Dashboard Overview

The Benecaster dashboard is the first screen you see when you open Benecaster in your WordPress admin. It gives you a real-time snapshot of how your show is performing — subscriber counts, recent growth, and anything that needs your attention.

Stat Cards

Four cards across the top of the dashboard give you your key numbers at a glance:

The revenue estimate is directional — useful for spotting trends, not for bookkeeping. Your membership plugin and payment processor are the source of truth for actual revenue.

If you connect through MemberPress or WooCommerce Subscriptions, a one-time background check counts members whose membership had already lapsed as churned in “Subscribers This Month” and the Active Subscribers sub-label, dated the day the check ran rather than when the membership actually ended — so you may see a one-off churn spike unrelated to anything happening in your membership plugin that day. See Sudden Drop in Subscriber Count for the full explanation.

Your RSS Feed URL

Located between the stat cards and the tier breakdown.

This panel is always visible. It shows your public RSS feed URL — the unauthenticated feed suitable for podcast directories like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Overcast. This is not a subscriber’s private feed URL; it contains no token.

What’s in the panel:

• Your public feed URL in a read-only input with a Copy button. Clicking it copies the URL to your clipboard; the button label changes to “Copied” for two seconds, then reverts.
• A 120×120 QR code generated in your browser (no external service involved). Screenshot or print it for show notes, a Patreon post, or a physical flyer.
• A one-line hint: “Share this URL with listeners.”

Platform links callout:

Below the feed URL, Benecaster shows a context-sensitive callout about your podcast directory links:

• No platform links set: an orange warning card appears — “Set up platform links →.” This is worth addressing early; it’s how listeners find your show in their preferred app.
• Platform links configured: the callout shows how many links are set and a “Manage →” link.

Both CTAs link to the Platform Links section of your show editor.

Subscriber Growth Sparkline

A 90-day area chart below the stat cards shows your active subscriber trend over time. The x-axis covers the last 90 days; the y-axis shows subscriber count per day.

The chart reads Benecaster’s daily analytics snapshot, recorded once a day. It reflects yesterday’s count, not a real-time query.

Empty state: On a brand-new show with no subscriber history, the chart shows “No subscriber history yet.” instead of a chart. The message clears as soon as the first snapshot is recorded (within 24 hours of your first subscriber joining).

Subscriber Usage Bar

When your paying subscriber count reaches 80% of your plan’s subscriber limit, an amber bar appears between the stat cards and the sparkline:

Subscriber usage: N / M [progress bar] → Upgrade your plan

Free plan (Launch) shows an upgrade-required notice when you reach 10 paying subscribers — the 11th+ subscriber receives your public feed while you choose a paid plan at benecaster.com. Paid plans show a manual upgrade CTA.

When you’ve reached 100% or beyond, the amber bar is replaced with a blue milestone banner:

• Paid plans: shows your estimated monthly revenue and an upgrade CTA
• Free plan (Launch): shows an upgrade prompt to choose a paid plan

The bar is hidden on Pro, Multi-Show, and Studio plans, which have no paying subscriber limit.

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Tier Breakdown

Below the sparkline, the tier breakdown panel shows your active subscriber count, new subscribers, and churned subscribers per tier for the last 30 days. Each tier appears with a color-coded dot. Tiers are ordered highest-to-lowest.

The tier breakdown is hidden on shows with only one subscriber tier — it’s only useful when you’re running multiple access levels.

Downloads

Located between the tier breakdown and the 90-day subscriber sparkline.

This panel is always visible. It does not hide when downloads are zero or when tracking is off for the selected show, which makes download tracking easy to discover even on a fresh install.

What the panel shows:

• Episode downloads, last 30 days — the number of tracked downloads in the last 30 days.
• Tracked downloads, all time — every download tracked for the selected show, beside the 30-day figure. It appears whenever the badge does (see below).
• Top 3 podcast apps with counts — for example, “Apple Podcasts: 312, Overcast: 204, Pocket Casts: 88.” User-agents that don’t match a known app appear as “Other.”
• A badge in the top-right corner: Tracking on when the selected show has download tracking switched on by its show-level default (Details → Show Flags → Enable download tracking), or Tracking off — showing past downloads when the default is off but the show has tracked downloads before.

When the badge and the all-time figure appear. One rule covers both: they appear when the show’s tracking default is on, or when the show has ever tracked a download. That means a show that tracks only through per-episode Force on overrides still sees them, and a show that switches tracking off keeps its history on screen instead of losing it. A show that has never tracked anything sees neither, and gets a hint to turn tracking on. The badge follows the show’s default, so a show that tracks only through overrides reads “Tracking off — showing past downloads” even while those episodes keep logging new downloads; the figures include them.

What the all-time figure does not count. It is a count of tracked downloads, not total listens. It only includes requests that pass through Benecaster’s redirect, so it leaves out:

• episodes with tracking off
• anything downloaded before tracking was switched on
• plays inside Spotify, Apple Podcasts and other apps that never reach your site

Treat it as a floor. It won’t match the totals your podcast host reports.

