Refer a Friend
Refer a Friend
Benecaster has a referral program that credits your account — not a one-time bonus, not a gift card, and not a cash payout. When someone you refer becomes a paying member, you earn a credit toward your own renewals. It comes off your bill automatically, up to half of each renewal, and anything left over carries forward rather than being lost. Keep referring and the credit keeps stacking up, so the bills keep coming in lower.
Here’s the short version: your referral gets a discount on their first invoice, you get a credit on your account — automatically, no code to enter, no redemption required on your side. The two numbers aren’t always the same dollar amount (see below), but they’re both generous: an annual Studio referral, for example, earns you $599.50 in credit — over a year of Pro-plan renewals.
How the Credit Works
Your credit is applied at renewal time, automatically — you don’t have to do anything. To make sure large credits don’t disappear all at once and to keep the math simple, there’s a 50% cap per billing cycle: each month, up to half your renewal amount comes from your referral credit balance. If your credit is larger than half of one renewal, the remainder carries forward to your next renewal. It keeps carrying forward until it’s fully applied.
Example: You’re on Pro ($25/month). A friend signs up for Studio ($149/month) using your referral. You earn $74.50 in credit. Each month, up to $12.50 (50% of your $25 bill) comes from that credit. Your credit balance gradually reduces over about six renewal cycles.
Your credit doesn’t expire. There is no use-it-or-lose-it window — an unused balance sits on your account until a renewal draws it down. The one condition is that you stay a member: if your own subscription lapses and the grace period runs out without payment, any unapplied referral credit is cleared along with your feed access — see Payment Failure and Recovery. Credit already applied to past invoices is unaffected.
Minimum floor: Your credit is never less than $10 per referral, however small their plan. If half of what they paid would come to less than that, Benecaster covers the difference.
Their discount and your credit are calculated separately, from the same starting price — they usually match, with one exception. Your credit is always your $10 floor or half of the plan’s list price, whichever is more. On Growth and above, that comes out the same as their discount. On Starter, it doesn’t: their discount can’t exceed the $9 price, so 100% off is as far as it goes — but your credit still applies the $10 floor, so a Starter referral earns you $10, a dollar more than the discount they received.
If they pay monthly, their discount is fixed to their plan:
| Their plan | Their price | Discount they get | Credit you earn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $9/mo | 100% off month one (free) | $10 |
| Growth | $15/mo | $10 off | $10 |
| Pro | $25/mo | 50% off ($12.50) | $12.50 |
| Multi-Show | $35/mo | 50% off ($17.50) | $17.50 |
| Studio | $149/mo | 50% off ($74.50) | $74.50 |
If they pay annually, they get 50% off their first year on any plan, and your credit matches it exactly:
| Their plan | Their price | Discount they get | Credit you earn |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starter | $79/yr | 50% off ($39.50) | $39.50 |
| Growth | $149/yr | 50% off ($74.50) | $74.50 |
| Pro | $249/yr | 50% off ($124.50) | $124.50 |
| Multi-Show | $349/yr | 50% off ($174.50) | $174.50 |
| Studio | $1,199/yr | 50% off ($599.50) | $599.50 |
Launch is free, so there’s nothing to discount there — referring someone to Launch earns you credit only once they later upgrade to a paid plan.
How a Referral Gets Credited to You
When someone clicks your referral link, we remember it for 30 days — but only if they agree to it. The link takes them to a short consent step; once they accept, your code is remembered in a cookie on their browser for those 30 days, whether they sign up right away or come back next week. Declining that step doesn’t lose them the discount — your code is still in the link itself, and they (or you) can type it into the Referral code field at checkout any time.
A typed code always wins over a remembered one, so there’s no harm in sharing your link a second time or having a friend enter it manually if they’re not sure it “stuck.”
Your Refer a Friend Page in WordPress
Your referral link and code live on the Refer a Friend page in the Benecaster menu (the gift icon), not on Settings → Account.
