Setup Wizard Walkthrough

The Setup Wizard runs automatically after you install Benecaster. It walks you through configuring your show and connecting your membership plugin before you publish your first subscriber feed. The whole process takes about ten minutes.

If you close the wizard early, it saves your progress. A “Benecaster setup is paused. Resume setup” notice appears at the top of every Benecaster admin page until you complete or skip the remaining steps. The Resume link is bold and underlined so it reads clearly as a link in any admin theme.

Step 1 — Show Name

Name your podcast. This is the public-facing display name that appears in podcast apps and on your site.

Step 2 — Artwork

Upload your show’s cover art. Podcast apps require a square image — 3000 × 3000 px at 72 dpi is the standard. The wizard accepts JPEG or PNG and crops to square if needed.

Step 3 — Description

Describe your show. The Description step collects two fields:

Short description — a one-line tagline, recommended under 500 characters. This is what appears in podcast app search results and directory listings.

Full description — up to 4000 characters. This is the full description shown on your show’s directory listing page and in your RSS feed’s <itunes:summary> tag.

Both are saved to your show record when you click Continue.

Step 4 — Category

Choose the primary category and subcategory for your show. These map to the Apple Podcasts and Spotify category taxonomy and appear in your RSS feed’s <itunes:category> tag.

The dropdowns use standard OS-native select elements with explicit text styling — the selected option always reads correctly regardless of browser or OS.

Step 5 — Show Details

A few more fields that appear in podcast app listings and your RSS feed:

Field	Notes
Author name	Pre-filled from your WordPress display name
Author email	Pre-filled from your WordPress user email
Show type	Episodic (standalone episodes) or Serial (binge-ordered)
Explicit content	Yes or No

Step 6 — Subscribers

This step determines whether your show will have paying subscribers.

“Yes — I want paying subscribers”

This option shows the Connect to Benecaster button. Clicking it starts the OAuth connection flow:

The wizard calls the plugin’s license start endpoint and receives a redirect URL.
Your browser is taken to benecaster.com/connect, where you log in to (or create) your Benecaster account and authorize the connection.
Benecaster.com redirects back to your WordPress admin, stores the per-show token automatically, and completes the wizard end-to-end — the remaining steps (subscription plugin, tier mapping, limits, SSP import, language, permalink settings) are marked complete and you land on the wizard’s Done screen.

After Connect: The wizard is fully complete. No “Resume setup” notice appears. You can configure the optional areas (subscription plugin, tier mapping, and so on) at any time from their respective settings pages — Benecaster → Settings → Subscription for the bridge and tier mapping, Benecaster → Settings for everything else.

The Subscribers step is marked complete automatically when the OAuth callback succeeds — you don’t need to click Continue.

If you don’t have a Benecaster account yet, the benecaster.com authorize screen includes a sign-up link. The Launch plan is free and allows up to 10 paying subscribers.

If the Connect button is disabled with a “Finish creating your show first” message, you’ll need to complete Step 1 (Show name) before continuing.

See Connecting Your Site for troubleshooting the OAuth flow, including what to do if you see a “site URL mismatch” or “access denied” error.

“Not right now — public podcast only”

Choose this if you publish a free, public show with no subscriber gating. Benecaster saves your preference and skips the subscription plugin, tier mapping, and limit enforcement steps for the rest of the wizard. Your show gets a public RSS feed URL instead of a subscriber-specific one.

You can always add paying subscribers later from Settings → Account — this choice is not permanent.

Step 7 — Migration

If you are moving from Patreon, Supercast, or another platform, this step is where you connect your existing subscriber list so Benecaster can import it. If you are starting fresh, click Skip.

See Migration Overview for full instructions on migrating existing subscribers.

Step 8 — Subscription Plugin

Shown only when a license is active (you chose “Yes — I want paying subscribers” in Step 6).

Pick the membership plugin you use to manage subscriptions: MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Restrict Content Pro, or Paid Memberships Pro. Benecaster’s bridge connects automatically once you select one.

