Subscriber Dashboard

The subscriber list is at Benecaster → Subscribers. It shows every subscriber for the current show — their engagement status, tier, when they joined, and quick actions for common tasks.

The screen header contains three action buttons: Add subscriber manually (adds a single subscriber without a payment flow), Bulk enroll (person-with-plus icon, links to /subscribers/bulk-enroll), and Import CSV (opens the Migration Wizard). Bulk enroll lets you add a list of email addresses at once, either as active subscribers on a tier or as followers — see Bulk Subscriber Enrollment for details. Adding them as subscribers requires Built-in Membership to be active on this show; on any other membership plugin, or none, that option is greyed out with an explanatory note and only Followers is available.

The Subscriber List

Each row shows:

Engagement indicator — a color-coded dot showing how recently the subscriber polled their feed
Name and email — linked to their WordPress user record
Tier — their current subscription tier
Manual pill (when applicable) — a neutral-styled pill rendered directly below the tier badge for any subscriber added via “Add subscriber manually”; hover shows “Manual grant — no expiry” or “Manual grant — expires {date}”. The same source information appears in the subscriber detail slide-in panel.
Joined — when their first token was generated
Last active — when they last polled their feed
Actions menu — per-row quick actions (view details, reset token, change tier, revoke access)

Click any row to open the subscriber detail panel.

Engagement Indicators

The dot on each subscriber row shows their feed activity status at a glance:

Dot color	Meaning
Green — Active	Subscriber’s podcast app has polled the feed within the last 30 days
Amber — At risk	Subscriber hasn’t polled in 30–60 days — they may have stopped listening or changed apps
Red — Inactive	Subscriber has not polled in more than 60 days
Grey — Never set up	Token generated, and the subscriber’s app has never polled the feed — their setup was never completed

The thresholds (30 days → amber, 60 days → red) are configurable in Benecaster → Settings → Subscribers. The benecaster_subscriber_engagement_threshold filter lets add-ons set a per-show override.

“Never set up” is the segment worth acting on

These subscribers are paying you and receiving nothing — and unlike the at-risk and inactive segments, nothing has gone wrong with your show. They simply never added the feed URL to a podcast app, or could not work out how. That makes them the most recoverable group on this screen: a single message with their feed URL and app links converts a good share of them.

A subscriber only appears here after a grace window, not immediately. The default is 7 days from signup, so somebody who joined yesterday and hasn’t set up yet is not flagged — that would be noise rather than a signal. A daily background check moves them into the segment once the window passes.

The grace window is adjustable per show by a developer via the benecaster_subscriber_never_accessed_grace_days filter — useful if your audience signs up in bursts around a launch, or on annual plans where people take longer to get set up.

Filtering and Search

Search — the search bar filters by subscriber name or email address in real time.

Tier filter — shows only subscribers on a specific tier. Useful for checking engagement across a single tier.

Filter by type — All types, Subscribers, or Followers. Shown only when the show has at least one follower. It narrows which rows are listed — it never changes the X paying subscribers · Y followers counts above the list. Subscribers includes free-tier members, so it can list more people than the paying-subscriber count. Followers never appear as an option in the Tier filter.

Activity filter — shows only active, at-risk, inactive, or Never set up subscribers. Use the inactive filter to review subscribers who haven’t polled their feed in a while before reaching out, and Never set up to find the ones who never started.

The summary chip above the list matching this filter is also labelled Never set up, and counts the same strict, cron-flagged set.

Summary Counts Bar

Above the list, a counts bar shows the paying subscriber count and follower count for the current show:

X paying subscribers · Y followers

The follower count is omitted when zero. When shadow subscribers are also present (see below), the heading expands to include them:

X paying subscribers · Y followers + Z Patreon shadows = N total

Paying vs. followers: The “paying subscribers” figure is the number that drives plan threshold logic — the limit that determines whether your plan needs to be upgraded. Followers are informational only and do not count toward your plan limit. Manually added (comped) subscribers on a paid tier do count toward this figure — comped subscribers consume real plan capacity and can push a site over its plan cap just like any other paying subscriber. See Adding a Subscriber Manually below.

Rows in the list for follower tokens display a Follower (free) badge in the tier column instead of a bridge tier name. The REST API GET /shows/{id}/subscribers response reflects this split: the summary object carries separate paying and followers fields, and each subscriber item includes a token_type field ('subscriber' or 'follower').

Cancelled subscribers still polling. When non-zero, a line under the counts reads “{N} cancelled subscribers are still checking their feed (last 30 days)”, with a More in the Analytics Dashboard add-on link to Settings → Add-ons. It counts distinct cancelled subscribers of this show whose podcast app has polled the feed with their revoked token within the last 30 days, or the feed request log’s retention window if shorter — not followers, and not people who’ve resubscribed. On a standard site that means cancelled paid subscribers; if an add-on issues its own token type, its cancelled tokens are counted here too. Hidden entirely when the feed request log is switched off. This is a headline, not a filter — clicking it does not narrow the subscriber list. It tells you how many, not who; identifying individuals currently needs a database query, or the Analytics Dashboard add-on’s own breakdown by show and date. See What Happens When a Token Is Revoked for the full explanation of what these polls mean.

