Setting Up MemberPress with Benecaster

This is the full path from an empty WordPress site to a working private podcast with MemberPress handling payments — in the order that avoids rework.

MemberPress Setup is the reference for the bridge itself. This walkthrough covers everything around it, including the parts people commonly do out of order.

How the Two Plugins Divide the Work

Worth being clear about before you start, because it explains every step below:

• MemberPress owns payments, membership levels, and who is currently a paying member
• Benecaster owns episodes, feeds, and who can access which episodes

Benecaster reads membership state from MemberPress. It never writes to it. Nothing about your MemberPress configuration, billing, or member records changes when you connect the bridge.

What You Need First

• WordPress with PHP 8.2+ and a working SMTP setup
• MemberPress installed, activated, and licensed
• A Benecaster paid license — the bridge system needs one, so the free tier won’t do
• Somewhere your audio is already hosted

Sort SMTP before anything else. Feed URLs reach subscribers by email, so a site that can’t send mail is a site where nobody gets access. See SMTP Setup.

Step 1: Create MemberPress Memberships First

Build your membership levels in MemberPress before touching Benecaster. The bridge maps against levels that already exist, so doing this first means mapping once instead of twice.

For each level, set the name, price, and billing interval. If you’re planning early access, create both the paid level and a free one — the free tier is your conversion path, not a giveaway.

Don’t configure MemberPress content protection rules for episodes. This is the most common wasted effort. Benecaster controls episode access through feed tokens, not through MemberPress rules. Let MemberPress handle payment and membership status; let Benecaster handle who hears what.

Step 2: Run the Benecaster Setup Wizard

Install Benecaster and run the wizard. It creates your first show, sets identity fields, and creates the subscriber account page.

If you have existing episodes in another podcast plugin or as posts, the wizard’s import step converts them. See Setup Wizard.

Step 3: Connect the Bridge

Benecaster → Settings → Subscription. MemberPress appears automatically when it’s active. Select it and click Connect.

You should get a green status indicator and a count of detected levels. If MemberPress isn’t listed, see Subscription Plugin Not Connecting.

Step 4: Map Levels to Tiers

Benecaster → Settings → Subscription → Tier Mapping. Every MemberPress level gets a Benecaster tier.

Map every level you intend to grant access. An unmapped level produces an empty feed — the member pays, gets a feed URL, and receives nothing. It’s a silent failure, and it’s the single most common setup fault, so check the list twice.

Step 5: Set Availability

Configure how soon each tier hears new episodes. For early access, paid tiers get zero delay and free tiers get a stagger. See Setting Up Early Access Tiers.

Step 6: Test With a Real Purchase

Do not skip this, and do not test only with an admin account — admins often have access that ordinary members don’t, which hides exactly the faults you’re testing for.

1. Use MemberPress test mode, or buy your own cheapest level with a real card and refund it
2. Sign up as a genuinely new user
3. Confirm the welcome email arrives with a feed URL
4. Paste that URL into a real podcast app
5. Confirm you see the episodes that tier should see — and not the ones it shouldn’t
6. Cancel the membership and confirm access ends as intended

That sequence exercises the whole chain: payment, bridge, token, email, feed, and revocation. If all six pass, your setup works.

Step 7: Go Live

Publish your signup page, put the account page URL somewhere subscribers can find it, and announce.

Tell subscribers where their feed URL lives — on the account page, permanently — before they need it. It heads off the most common support question you’ll get.

Common Mistakes

Building MemberPress content rules for episodes. Unnecessary and confusing later. Benecaster handles episode access.

Leaving a level unmapped. Paying members get empty feeds and no error is raised.

Testing only as admin. Hides the exact permission problems you’re testing for.

No SMTP. Everything looks configured and nobody receives a feed URL.

Changing feed slugs after launch. Slugs appear in every subscriber’s URL. Changing one breaks every existing subscriber for that show.