If you haven’t installed a membership plugin yet, this step shows installation guidance. You can also skip and connect a plugin later from Benecaster → Settings → General.

Step 9 — Tier Mapping

Shown only when a license is active.

Map the membership levels from your subscription plugin to Benecaster’s internal tiers. This is how Benecaster knows which feed each subscriber should receive.

See Mapping Your Membership Tiers for a full explanation of how tier mapping works.

Step 10 — Limits

Shown only when a license is active.

Configure what happens when your show reaches its plan limits.

For Starter, Growth, Pro, Multi-Show, and Studio plans:

Subscriber limit — “Upgrade my plan automatically” (Benecaster upgrades via Stripe when a subscriber would exceed your plan’s cap) or “I’ll upgrade when I’m ready” (Benecaster caps at the limit).
Token limit — “Upgrade my plan automatically (recommended)” or “I’ll upgrade when I’m ready.”

The default for tokens is now auto-upgrade. For subscribers, the options are equal — pick based on whether you want automatic upsizing or prefer to control plan costs manually.

For Launch plan users:

The Launch plan is the only Benecaster plan without a card on file. You see an informational paragraph rather than the auto-upgrade fieldset: Launch allows up to 10 subscribers, and moving up to Starter (or any paid plan) requires entering a credit card during checkout. Once a card is on file, future automatic upgrades charge it directly.

Your preference for the eventual paid plan is still recorded in this step, so the token enforcement setting carries over when you upgrade.

Step 11 — SSP Import

If you have existing episodes in Seriously Simple Podcasting or PowerPress, this step lets you import them into Benecaster. See Importing Episodes and Switching from SSP or PowerPress for details.

Step 12 — Import Episodes

Import episode data from your podcast host. The wizard fetches your public RSS feed and maps each episode to a Benecaster episode record.

Step 13 — Language

Set the primary language of your show. This appears in your RSS feed’s <language> tag and is used by podcast apps to categorize your show by region.

Step 14 — Permalink Settings

Choose how your episode URLs are structured. This step is optional — clicking Skip saves the defaults.

URL mode — Single show (default) or Multiple shows. See Permalink Settings for how each mode affects your URLs.

Episode prefix — the word before your episode slug in the URL. Default: episode. Leave blank to place episodes directly at the root: yoursite.com/episode-title.

Show prefix — visible in multiple-shows mode only. Default: show.

A live URL preview updates as you type. Both Continue and Skip call the same validation and save logic, so the defaults are always written — your feed is never left with an uninitialized permalink state.

If either prefix field contains a reserved word, matches an existing WordPress page slug, or (for the show prefix) matches a show’s feed slug, the step shows an inline error and stays open until you change the value.

Step 15 — All Set

The wizard completes automatically when this step renders — you don’t need to click any specific button. The paused-wizard notice clears on your next page load.

What you see depends on your membership mode:

Licensed (paying subscribers enabled):

Your subscriber feed URL (copy to share with subscribers)
A link to your subscriber account page
“Take a quick tour” — launches the Benecaster Overview tour immediately after redirecting into the admin
“Add your first episode”
“Go to dashboard”
Links back to any steps you skipped so you can complete them now

Public podcast only:

Your public RSS feed URL (labelled “Here’s your public RSS feed URL”)
A link to submit your show to Apple Podcasts and Spotify
A note: “You can add paying subscribers any time from Settings → Account. No rush.”
“Take a quick tour”
“Go to dashboard”

The “Take a quick tour” link on the Done step actually launches the tour — clicking it redirects into the Benecaster admin and immediately starts the Benecaster Overview tour.

Exiting and Resuming

Clicking the × (Exit) in the top-right corner of the wizard saves your progress and returns you to the WordPress dashboard. This is a pause, not a cancellation — your answers on completed steps are kept.

A notice appears on every Benecaster admin page while setup is paused:

Benecaster setup is paused. [Resume setup]

Clicking Resume takes you back to the wizard at the first incomplete step.