[benecaster_access_gate]

Shows its content to whoever holds one of your buy-ups or a one-off purchase, and the content after [benecaster_else] to everyone else. The sibling of benecaster_tier_gate, and the way to deliver an buy-up that isn’t an episode — a colouring book, a PDF, a bonus video, a members-only page.

[benecaster_access_gate buyup="colouring-book"]
  <a href="/wp-content/uploads/colouring-book.pdf">Download the colouring book</a>
[benecaster_else]
  [benecaster_subscribe]
[/benecaster_access_gate]

It hides the link. It does not protect the file. The gate shows or hides the content you wrote between the tags and does nothing to the file a link points at. A file in your media library keeps its ordinary web address, and anyone who is given that address can open it. Decide what you deliver this way with that in mind. There is no file attribute.

Three forms:

• buyup="slug" — holds that buy-up. The slug is the buy-up’s Access token type.
• grant="slug" — bought that one-off purchase (an Episode Sales product, or a slug an
  add-on registers).
• No selector — holds anything extra on this show: any buy-up or any purchase.

buyup and grant are separate attributes on purpose and cannot be combined. A buy-up and a purchase can share a slug, and they end differently: a buy-up lasts only as long as the membership it rides on, while a purchase is owned outright and survives the end of the membership. Writing both on one gate takes the else branch and raises _doing_it_wrong(); use two gates for an either/or.

Whole episodes are not gated here. Tick the buy-up on the episode’s Access tab for that. This shortcode shows and hides parts of a page. Anything beyond showing or hiding — adding a holder to a mailing list, a Discord role, calling another system — is benecaster_user_has_buyup() or benecaster_user_holds_grant() in code.

In the editor. Type / in an episode’s page content or a credit template and choose Buy-up Gate. It inserts a block with two halves to type into — Shown to people who have it and Shown to everyone else — and a settings panel where you pick A buy-up, A one-off purchase or Anything extra, then choose from your own list rather than typing a slug. The panel repeats that the gate hides the link and does not protect the file. A gate typed by hand opens as a block too, with both halves intact, the next time the content is opened in the editor; the saved content is the same shortcode either way.

Only the taken branch is ever run, exactly as for [benecaster_tier_gate]: the content is split on the first [benecaster_else] before any shortcode inside it runs. No [benecaster_else] means a visitor without the grant sees nothing. Gates cannot be nested — an inner closing tag closes the outer gate. Sequential gates are fine.

Fails closed. Logged-out visitors, an unknown slug, a buy-up the visitor doesn’t hold, an id belonging to another show, and both selectors at once all take the else branch.

No license check — website gating isn’t license-gated. Documented as min_plan: premium because buy-ups need a paid plan and built-in membership.

In the RSS feed the gate resolves per compiled feed. A gate in an episode’s page content or a show’s content puts the gated branch in that buy-up’s (or purchase’s) own feed and the else branch in every other feed — the public feed, follower feeds and every tier feed. Differences from the website, all failing closed:

• Only the gate is resolved in the feed. Every other shortcode still arrives as text.
• benecaster_access_gate_passes and benecaster_access_gate_output do not fire in the
  feed — a feed request has no logged-in visitor to pass them.
• A gate whose show_id names a different show takes the else branch.
• The no-selector form opens for a listener who holds any buy-up or purchase the show sells.

In the feed the gate resolves against everything the listener holds, not against which of their feeds an episode came from, so a holder sees the gated branch on every episode that carries the gate, public episodes and tier episodes included. Everyone else, and the public feed, gets the else branch.

Filters: benecaster_access_gate_passes ( bool $passes, int $show_id, array $selector, int $user_id ) — fires before either branch renders, website only. benecaster_access_gate_output ( string $output, bool $passes, int $show_id, array $atts ) — website only.

[benecaster_access_gate buyup="colouring-book"]
  <a href="https://example.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/colouring-book.pdf">Download your colouring book (PDF)</a>
[benecaster_else]
  <p>The colouring book comes with the Colouring Book extra.</p>
  [benecaster_subscribe]
[/benecaster_access_gate]

<?php
// Put colouring-book buyers on a mailing list when they open the "crafts" page.
add_action( 'template_redirect', function (): void {
    if ( ! is_page( 'crafts' ) || ! is_user_logged_in() ) {
        return;
    }

    $user_id = get_current_user_id();
    $show_id = 3;  // The show that sells the buy-up.

    // The "Colouring Book" buy-up's row ID in benecaster_buyups.
    // A buy-up lasts only as long as the membership it rides on.
    $colouring_book_buyup_id = 12;

    if ( benecaster_user_has_buyup( $user_id, $colouring_book_buyup_id, $show_id ) ) {
        my_crm_subscribe( $user_id, 'crafts' ); // Your mailing-list integration.
    }

    // A one-off purchase is owned outright and survives the end of the membership.
    if ( benecaster_user_holds_grant( $show_id, 'season-one', $user_id ) ) {
        my_crm_subscribe( $user_id, 'season-one-buyers' );
    }
} );