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.

The Greeting

The dashboard opens with a personalised greeting based on the time of day (“Good morning,” “Good afternoon,” “Good evening”). A small touch, but it sets the tone for a tool that’s meant to feel like yours.

Stat Cards

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

Card	What it shows
Active Subscribers	Total subscribers with a valid, active feed token right now. Sub-label shows “+N this month” in green when new subscribers outnumber churned ones, or red when churn is higher.
Episodes	Total published episodes for the currently selected show
This Month (est.)	Estimated monthly revenue based on active subscribers × tier prices read from your membership plugin. Shows `—` when prices aren’t available from the bridge, or when the bridge uses a pricing model Benecaster can’t read automatically.
Subscribers This Month	“+N new / −N churned” counts for the last 30 days — a quick read on whether your audience is growing or contracting this month

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.

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 from Benecaster’s benecaster_analytics_daily table, which records a snapshot each 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.

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 colour-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 — Last 30 Days

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 the proxy is disabled. That makes download tracking easy to discover even on a fresh install.

What the panel shows:

30-day total download count — the number of proxy hits in the last 30 days.
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.”
Proxy enabled badge — shown in the top-right corner of the panel when the download proxy is active.

Three states:

State	What you see
Proxy off, zero downloads	Total shows 0, no app breakdown, inline hint: “Enable the download proxy in Settings → Tools.”
Proxy off, existing downloads	Total and app breakdown show historical counts from when the proxy was on. No badge.
Proxy on	Badge appears. Total and app breakdown update as new downloads come in.

Download tracking requires the proxy to be enabled. See Download Tracking for setup instructions, what data is collected, and how the 302 redirect model works. The proxy 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:

Your site has an active license key.
You have opted into telemetry (Settings → Privacy).
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).

If any condition is not met, the panel is silently absent. There is no error or empty state.

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.

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 three conditions are true. When nothing needs attention, the panel is hidden entirely — a clean dashboard means things are running smoothly.

Item	When it appears	Links to
Feed sync drafts	One or more episodes imported from your hosting provider feed are sitting in draft state waiting for your review	Episodes list
Migration patron invites pending	Your Patreon or Supercast migration has patrons who have been imported or emailed but haven’t yet converted to Benecaster subscribers	Settings → Visibility
License expires soon	Your license renews within the next 30 days and automatic renewal hasn’t been confirmed yet	Settings → Account

Note: the license 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, and your current credit balance — the same information as the referral card in Settings → Account, surfaced as a dedicated page you can return to any time.

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