than immediate. You keep the higher tier through the end of the period you have already paid for, and the smaller plan’s price takes over from that renewal.

If you grow past the smaller plan’s limits before that renewal, the downgrade does not go through. We recheck your eligibility every day while the change is pending, not only on the day you request it — and if you no longer fit, we cancel the scheduled change before it happens rather than letting it apply and undoing it afterwards. You stay on your current plan, nothing is charged, you keep every add-on, and we email you to explain which limit you are now over. Nothing is interrupted for your subscribers. You can ask for the downgrade again once you are back inside the limits for 30 continuous days.

The recheck looks at every limit the smaller plan sets, not just your paying subscriber count — that plan’s active-show limit and its total listener cap count too, and the listener cap includes your free-tier listeners. So it is possible to be held back by an audience that isn’t paying you, and the email names the specific limit and your own number against it so you are not left guessing.

Benecaster never downgrades you automatically, on any tier. An upgrade can be automatic because being over your limit means subscribers are not getting what they pay for. A downgrade is different: we cannot predict where your audience is heading or what your own marketing is about to do. We want you on the plan that gives you the best value, without either of us bouncing you between tiers — so the move is always yours to initiate.

How Subscriber Limits Work → has the per-plan limits you need to be inside.

A subscriber who hits a broken or blocked feed — however their podcast app handles it — is more likely to cancel than one who still has something working. Serving the public feed keeps over-limit subscribers in their app and on your show rather than encountering an error and moving on.

This is a default, not a rule. It is a per-show setting, so if you would rather an over-limit subscriber’s feed simply stopped serving than quietly delivered public episodes, you can turn it off. The same setting governs every subscriber-level access loss — a cancellation, a lapsed membership, an admin revoking access — so changing it changes all of them together, not just the over-limit case. The rest of this answer explains why it ships on.

By serving the public feed instead of blocking access entirely, over-limit subscribers still have a working feed in their app. When you upgrade your plan, every affected subscriber automatically gets their private feed restored — no URL change, no email to every subscriber, no action required from anyone.

The trade-off in cap mode is that your subscribers keep being billed during this window — they’re paying you for private access while receiving the public feed. This is true whichever membership setup you use. With a third-party plugin, Benecaster can’t intercept another plugin’s billing on your behalf; it owns its own payment processor and webhooks. With Benecaster’s built-in membership, billing continues too — by design. Over-limit works the same way everywhere rather than behaving one way on one setup and differently on another, so nothing about it changes if you switch membership systems later.

That’s why the admin warning is prominent and why auto-upgrade is the default: most podcasters want the situation resolved automatically rather than managing it manually. Upgrading your plan restores private access at the next validation, and the billing your subscribers were already paying simply starts delivering what they paid for again.

No. A single show in Benecaster can have any number of subscription tiers — paid, free, or both. Paid subscribers and free-tier listeners are different membership levels within the same show, each with their own episode availability windows and, if you choose, their own private feed. You only need a second show if you’re running a genuinely separate podcast with different content and a separate audience.

This is a common assumption from platforms where tiers feel like separate products. In Benecaster, tiers are a scheduling and access control layer within one podcast — not separate feeds that require separate shows. One show, multiple tiers.

Different audio per tier does not need a second show either. The usual case is an ad-free cut for paying subscribers and an ad-supported one for everybody else — two different files of the same episode. That is handled at the feed level: each tier’s feed can point at a different audio URL for the same episode, so you upload both cuts and map them, rather than maintaining two shows with two episode lists that have to be kept in step. See Swap the audio enclosure URL per subscriber tier at feed compile time.

Multi-Show supports up to 3 shows and unlimited subscribers. Studio supports unlimited shows and unlimited subscribers, includes all current and future podcaster add-ons, priority support, and Migration + Setup Service.

Choose Multi-Show if you’re running 2–3 shows and want to select your add-ons individually.

Choose Studio if you need more than 3 shows, want every add-on without managing purchases, or want the Migration + Setup Service included.

Support is included on every plan, so Studio isn’t buying you access to it — what Studio adds is priority: your questions go to the front of the queue when you do have one.

Growth, Pro, Multi-Show, and Studio all include Migration Wizard at no extra cost. For Launch and Starter, it’s available as a one-time add-on purchase ($79). Migration Wizard is a one-time-use tool — you pay once for the migration event, not annually.

If your plan includes it, there is nothing to buy — the entitlement is granted with the plan, and you’ll never be charged for it separately.

No. Add-on pricing is the same regardless of which core plan you’re on. A Starter podcaster pays the same for the Analytics Dashboard add-on as a Pro podcaster. Your core plan governs subscriber count and show count, not which tools you can access.

No — but you do need a benecaster.com account with a connected license. The Launch plan is $0 and is all you need to purchase and activate add-ons. The WordPress.org free plugin without a benecaster.com account cannot use add-ons — add-on entitlements are tied to your account and validated through your site’s connection to benecaster.com.

Installing the add-on files alone isn’t enough. Each add-on verifies its entitlement against your site’s license on every validation cycle, for the specific show it is being asked to run on — not once for the whole site. If your license doesn’t include that add-on, the functionality won’t activate — regardless of whether the plugin files are present. This means copying an add-on from another site and installing it on yours won’t work without a valid entitlement on your own account. You’ll see this in your admin, too: an add-on plugin present without a valid entitlement is listed in its own Installed — no license section on Settings → Add-ons, rather than disappearing or looking active.

If you’re already using the free plugin from WordPress.org and want to start using add-ons, sign up for a free Launch account at benecaster.com and connect your site. A card is collected at signup to enable one-click add-on purchases from your account dashboard — no charge until you buy something.

