Privacy Policy

Benecaster Privacy Policy

Last updated: June 2026

⚠ Working draft — requires legal review before publication. Placeholders marked [LIKE THIS] must be filled in.

Overview

This Privacy Policy explains how [ENTITY LEGAL NAME] (“Benecaster,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) collects, uses, and protects information through the Benecaster WordPress plugin and the benecaster.com website.

Two separate contexts apply, and it matters which one you’re in:

1. benecaster.com — When you purchase and manage a Benecaster license, we are the data controller for your account and billing information.

2. The WordPress plugin — When you install Benecaster on your WordPress site, your subscribers’ data is stored on your server. You are the data controller for your subscribers. We never receive individually identifying data about your podcast subscribers.

This is not a technicality. It reflects a core design decision: podcasters’ audiences belong to the podcasters, not to Benecaster.

Who This Policy Covers

Podcasters (customers): People who create accounts, purchase licenses, and install the plugin. This policy governs our collection and use of your data.

Visitors: People who browse benecaster.com without an account.

Podcast subscribers: If you’re a podcaster using Benecaster, your subscribers’ data is governed by your privacy policy, not this one. We never receive individually identifying information about them.

Data We Collect

Account and Billing Information

When you create an account and purchase a license:

Name and email address
Billing address
Payment and subscription details — billing and subscription management are handled directly through Stripe, which receives your name, email, billing address, plan, and billing history. Card data is entered directly into a Stripe-hosted payment form and never passes through Benecaster’s servers. We store only a Stripe customer ID. We never receive or store raw card numbers, CVV codes, or full card details.
License keys (stored as hashed values; the full key is shown once at purchase and is not stored in plaintext)
Purchase history and subscription status

Legal basis: Contract performance.

License Validation Data

Each Benecaster installation sends a daily validation request to our license server. This request includes:

Your license key
The URL of your WordPress installation
Plugin version, WordPress version, PHP version
Active add-on slugs
Validation timestamp

Purpose: To confirm your license is valid and deliver the correct feature set to your installation.

Legal basis: Contract performance.

Retention: The 30 most recent validation records per license are retained. Older records are purged automatically.

Telemetry Data (Opt-In Only)

If you choose to participate in usage data sharing — controlled in Benecaster → Settings — the daily validation request also includes aggregate statistics about your podcast installation. Participation is entirely voluntary and can be changed at any time.

What is included when you opt in:

Subscriber counts by tier
Episode counts
Average feed request rate per subscriber
Geographic distribution of subscribers: country and region/state totals only (e.g., “45 subscribers in Texas”) — never individual subscriber locations
Listening pattern distributions (hour-of-day and day-of-week totals across all subscribers)
Podcast app distribution
Subscriber tenure distribution in buckets (0–30 days, 31–90 days, 91–365 days, 365+ days)
Aggregate churn rate and episode reach rate

What is never included:

Subscriber email addresses, names, or any individual identifiers
Individual feed tokens or private RSS URLs
Individual download records
Any data that could identify a specific subscriber

Purpose: To improve the product and generate platform-wide benchmark analytics. Benchmarks are surfaced back to customers (e.g., “your churn rate compared to the platform median across all Benecaster sites”).

Legal basis: Consent. Customers who do not opt in transmit only the validation data in the previous section — no subscriber-related data of any kind.

Retention: Telemetry snapshots are retained for 24 months, then purged.

Support Communications

If you contact us for support, we may receive your email address, account details, and the content of your request. This data is processed by our support platform and retained in accordance with that platform’s policies.

Data the Plugin Stores (We Never Receive This)

The Benecaster plugin stores the following data about your subscribers on your WordPress server. This data never leaves your server — it is not transmitted to benecaster.com or any other party by Benecaster.

Subscriber email addresses (through WordPress user accounts)
RSS feed tokens (stored as SHA-256 hashes; the plaintext token is shown once and never stored)
Subscription tier and status
Last feed access timestamp
Geographic location: country and region/state derived from IP address at first feed access — the raw IP address is discarded immediately after the lookup; only country code and region code are stored
Download history (if you enable the optional download proxy): episode, timestamp, podcast app, geographic data, and a hashed IP (SHA-256 with a site-specific salt — not reversible to the original IP)
Email preferences and unsubscribe state

Geographic data handling: IP lookups are performed using a MaxMind GeoLite2-City database stored locally on your server. No IP addresses are sent to MaxMind or any third party. The database provides city, postal code, and coordinate data, but Benecaster deliberately does not extract or store anything below the country/region level.

