Add-on: AI Search
$79/year — Bring your own API key
Natural language search across your entire back catalogue.
“Episodes about remote work” — and it finds them.
AI Search lets your subscribers and visitors search your episode archive in plain English. Not exact keyword matching — semantic understanding. “Productivity during travel,” “interviews with founders,” “episodes where you talk about burnout” — it finds the relevant episodes even when those exact words aren’t in the title.
Search works across episode titles, descriptions, show notes, and transcripts (with the Transcription add-on). Results are tier-aware: subscribers only see episodes available at their access level.
You bring your own API key. API costs go directly to your provider — Benecaster doesn’t mark them up.
Four providers. Two architectures.
Embedding-based (fast, cheap per query):
- OpenAI —
text-embedding-3-smallortext-embedding-3-large; most popular, best ecosystem support - Google Gemini — Gemini embedding models; strong multilingual support
- Cohere —
embed-v3; purpose-built for retrieval and search; excellent accuracy
Episode content is indexed into vector embeddings stored on your server. Each search runs a similarity lookup against the local index — fast at query time, small cost when episodes publish.
LLM-based (no upfront indexing):
- Anthropic (Claude) — reads episode titles and descriptions per query, returns ranked results; no local index needed; higher cost per search
Provider selection at setup determines which architecture is used. Most podcasters will find an embedding-based provider (OpenAI or Cohere) the right call — fast queries, low ongoing cost.
Semantic search, everywhere your subscribers are.
- Natural language search across episode titles, descriptions, and show notes
- Transcript search (with Transcription Service add-on installed)
- Tier-aware results — subscribers only see episodes available at their access level
- Three display options: sidebar widget, full-page search, or modal overlay
- Gutenberg block and Elementor widget
- Shortcode fallback:
[benecaster_ai_search]
Already have Standard Search — do you need AI Search too?
| Standard Search (included free) | AI Search ($79/yr) | |
|---|---|---|
| Search type | Keyword matching | Semantic / natural language |
| API key required | No | Yes |
| Ongoing API cost | None | Yes (low at podcast scale) |
| “Productivity while traveling” | ❌ unless those exact words appear | ✓ |
| “Episode 42 transcript” | ✓ | ✓ |
Standard Search is built into every Benecaster plan at no extra cost. AI Search is worth $79/year when your back catalogue is large enough that keyword search misses things, or when you want subscribers to discover episodes by topic rather than exact title.
Learn about Standard Search (core feature) →
Pairs well with
- Transcription Service — transcript content indexed for semantic search; dramatically improves results for long-form interview shows
- Standard Search (core) — already included free; run both simultaneously
Requires / Works with
- Requires: Benecaster with any paid plan
- Requires: An API key from a supported provider (OpenAI, Google Gemini, Cohere, or Anthropic)
- Enhanced by: Transcription Service (transcript content in search index)