On a site running more than one show, “active” is answered per show rather than per site. A show is covered when the licence it is connected to includes the add-on and you have left it switched on for that show. So an add-on can be genuinely active on one show and not another on the same installation — either because you switched it off there, or because that show is connected to a different licence.

Each add-on is tied to a specific Benecaster license and is available across all shows on that license — 1 show for Launch through Pro, up to 3 for Multi-Show, unlimited for Studio.

If you run two separate shows on two separate WordPress sites and want the same add-on on both, you have three options:

Multi-Show: Upgrade to Multi-Show — one license, one add-on purchase, up to 3 shows. One login, one bill, everything in one place.

Studio (unlimited shows): If you’re running more than three shows — or expect to — Studio gives you unlimited shows under a single license and a single add-on purchase. Designed for networks and agencies that have outgrown Multi-Show.

Two licenses on one account: Stay on two separate plans (e.g. Launch for each show) and purchase the add-on twice — once per license. Sign in to the account holding that license and buy from Your add-ons; a show is attached to a license when you connect the site, so each site needs to be connected with the account whose license it should use. This works well when the two shows are at very different stages and you want to manage them independently.

All three paths are supported. Multi-Show or Studio is the better fit as your operation grows.

No. Multi-Show and Studio are multi-site licenses for your own shows — not to share with collaborators, friends, or colleagues. Every site activated under your license must be a podcast you own and operate.

If someone else wants to use Benecaster, they need their own license. The free tier supports up to 10 paying subscribers at no cost — it’s a real starting point, not a demo.

Activating Benecaster on a show you don’t own and operate violates the acceptable use terms. Benecaster may terminate all shows on your license if a violation is confirmed, including the shows that are legitimately yours. See Running Multiple Shows for more on how show management works.

No free trial, but there’s a genuinely free tier (up to 10 paying subscribers, no time limit) and a 30-day money-back guarantee on all paid plans. A trial period isn’t long enough to set up, migrate subscribers, and evaluate real performance. The guarantee removes purchase risk without the complexity of managing trial accounts.

You buy an add-on once, and it covers every show on that licence.

Add-ons attach to your licence, not to an individual show. Buy the Email Editor once and it is available on every show on that licence, including shows you add afterwards. There is no second purchase and no per-show charge.

There is nothing to enter to direct the purchase. The add-on lands on the licence you bought it on, and covers whatever shows are registered to that licence — then and later.

What that means on each plan:

• Launch through Pro — one show, so there is nothing to think about.
• Multi-Show — up to three shows, all covered by the single purchase.
• Studio — every current and future add-on is included on every show. Nothing to buy.

You choose which of those shows it appears on. Buying is licence-wide; switching on is per show. Every entitled add-on card in Settings → Add-ons carries an Active on list with a switch for each show, so you can run an add-on on two shows and leave it off on a third. That is a display choice, not a billing one — you have already paid for all of them, and turning one off refunds nothing and saves nothing. Turning it back on restores it, with whatever you set up inside it intact.

Upgrading your plan widens what an add-on covers, at no extra cost. Add-on entitlements are not fixed to the show count you had when you bought them — they follow whatever your licence allows now. Buy the Email Editor on Pro, then move to Multi-Show, and it covers all three shows from the next licence check. There is nothing to re-purchase and nothing to re-enter.

Add-ons need an active plan behind them. The free WordPress.org plugin cannot use them; a free Launch account is the minimum.

Two different questions tend to arrive in the same sentence, so here are both answers.

Licensing: no. Agency licensing — where you hold a license and activate Benecaster on sites owned by your clients — is not available, and Multi-Show and Studio don’t cover client shows either. Every show under one license must be a podcast operation run by the license holder. Each client needs their own license, purchased by or for that client under their own benecaster.com account. Benecaster’s model is built around the podcast operator owning the subscriber relationship, and sub-licensing undermines that for both of you.

Building on it for a client: yes, and further than most plugins allow. Nothing about the licensing rule limits what you can build. Benecaster exposes over 270 hooks and filters, and its admin is extensible from your own companion plugin — you can add steps to the setup wizard, add settings pages and sections, add dashboard cards, and add tabs to the episode and show editors. A specialized setup for a client’s install is an ordinary plugin, and it stays yours. See Can I customize Benecaster for a client? for what that surface covers and where it stops.

One practical note on handover, because it surprises people. There is no license key to paste in — the plugin connects to benecaster.com through a browser sign-in, so activation happens under whichever account is signed in at that moment. Have your client create their account and buy the license first, then either do the connect step together or leave it as the one button they click at handover. That single step is what makes the license theirs, and it means you never need their password.

Purchasing under the client’s account is the point, not a formality: they own the license, the subscriber data, and the feed infrastructure independently of your engagement, which is also what protects you when the engagement ends.

Benecaster is ongoing infrastructure your subscribers depend on — feed delivery, token validation, license checks. Annual billing keeps the relationship honest: you renew because the tool is worth it, not because you’re locked in.

Yes. Each follower occupies one slot in your plan’s total token pool — the same pool shared with paying subscribers and free-tier members.

Benecaster tracks two separate limits:

Paying subscriber limit — the headline number on your plan (10 for Launch, 50 for Starter, etc.). Only paying subscribers count toward this limit. Followers and free-tier members do not.

Total token cap — all active tokens combined: paying subscribers, free-tier members, and followers. This secondary cap exists to keep the token pool proportionate to your plan.

Token caps by plan:

When you reach the WP.org follower cap (100), the [benecaster_follower_signup] shortcode silently stops rendering the form for visitors — listeners see nothing. Site administrators see a prompt explaining the cap and linking to a free Launch account at benecaster.com, which raises the cap to 250 at no cost. A card is required to create a Launch account — no charge is made at signup.

See How Subscriber Limits Work → for a full explanation of what counts toward each limit.