Plan: Launch
$0 — No charge while you’re on Launch.
Start with up to 10 paying subscribers. No platform fee, ever.
The right place to start.
Launch is for podcasters who are just getting their private feed set up, or who are still building toward their first paying subscribers. You get the full Benecaster feature set — private feeds, tier management, subscriber dashboard, everything — with zero cost until you have more than 10 paying subscribers. A card is required to create your account — no charge is made at signup. We also ask for your country and postal code, for the same reason we ask for the card: so that if you ever grow past the free limits we can bill you correctly without coming back to you for it.
If you go past 10 paying subscribers and stay past it for 24 hours, your plan moves to Starter monthly ($9/month) on its own and the card you saved at signup is charged that day. It happens automatically — there is no prompt and nothing to click. No service interruption; your subscribers, feeds, and URLs don’t change. You can switch to annual billing ($79/year) from your account afterwards, and you can change how Benecaster handles going over your limit from your account at any time.
Everything you need to run a private podcast.
- Private subscriber RSS feeds with token authentication
- Up to 10 paying subscribers
- Up to 250 total tokens (paying subscribers + any free membership tier you offer)
- 1 show
- Multiple subscription tiers — set different release dates per tier for the same episode
- Episode management with full podcast RSS metadata
- MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, and Restrict Content Pro bridges
- Subscriber management dashboard
- Welcome email with personal RSS URL and deep links to podcast apps
- Token reset — admin and subscriber-initiated
- Subscriber self-service account dashboard with QR code
- Basic subscriber analytics
- Full data export
- 30-day money-back guarantee
Not the same as the free download.
Benecaster is available as a free download on WordPress.org — no account required, no sign-up. That version runs a complete public podcast: episode management, full RSS, and Listener Support for one-time donations. Launch is a free Benecaster account that activates the private side: token-authenticated subscriber feeds, tier management, and the subscriber dashboard. The plugin is the same installation. The account is what unlocks private podcasting.
WordPress.org (free download)
No account required. Install directly from wordpress.org.
- Public RSS feed only
- Episode management and full podcast RSS
- Listener Support (one-time listener donations via your own Stripe account)
- No private subscriber feeds
- No token system
- No subscriber management
- No Benecaster account
Launch ($0 licensed account)
A free Benecaster account. A card is required at signup — no charge while you’re on Launch.
- Everything in the WordPress.org version
- Private subscriber RSS feeds
- Token generation and management
- Multiple subscription tiers with per-tier availability dates
- Subscriber management dashboard
- Welcome email with RSS URL
- Subscriber self-service account
The WordPress.org version is a complete public podcast manager. Launch is what you need when you’re ready to add paying subscribers.
Two limits, two different things.
Launch has two independent limits.
Paying subscriber limit — 10
This is the threshold where billing starts. If you go past 10 paying subscribers and stay past it for 24 continuous hours, Benecaster moves you to Starter monthly and charges the card you saved at signup that day. It is automatic — there is no prompt and nothing to confirm. You are emailed before it happens, and you can change how Benecaster handles going over your limit from your account.
If the card can’t be charged, nothing bad happens to you. No suspension, no cutoff, and no charge. You stay on Launch, and subscribers past the limit keep receiving the public feed until you update your card.
At 9 paying subscribers (at $10/month), Starter costs the same as Patreon’s 10% fee — $9 either way. Every subscriber after that, Benecaster is cheaper.
Total token cap — 250
This is the combined ceiling for all active RSS feed tokens on your account — paying subscribers, free-tier listeners, and anyone else with a private feed URL. Public listeners who access your public RSS feed aren’t counted — the cap only applies to private feed tokens. A podcaster with 5 paying subscribers and 245 free-tier listeners is at the cap.
The token cap exists because a large free membership tier generates the same platform load as a paid one. 250 total tokens is generous for where most podcasters are when they’re just getting started — but if your free tier is growing faster than your paying tier, that’s a good signal you’re ready to move to Starter.
The two limits do opposite things, and this is the part worth reading twice. Going past 10 paying subscribers moves you onto a paid plan and charges your card. Going past 250 tokens does not charge you anything — it caps you: no new feed tokens are issued until you’re back under the cap or you upgrade. That’s the setting Launch ships with, and you can change it from your account if you’d rather be upgraded automatically on this limit too.
Paying subscribers count toward both limits. Free membership tier subscribers count toward the token cap only.
At 80% of either limit, you’ll get an early heads-up. Worth knowing how much warning that actually buys you: once you cross the paying subscriber limit, the window before the plan moves is 24 hours, so treat the 80% notice as the moment to decide rather than as a long runway.