Cross-reference: Free Followers for what a follower is and what their feed carries.

Bulk Actions

Select subscribers with the checkbox on each row (or the header checkbox to select all visible rows). With at least one subscriber selected, the bulk action bar appears:

Reset tokens — generates new feed URLs for all selected subscribers. Their old URLs are immediately invalidated. A confirmation dialog offers Reset and send email, Reset only, or Cancel. Reset and send email emails each selected subscriber their new URL — but only while the current show’s Feed URL reset email is switched on (Show Settings → Subscription → Welcome and Feed URL Emails); with it off, a warning explains that none of them will be emailed, and the button stays clickable but emails nobody. Reset only never emails anyone or shows a URL. Afterwards, a result banner stays on screen until dismissed: “Reset N subscribers · emailed M”, plus how many still need their new URL from you. Switching shows in the show switcher clears the selection.

Change tier — moves all selected subscribers to a different tier. A confirmation dialog lets you choose the destination tier and opt to send a tier change notification email.

Revoke access — removes feed access for all selected subscribers. A confirmation dialog lets you opt to send each subscriber a notification. Their subscription in your membership plugin is not affected — only their Benecaster token is revoked.

The maximum per bulk operation is 200 subscribers. For larger operations, filter the list and run the operation in batches.

Adding a Subscriber Manually

Click Add subscriber manually in the screen header to open the Add subscriber modal. Use this when you want to grant access to a specific person outside your normal payment or migration flow — a guest, a comp subscriber, or a team member.

Fields:

Field	Required	Notes
Email	Yes	An existing WordPress account is used if one matches; otherwise a new account is created with the display name as the account name
Display name	No	Applied only when a new WordPress account is created; ignored for existing accounts
Tier	Yes	Select from active, paid tiers — free tiers are not available in this modal
Access expiry	No	If set, access is revoked automatically when the date and time passes. Leave blank for indefinite access.

On success the modal closes, the subscriber list refreshes, and a welcome email is dispatched to the subscriber with their private feed URL.

A “set your password” email is sent too — but only for a brand-new account. Nobody asked this person for a password, so the account you just made for them has one they have never seen. Their feed works, because the token in the feed URL is the credential, but without this email they cannot log in to reach the account page or the billing portal.

Comping somebody who already has a login on your site sends no password email at all. They get the welcome email and nothing else. That is correct, not a failure: they already have a way in, and mailing them a password-reset link they did not ask for would be confusing.

A developer can switch the password email off with the benecaster_subscribe_send_password_email filter — it receives a $source of manual_add here, so it can be suppressed for hand-added subscribers while leaving bulk enrollment alone. If you suppress it, give those people another route in, or they end up with a working feed and no account access.

Manual grants and plan limits: Subscribers added through this modal are marked as manual grants and do count toward your plan’s paying-subscriber limit. A comped subscriber on a paid tier occupies the same capacity as a subscription-paying subscriber — they can push your site toward or over its plan cap and will be flagged over-limit if the cap is reached. Plan carefully if you’re close to your limit.

The Manual pill: Every subscriber row added via this modal displays a neutral-styled Manual pill directly below the tier badge. Hovering the pill shows the expiry state — either “Manual grant — no expiry” or “Manual grant — expires {date}”. The same information appears as a “Source: Manual grant” row in the subscriber detail slide-in panel.

Automatic expiry: If you set an access expiry date, the subscriber’s token is automatically revoked when that date and time passes. The revocation is handled by the benecaster_manual_grant_expiry hourly WP-Cron task — on low-traffic sites, revocation may lag by up to an hour. The subscriber receives a “Your complimentary access has ended” email when their token is revoked. Their subscription record in your membership plugin is not affected — only their Benecaster feed access ends. See Cron isn’t firing on time → if expirations feel delayed.

Duplicate Subscriber Detector

When two or more WordPress user accounts share the same email address and both hold active tokens for the same show, a yellow panel appears above the subscriber list.

This happens when a subscriber re-registered with the same email — for example, if they forgot they had an account. They now have two tokens and may be confused about which feed URL to use.

The panel lists each duplicate group with two resolution options per token:

Merge — opens the subscriber detail panel for that token so you can review it before deciding which to keep.

Revoke duplicate — immediately revokes that token. The subscriber’s other token is unaffected. Use this once you’ve confirmed which token the subscriber is actively using.

Revoking does not cancel their subscription. As everywhere else in Benecaster, revoking a token ends feed access and nothing more — the duplicate account’s subscription in your membership plugin or payment processor carries on, and the subscriber keeps being charged for it. If the duplicate is a second paid subscription rather than a stray free signup, cancel it in the software that created it, and consider whether the subscriber is owed a refund for the overlap. Benecaster cannot see the charge and cannot cancel it for you.

The panel dismisses automatically when no duplicates remain.

Shadow Subscribers (Patreon Visibility)

If you’ve uploaded a Patreon patron export via Settings → Visibility, the heading expands to include shadows in the total: