MemberPress Setup
MemberPress is a premium WordPress membership plugin that handles subscription levels, payment processing, and member access rules. It’s the most widely used membership plugin in the Benecaster ecosystem and a good default choice if you’re setting up from scratch.
Before You Start
- MemberPress must be installed, activated, and licensed on your WordPress site
- At least one MemberPress membership level should exist before connecting the bridge — you’ll need something to map tiers against
- You should have a Benecaster paid license activated — the bridge system requires a paid license
Step 1: Connect the Bridge
Go to Benecaster → Settings → Subscription.
If MemberPress is active, it appears automatically in the subscription plugin list. Select it and click Connect.
Benecaster reads your MemberPress membership levels and confirms the connection. You’ll see a green status indicator and the number of levels detected.
If MemberPress doesn’t appear in the list, see Subscription Plugin Not Connecting.
Step 2: Map Your Tiers
With the bridge connected, go to Benecaster → Settings → Subscription → Tier Mapping.
Benecaster lists all your MemberPress membership levels. For each level, select the corresponding Benecaster tier from the dropdown. Levels left unmapped generate no feed access — subscribers at those levels will receive an empty feed.
Common configurations:
- Single paid tier: Map all paying levels to one tier. Keep it simple.
- Multiple tiers with early access: Map your premium level to
goldand standard tosilver. Set different availability dates per tier on each episode. - Monthly and annual variants: “Gold Monthly” and “Gold Annual” can both map to
gold— the billing distinction is MemberPress’s concern, not Benecaster’s.
Save when done. See Mapping Your Membership Tiers for detailed guidance.
Step 3: Test the Connection
Create a test subscriber manually in MemberPress — go to MemberPress → Members → Add New, assign them a membership level, and save.
Within a few seconds, a Benecaster token should be generated for that subscriber. To verify: go to Benecaster → Subscribers and confirm the test user appears with a feed URL.
If the token isn’t generated, check that the tier is mapped and that MemberPress fired the subscription activation event. See Subscription Plugin Not Connecting for troubleshooting steps.
How MemberPress Events Map to Benecaster
| MemberPress event | Benecaster action |
|---|---|
| Subscription activated (new or resubscribed) | Generate token, send welcome email |
| Subscription cancelled | Mark token inactive |
| Subscription expired | Mark token inactive |
| Subscription tier changed (upgrade or downgrade) | Update token’s tier; feed changes on next poll |
| Payment failed | No immediate action — MemberPress handles retry logic |
Benecaster waits for MemberPress to fire these events. If a subscriber’s membership lapses in MemberPress but the event hasn’t fired yet, Benecaster continues serving their feed until it does. Most MemberPress events fire promptly.
MemberPress-Specific Notes
Access rules and content protection: MemberPress includes its own content restriction rules (locking WordPress pages, posts, and custom post types). These are separate from Benecaster’s feed gating — you don’t need to set MemberPress access rules for Benecaster to work. Benecaster controls feed access through the token system independently of MemberPress’s page-level rules.
Corporate accounts and sub-accounts: If you use MemberPress’s corporate accounts feature, each sub-account user is treated as an independent subscriber by Benecaster. Each gets their own token.
Free trial periods: MemberPress free trials activate the subscription event immediately, so Benecaster generates a token and sends the welcome email during the trial. The feed works throughout the trial. If a subscriber doesn’t convert after the trial, MemberPress fires the cancellation event and the feed stops.
MemberPress Drip: MemberPress includes a Drip feature that releases content on a time-based schedule after a member joins — for example, unlocking a page seven days after signup. MemberPress Drip operates at the WordPress content layer and has no effect on Benecaster’s RSS feeds. Benecaster uses membership level and active status only. If you want to release podcast episodes on a schedule (Premium subscribers first, then Basic, then Free), use Benecaster’s availability dates — not MemberPress Drip.
MemberPress add-ons: Benecaster connects to MemberPress core. Any MemberPress add-ons (Courses, CoachKit, etc.) don’t affect the bridge — Benecaster only cares about membership level and active status.