Three states:

There is no install-wide download-tracking switch: tracking is a per-show default with a per-episode override. See Download Tracking for setup instructions, what data is collected, and how the 302 redirect model works. Download tracking is available on all plans, including Free.

How Does Your Show Compare?

Located between the 90-day subscriber sparkline and the Needs Attention list.

This panel shows anonymized benchmark data from across all Benecaster-powered shows on the platform. It only appears when all of the following are true:

1. At least one show on your site is connected to benecaster.com.
2. You have opted into telemetry (Settings → Privacy).
3. The platform has data from at least 10 other qualifying sites for the metric being shown (a privacy threshold — Benecaster never returns data that could identify any individual show).

Connecting a show is what matters here, not which plan you are on — the connection is how the request is authenticated, and there is no license key involved at any point.

If any condition is not met, the whole panel is silently absent, with no error. Once it is showing, its two share sections (below) can each read “Not enough data yet.” instead of figures.

What the panel shows when visible:

For each metric returned by the license server (currently: subscriber count), the panel displays:

• The metric label
• p25, p50, p75, and p90 percentile values from across all qualifying installs
• A pill showing the contributing sample size
• A position label comparing your show’s value: “Top quartile of shows on the platform,” “Above the median,” “Below the median,” or “Bottom quartile”

Your site’s value appears alongside the benchmark. If your dashboard stats haven’t finished loading when the panel renders, that column is hidden until the data is ready.

Membership plugins in use and Add-ons switched on sit under the subscriber comparison. Each lists one line per plugin or add-on: a readable name, a bar, and a percentage, largest first. A line above the list says how many sites the figures come from, for example “Of 42 sites that share telemetry”.

• The percentages are shown as reported and can add up to more than 100%. A site running two membership plugins counts under both, and the panel says so under the membership list.
• The add-on figure counts add-ons switched on for a show, not add-ons a license includes. A show that owns an add-on but has it switched off is not counted.
• Below 10 reporting sites, a section reads “Not enough data yet.” instead of hiding. Expect the add-on section to read that for some time after launch, while sites update.
• If enough sites reported but none uses a membership plugin (or none has an add-on switched on), the section says so instead of showing an empty list.

The benchmark is a distribution, not a ranking. A show with 50 subscribers isn’t “failing” if p50 is 80 — it means half the shows on the platform have fewer than 80 subscribers. Use it as a reference point, not a scorecard.

Needs Attention

The “Needs attention” section appears below the sparkline when any of four conditions are true. When nothing needs attention, the panel is hidden entirely — a clean dashboard means things are running smoothly.

The academic row is a move to a free plan, not an expiry: your site keeps working after the date, within the Launch plan limits. While it is showing it replaces the “License renews in N days” row, whatever your renewal date says, because that date is not the real deadline. It has no link. To stay on your current plan, reverify using the link in the email we sent you or choose a paid plan; the notice in your Benecaster notices has a Manage license button. A paid academic license never sees this row. See License Status and Plan.

Note: the renewal item only appears for future renewals within 30 days. It does not appear if your license is already expired — that’s surfaced instead by the persistent banner across all Benecaster screens.

Recent Episodes

The bottom of the dashboard shows your three most recently published episodes as cards. Each card displays:

• Episode artwork (or a placeholder when no artwork is set)
• Episode title (links to the episode editor)
• Status badge (Published, Draft, Scheduled)
• Publish date

A persistent + New Episode card sits alongside the episode cards as a shortcut to create a new episode without navigating away from the dashboard.

Click View all → to go to the full episode list.

Switching Shows

If you’re running multiple shows (Multi-Show or Studio plans), the dashboard heading includes a show context line:

Viewing: My Podcast · Switch shows ⌄

Click Switch shows to expand the show list and select a different show. The dashboard updates immediately to reflect the selected show’s stats, tier breakdown, and episode list. Everything on the dashboard — every number, every chart, every recent episode card — is scoped to the currently selected show.

The show switcher is only visible on Multi-Show and Studio installs. Single-show installs don’t show the switcher — the dashboard always reflects the one show without needing a selection UI.

Refer a Friend

A Refer a Friend page (Gift icon) appears in the top-level Benecaster navigation, immediately after Memberships. It shows your referral link, your referral code, your referral credit, and the checkbox that controls Benecaster’s referral emails. It is the one place in WordPress that shows them: they are not on Settings → Account.

See Refer a Friend for details on how credits work, how they’re applied at renewal, and what each plan earns.

See Also

• Subscriber Dashboard — the full subscriber list with filtering, search, and engagement indicators
• Download Tracking — optional per-episode download analytics
• Setting Tier Availability — controlling when each tier can access each episode
• Refer a Friend — how the referral program works and where to find your link