Upgrading Your Plan
Benecaster handles plan changes in two ways: automatic upgrades triggered by subscriber growth, and manual upgrades you initiate from benecaster.com.
Monitoring Your Usage
The Account tab (Benecaster → Settings → Account) shows your current subscriber count and plan limit as a progress bar. It updates on every admin page load.
At 80% of your limit, a warning notice appears in the notification center bell panel (top-right of the WordPress admin). The notice shows your current count, your plan cap, and the percentage used. It expires automatically if your subscriber count drops back below the threshold — no manual dismissal needed. The notice reappears after 30 days if the condition persists.
The same 80% threshold applies to your total token cap (all active tokens, including free-tier listeners). Both warnings are surfaced through the same notification center panel and behave the same way.
At 100% of your limit, what happens next depends on your limit enforcement preference (see below).
Your Limit Enforcement Preference
During the setup wizard, a Limit Enforcement step lets you choose how Benecaster responds when you reach your plan’s paying-subscriber limit or total token cap. You can change this preference later in Settings → Account.
Two enforcement modes are available:
Auto-upgrade — When your subscriber count or token total stays over the limit, Benecaster schedules an automatic plan upgrade for your next billing date. Your subscribers are not disrupted during the interval before the upgrade takes effect.
Cap — Benecaster does not schedule an upgrade automatically. Instead, subscribers who exceed the limit receive your public episode feed rather than their private tier feed. Their podcast app URLs continue to work — apps receive episodes, just not the private ones their tier includes. Private access is restored when you manually upgrade your plan.
Separate controls exist for each limit:
- Paying subscriber limit: auto-upgrade or cap. Default is auto-upgrade. (Not shown on Launch — Launch uses cap mode; see Launch plan limits →.)
- Token cap: auto-upgrade or cap. Default is cap.
The two controls are independent — you can auto-upgrade on subscriber limit while capping on token cap, or any other combination.
Pro, Multi-Show, and Studio plans have no subscriber limit and no token cap. The enforcement preference does not appear in the setup wizard for these plans. In Settings → Account it is shown but grayed out, with a note confirming that your plan has unlimited subscribers and no limits to enforce.
What Happens When You’re over Your Limit
When any subscriber token is flagged over your plan limit, Benecaster shows a persistent yellow warning banner in the WordPress admin. The banner appears on every admin screen until your plan is upgraded or your subscriber count drops back within the limit. It links to Settings → Account where you can see current usage and upgrade.
What your over-limit subscribers experience:
Their private RSS URL continues to work. Their podcast app receives episodes — just your public episode set instead of the private tier they pay for. There is no error, no broken URL, and no notification to the subscriber. The silent fallback is intentional: it keeps podcast apps functional without requiring any action from subscribers while you resolve the limit.
Over-limit subscribers appear with an amber highlight in Benecaster → Subscribers. Hovering their row shows: “Receiving public feed — upgrade your plan to restore private access.”
Restoring private access:
Upgrade your plan from benecaster.com. At the next daily validation check, Benecaster clears the over-limit flags and restores private feed access automatically. No RSS URL change, no subscriber action required.
Adding a Second Show
If you’re on Launch through Pro (single-show plans) and your show slot is in use:
- The Add Show button in the header is greyed out
- A link appears below it: “Upgrade to Multi-Show — run unlimited shows across up to 3 separate sites →”
- Clicking the link opens the upgrade page on benecaster.com
- Creating a second show via the REST API is also blocked until you upgrade
Upgrading to Multi-Show or Studio immediately frees the restriction — you can create a second show without any further steps.
Launch Plan Subscriber Limit
The Launch plan supports up to 10 paying subscribers. No card is required to start — Launch is free.
- At 8 subscribers, a notification appears in the admin and a warning email is sent.
- When your count reaches 10, a non-dismissible notice appears in the admin prompting you to choose a paid plan. The 11th+ paying subscriber receives your public episode feed rather than their private tier feed — their feed URL keeps working, they just receive public-tier content until you upgrade.
No automatic upgrade or billing occurs. You initiate the upgrade yourself from benecaster.com. See Launch plan limits → for more detail on cap-mode behavior.
Downgrade Lock After Upgrading from Launch
After you upgrade from Launch to any paid plan, a 30-day downgrade lock applies. You cannot manually downgrade back to Launch during this window. A notice appears in the admin if you attempt it, explaining when the lock expires.
After the lock expires, if your subscriber count is at or below 10, you can manually downgrade to Launch from benecaster.com.
Automatic Upgrades — Paid Tiers
For Starter, Growth, and Pro, the upgrade rule requires two consecutive calendar months over your tier limit before an upgrade is scheduled. One busy month doesn’t trigger a change.
- Month 1 over limit: A notification appears in the admin. No upgrade is scheduled yet. The counter is set.
- Month 2 over limit (consecutive): An upgrade is scheduled for your next billing date. You receive a confirmation email.
- At your next billing date, the upgrade takes effect.
If your subscriber count drops back below the tier limit before the second billing date, the counter resets and no upgrade is scheduled.
Manual Upgrades
To upgrade at any time — without waiting for the automatic threshold logic — log in to benecaster.com and go to My Account → Subscriptions. Select your new plan and confirm. The upgrade takes effect immediately and your billing is prorated for the remainder of the current period.
Manual upgrades are useful if you’re expecting rapid subscriber growth, want access to a higher tier’s features immediately, or want Studio’s full add-on stack before your subscriber count forces the change.
Upgrading to Multi-Show or Studio
Multi-Show ($35/month or $349/year) supports up to 3 shows, which can be spread across any number of WordPress installations. There is no automatic upgrade path to Multi-Show from the single-show tiers — it requires a manual upgrade from benecaster.com.
Studio ($149/month or $1,199/year) is the all-inclusive plan. It includes:
- Unlimited shows
- All current and future add-ons included automatically — no individual purchases
- Priority support (direct access, not a ticket queue)
- Early beta access to new features
- Migration + Setup Service included
Studio is a manual upgrade only — it is not triggered by subscriber count.
What Stays the Same During an Upgrade
Whether the upgrade is automatic or manual, the following are unaffected:
- Your episodes, shows, and all content
- Your subscribers and their feed tokens
- Your settings and tier mappings
- Existing subscriber feeds — they continue working without interruption
No action is required from your subscribers when your plan changes.