Your credit balance. The Referral credit row is always up to date. Benecaster checks your balance with benecaster.com each time you open the page, and reuses the answer for up to five minutes if you reload. It reads one of three ways:
- “$X on your Benecaster account”: your balance. It is one balance across all the sites you run, not a figure for this site alone.
- “None on your account yet.”: you have no credit right now.
- “Checking your balance…”: the check is still running.
If Benecaster can’t reach benecaster.com, the row shows no amount at all, only See your current balance on benecaster.com →, which opens your account page. It never falls back to an older figure, because an old balance is worse than none. Your link and the sign-up count refresh at the same moment.
Sign-ups. Under your link and code, the page tells you how many people have signed up using your link, for example “3 people have signed up using your link.” (“1 person has signed up using your link.” for one, and “0 people have signed up…” if nobody has yet). Next to it, See your referrals → opens the referral section of your benecaster.com account page, where each sign-up is listed. WordPress shows only the count; the details stay on benecaster.com. The line stays hidden until Benecaster has received the figure from benecaster.com.
Referral emails. The page has a checkbox, Email me when referral credits are earned or applied. It is on by default. It controls the emails Benecaster sends you when a referral earns you credit and when credit comes off one of your bills. Turning it off stops only those emails: your billing, renewal and license-status emails carry on as before.
- The change saves the moment you tick or untick the box. There is no confirmation to click.
- The box stays hidden until Benecaster has heard your setting from benecaster.com, so it never shows a choice that isn’t in effect.
- If benecaster.com can’t be reached, or your site has no connected show, the box stays as it was and tells you why, so try again in a moment.
- Your choice survives a lapsed license and reconnecting a show.
It is the same setting as the Stop referral emails link at the bottom of those emails. See Email Unsubscribe if you used that link and want the emails back.
Share Your Link on Your Own Site
Your referral link only earns credit if people see it. Benecaster gives you a shortcode that prints it anywhere on your site, so you can put it once in a footer and have it on every page.
By default it shows a link that reads Powered by Benecaster and points at your own referral link. Paste it into a page, a text or shortcode block, a widget, or your theme’s footer.
| Option | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
label |
Changes the link text. |
|
style="url" |
Prints the bare web address instead of a link, for use inside your own markup. |
|
Things to know:
- It never shows your credit balance, in any form. It only ever prints your link.
- It prints nothing when there is no link to show: your license isn’t active, or your link hasn’t arrived from benecaster.com yet. You won’t see an empty placeholder.
- The link is marked
rel="sponsored", which is how search engines ask for referral links to be flagged. - If you are comfortable with a little PHP, Put a Powered by Benecaster referral link in your theme’s footer shows how to add it to every page at once and restyle it.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Does the Credit Work?
When someone you referred becomes a paying member, we add a credit to your Benecaster account equal to 50% of their plan’s list price — minimum $10. That credit pays out gradually against your plan renewals — up to half of each renewal charge until it’s used up. If your credit is larger than half of one renewal, the rest carries forward automatically. You don’t need to do anything.
Credit applies to your core plan renewal only — not add-on renewals, one-time purchases, or Setup Service fees.
For example: you’re on Pro ($25/month). A friend you referred signs up for Pro. You earn $12.50 in credit — the full amount comes off your next renewal. Refer a Studio customer ($149/month) and you’d earn $74.50, which would reduce your Pro bill by up to $12.50 each month for about six months.
When Will I See My First Credit Applied?
On your next renewal after your referral becomes a paying member. We email you as soon as they sign up on a paid plan, so you know it is coming before you see it.
It is credit against your renewals, not a cash payout. Nothing is transferred to a bank account. The credit reduces what we charge you at renewal, which means you see it as a smaller invoice rather than as money arriving.
A large credit may take more than one cycle to use up. Referral credit applies at up to 50% of any single renewal, and whatever is left carries forward to the next one. So a $10 credit on a $9/month plan comes off as $4.50, then $4.50, then the last $1 — three renewals, not one. Credit does not expire while your subscription stays active.
Where Can I See My Referral Credit Balance?
