Built-in Tour: Benecaster Overview
The Benecaster Overview tour is the Benecaster guided walkthrough that ships with every Benecaster installation. It covers the main areas you’ll return to most as a podcaster — from your dashboard stats through your episodes to your subscriber list, and your membership tiers if you sell them.
Its length depends on your site. Most steps always run; the others run only when there is something on screen for them to point at, and a step that doesn’t apply is left out rather than greyed out, so the step counter counts only the steps you will see. The When it runs column below says which is which.
To launch the tour, click Take a quick tour on the setup wizard all-done screen, or open the Tours catalog from the Benecaster admin footer and click Launch next to “Benecaster Overview.”
Tour Steps
| Step | Target | What it covers | When it runs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your show at a glance | Dashboard stat cards (data-tour="dashboard-stat-cards") |
Active subscribers, episode count, estimated monthly revenue, and subscriber movement. Each card’s value shows the change over the last 30 days. | Always |
| The URL listeners subscribe to | Your RSS feed URL card (data-tour="dashboard-feed-url") |
Your public feed address and the QR code listeners can scan to subscribe. You submit this URL to Apple Podcasts, Spotify and the rest once. Paying subscribers never use it — each gets a private URL of their own, listed on the Subscribers screen. | Always |
| Subscribers by tier | Tier breakdown panel (data-tour="dashboard-tier-breakdown") |
New subscribers and churn broken out per tier for the last 30 days. | When at least two tiers have subscribers, which is when the panel appears |
| Where your episodes live | Episodes nav item (data-tour="nav-episodes") |
Every episode in one list — published, scheduled, and drafts. The tier badge shows who can hear each one. | Always |
| Audio lives at your host | Audio URL field (data-tour="episode-audio-url") |
Where the audio file lives. Benecaster never stores audio — it builds a private feed pointing at your host’s URL. The gate is the feed, not the file. | Always |
| Control who hears it and when | Episode availability controls (data-tour="episode-availability") |
Per-tier availability — one tier immediately, another three days later, or everyone at once. This is what makes the feed private and tiered. | Always |
| Your subscriber base | Subscribers nav item (data-tour="nav-subscribers") |
Every subscriber with their tier, last feed access, and feed URL. “Last seen” is when their podcast app last polled the feed. | Always |
| Your subscription tiers | Memberships nav item (data-tour="nav-memberships") |
Built-in Membership gives you Stripe-powered tiers without a separate membership plugin. You define your tiers here, then connect Stripe. | When a show uses built-in membership and has at least one active tier |
| Add your first tier | Add tier button (data-tour="memberships-tier-add") |
Each tier has a name and one price per billing cadence you offer — usually monthly and yearly. | Same as above |
| Discount math | The first tier’s prices (data-tour="memberships-tier-pricing") |
Each tier’s monthly and annual price side by side. Price a longer cadence below the monthly equivalent and Benecaster adds a savings badge, such as “Save 27%” or “2 months free”, under the prices. | Same as above |
| Am I taking real money? | Test-mode bar (data-tour="payment-mode-banner") |
The bar that sits above every Benecaster screen while any show on the site is in test mode, and names those shows. In test mode Stripe takes test cards only and nobody is charged. | When any show is in test mode |
The tour starts on the dashboard, opens a new episode for the audio and availability steps, and moves on to the subscriber list and, when they run, the Memberships screen. The test-mode step appears on whichever screen you are on, because the bar is on all of them.
The Memberships steps don’t wait for Stripe to be connected: they are meant for a podcaster who is still setting up.
After the Tour
Once you’ve completed the tour, the Take a quick tour button on the setup wizard all-done screen relabels to Revisit the tour. You can relaunch the tour at any time from the Tours catalog in the admin footer.
Setup Wizard Tour Target Notes
The wizard includes tour-targetable elements on these steps:
| Element | data-tour value |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Connect to Benecaster button | wizard-subscribers-connect |
Primary action button on the paid path of the Subscribers step |
| Built-in membership card | wizard-builtin-membership-card |
The first card on the subscription step, always present |
| Connect Stripe step | wizard-builtin-stripe |
Shown only when Built-in membership is chosen |
| First tier step | wizard-builtin-tier |
Shown only when Built-in membership is chosen |
The Connect button renders as a filled, primary-action button in the Benecaster brand color — not an unstyled or ghost button. Any in-context onboarding tip that references this button should expect it to be visually prominent and positioned as the main call to action on the step.
Note on Per-show Settings Tab Paths
General, Emails, Webhooks and the other per-show tabs live under /#/shows/:showId/settings/, not directly under /#/settings/. A bookmark to /#/settings/general or similar does not resolve — point it at the per-show settings route for the show you want.
See Also
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