Your responsibility as a podcaster: You are responsible for disclosing to your subscribers how you collect and use their data, including geographic data derived from IP addresses. This is standard practice for podcast analytics and is handled the same way by podcast hosting providers. See our support documentation for suggested privacy disclosure language you can use in your own privacy policy.

How We Use Your Information

We use the information we collect to:

Deliver and maintain your Benecaster license
Process payments and send billing confirmations, receipts, and renewal notices
Send operational emails about your license (threshold notifications, upgrade eligibility notices, plan changes)
Respond to support requests
Improve the product (with your consent, using aggregate telemetry data)
Generate anonymized platform-wide benchmarks available to all customers

We do not:

Sell your personal data to any third party
Use your data for advertising purposes
Access subscriber data stored on your WordPress installation

Third-Party Services

Service	Data we share	Purpose
Stripe	Name, email address, billing address, plan selection, subscription status, billing history, renewal dates	Payment processing and subscription management — Stripe manages the full customer billing relationship on our behalf, including recurring charges, plan changes, and payment method storage. Card data enters Stripe’s servers directly and never passes through ours; we store only a Stripe customer ID and never receive raw card numbers
[Support platform — HelpScout or equivalent]	Support inquiry content, email address, account info	Customer support
Email platform (if applicable)	Email address, account status	Product update and transactional emails (with your consent for marketing; required for transactional)

Stripe operates under its own privacy policy. We encourage you to review it. Stripe is bound by contractual obligations to process your data only as directed and to maintain appropriate security standards.

MaxMind GeoLite2: Used locally on your server for geographic lookups. No data is transmitted to MaxMind.

Data Retention

Data	Location	Retention
Account and billing records	benecaster.com	Duration of account + as required by applicable law (typically 7 years)
License records	benecaster.com	Duration of account + 2 years
Validation logs	benecaster.com	30 most recent per license; older records purged automatically
Telemetry snapshots	benecaster.com	24 months
Subscriber tokens, feed logs, geographic data	Your WordPress server	Until you delete it — we have no access
Download proxy logs	Your WordPress server	Configurable in Benecaster → Settings → Tools; no automatic deletion by default
Subscriber unsubscribe log	Your WordPress server	Indefinitely (regulatory compliance — proof that opt-outs were honored)

Your Rights

Customers (Benecaster.com Account Holders)

Access: Your account data, order history, and license records are available through your account at benecaster.com/my-account/.

Correction: Update your account information at any time in your account dashboard.

Deletion: Request account deletion by contacting us at [support/privacy email]. We will remove your personal data from our systems subject to our obligations to retain records under applicable law. Aggregate telemetry data, which cannot be attributed to a specific customer, may be retained for platform benchmark calculations.

Portability: Order history and license data are available for export from your account dashboard.

Opt-out of marketing communications: Use the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or contact us.

California Residents (CCPA)

We do not sell your personal information.
You have the right to know what data we collect, request deletion, and receive the same service regardless of whether you exercise these rights.

EU and UK Residents (GDPR)

You have the rights of access, rectification, erasure, restriction of processing, and data portability.
You have the right to lodge a complaint with your supervisory authority.
To submit a request, contact us at [privacy email or postal address].

Your Subscribers’ Rights

Your subscribers’ privacy rights with respect to data stored on your WordPress site are your responsibility to handle, not ours. Benecaster provides tools to export and delete individual subscriber records — see our support documentation for instructions on processing data subject requests.

Cookies

benecaster.com uses:

Session and login cookies — strictly necessary for account login and checkout functionality. These cannot be opted out of while using the account or checkout.
No analytics cookies, advertising cookies, or third-party tracking cookies.

The Benecaster plugin does not set cookies on your WordPress site beyond standard WordPress session handling.

Children’s Privacy

Benecaster’s services are directed at adults operating podcast businesses. We do not knowingly collect personal information from anyone under 13 (US) or under 16 (EU/UK). If you believe a minor has provided us with personal information, please contact us and we will delete it promptly.

If your podcast content is directed at children, you are responsible for ensuring appropriate consent mechanisms are in place before using Benecaster’s subscriber features with that audience.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this policy from time to time. For material changes, we will notify you by email (to the address on your account) or through a notice in your Benecaster admin dashboard before the change takes effect. The “Last updated” date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.

Contact

For privacy-related questions or to submit a data subject request:

[ENTITY LEGAL NAME]
[Street Address]
[City, CT ZIP]
United States
[privacy@benecaster.com or appropriate contact address]