Three places: your Benecaster account at benecaster.com/my-account/ under the Referral Program section; the Refer a Friend page in your plugin admin (the Gift icon in the top-level navigation, just after Memberships); and the plugin admin under Settings → Account. All three show the current balance along with the date your next renewal credit will be applied — even if the balance is $0.
You may see two credit figures rather than one. Referral credit is what you’ve earned by referring other podcasters. Refund credit is your own prepaid money returned to you — for example when a plan change starts covering something you were paying for separately. They’re shown separately because they behave differently: referral credit only applies to plan renewals and is capped at 50% of any one renewal, while refund credit has no restrictions.
Referral credit is always spent first, and that’s deliberately in your favor — see Does my credit expire?.
How Do I Get My Referral Code and Link?
Your referral code and link are in two places: your Benecaster account at benecaster.com/my-account/ under the Referral Program section, and in the Benecaster plugin admin under the Refer a Friend page (look for it in the top-level navigation). Copy the full link or just the raw code — either works.
What Can I Do with My Referral Code?
Share it however makes sense:
- Direct link — share your referral link and your friend goes straight to checkout with the discount pre-applied
- Newsletter or show notes — drop the link in your email list or episode description to reach your whole audience
- Direct message — send it to a specific podcaster you think would be a good fit
How Do I Send My Friend Directly to Checkout with the Discount Applied?
Your referral link does this automatically. When someone clicks benecaster.com/ref/[your-code], they’re taken to the checkout page with your referral code already entered. They choose their plan there, and the discount applies automatically when they complete their purchase. Nothing extra to set up.
What If My Friend Signs up for the Free Tier First?
No problem. Your referral is tracked when they create their account — as long as they enter your code during signup, it’s recorded and stays on their account indefinitely. When they upgrade to a paid plan — even a year later — your credit fires then.
Their discount isn’t lost either. When somebody signs up free with your code and upgrades later, Benecaster applies the 50% first-month discount to the plan they upgrade to, at the moment the paid subscription is created — the same discount they’d have received had they gone straight to a paid plan on day one. There’s nothing for either of you to re-enter.
Can I Refer More Than One Person?
Yes. There’s no cap on referrals. Every person who becomes a paying member earns you a separate credit, and they stack. Credits apply at up to 50% of your renewal charge per cycle — so you always pay at least half, but with enough referrals you can keep that half covered for a long stretch.
What Plan Does My Referral Need to Be on for Me to Earn Credit?
Any paid plan — Starter, Growth, Pro, Multi-Show, or Studio. Free-tier accounts don’t count until they upgrade.
The credit you earn is 50% of your referral’s plan price on their first invoice, with a $10 minimum. Their own referral discount doesn’t come out of your credit — a Pro monthly referral pays $12.50 at checkout after their 50% off, and you still earn the full $12.50 calculated against the $25 plan price.
Annual plans produce larger credits, because the base is the whole prepaid amount: a Pro annual referral ($249) earns you $124.50, versus $12.50 for a monthly Pro referral.
Add-ons bought in that same first checkout count toward the calculation — a referral buying Pro annual ($249) plus the Migration Wizard ($79) is a $328 purchase, earning you $164. Add-ons they buy later, in a separate checkout, don’t earn additional credit.
Does My Credit Expire?
As long as you have an active Benecaster subscription, your referral credit stays on your account until it’s fully used. If you cancel, any remaining referral balance is forfeited.
Will My Friend Know I Referred Them?
They’ll see the discount applied at checkout. We don’t send them any message naming who referred them.
You’ll receive an email when someone uses your code and becomes a paying customer — but we don’t share who it was. The notification tells you a referral converted and what credit you earned, nothing more.
Credit applies to any Benecaster bill — plan renewals and add-on invoices alike. A maximum of 50% of any single bill can be offset by referral credit; the remainder carries forward to future bills. You can refer people and earn credit on a free Launch account — the credit just waits until you upgrade to a paid plan before it can be applied. The referred person does need to reach a paid plan for the referral to convert and earn you credit. Self-referral is not permitted.
See Also
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