Keep a capped-cohort tier purchasable via direct link while hiding it from the public subscribe picker

Some tiers are meant for a specific group rather than the public: a founding-supporter rate that is closed to newcomers, a capped cohort, a price offered to a mailing list. Disabling the tier is too blunt — that shuts it for the people who are supposed to have it.

benecaster_subscribe_tiers removes a tier from the public subscribe picker while leaving it fully purchasable. Anyone with the direct signup link can still join it; it simply is not offered to everyone who lands on the page. Pair it with a private signup URL and you have an invitation-only tier without a second system to maintain.

Hiding is not access control. The tier remains valid to subscribe to, by design — that is the entire point. Anyone who learns the link can use it. If a tier must be genuinely restricted, this is the wrong tool.

On a bridged show, your membership plugin can usually already do this. Most membership plugins have their own way of keeping a level from being publicly offered while leaving it purchasable by direct link, which is the same outcome by a different route — so if you are running one, check there first before reaching for anything here.

Built-in membership only. benecaster_subscribe_tiers filters the native tier list — the rows [benecaster_subscribe] reads from MembershipTierRepository when the show’s active bridge is the built-in NativeBridge. A show running a third-party membership plugin takes the bridge-driven TierMapRepository path instead and never reaches this filter, so adding it there does nothing. To hide a tier on a bridged show, hide it in that plugin’s own tier settings, or use the shortcode’s tiers attribute to name the tiers you do want shown.