Migration FAQ

Yes. The Migration Wizard imports your Patreon patron CSV, maps your tier names to Benecaster subscription levels, creates WordPress user accounts, generates private feed URLs, and sends your patrons a configurable migration email sequence. A grace period (30, 60, or 90 days) keeps their access intact while they complete payment setup on your site — no one loses their feed during the transition.

The wizard includes a migration dashboard showing the full funnel: imported → emailed → clicked → subscribed → dropped off. You can resend to non-completers at any time.

Migration Wizard is included free with Growth, Pro, Multi-Show, and Studio. For Starter, it’s available as a one-time add-on purchase ($79).

You do — and Benecaster never has access to it. Every subscriber token, email address, feed access log, and billing relationship lives in your WordPress database on your server. It never leaves. Benecaster’s license server handles activation and license validation; it has no connection to your subscriber data and no way to reach it.

Export it anytime. Migrate to a different membership plugin, move hosts, shut down your Patreon — your subscriber list goes with you and no one else has a copy of it.

No. Migration is an option, not a requirement.

You can start Benecaster for new subscribers today while your Patreon keeps running exactly as it is. Existing patrons aren’t asked to do anything. Their access is uninterrupted. Your Patreon revenue doesn’t move.

The reason most podcasters hesitate on migration isn’t the technical steps — it’s income risk. Ask 200 subscribers to switch platforms and some percentage won’t get around to it. Not because they’ve stopped valuing your show, but because people don’t always complete tasks that require effort, even easy ones. A well-run migration with a good email sequence and a 90-day grace period will still see some attrition. That attrition is real money, and the fear of it is a reasonable reason to pause.

Running both removes that risk entirely. Your Patreon revenue is untouched. New subscribers come in on Benecaster from day one. When your Benecaster base has grown enough that migration feels low-stakes rather than bet-the-income — you can move your Patreon patrons then, on your timeline. Or let the Patreon side wind down naturally as subscribers lapse and don’t renew there. Or keep running both indefinitely. Benecaster works either way.

To see your full picture while running both: export your Patreon patron list and upload it at Benecaster → Settings → Visibility. Your subscriber dashboard shows Patreon patrons alongside your Benecaster subscribers — separate counts, combined total. Re-upload any time you want a current snapshot.

Analytics while running both: Uploading your Patreon patron list is a manual step and gives you headcount visibility, not the full analytics picture. Benecaster’s Analytics Dashboard tracks growth trends, churn, tier movement, episode downloads, and cohort retention — but only for subscribers in Benecaster. Your Patreon patrons’ data lives in Patreon’s dashboard, not yours. As long as you’re running both, you’re reading two separate dashboards to understand one audience. The cleanest analytics picture — a single place to see all subscriber growth, engagement, and revenue trends — comes from having everyone in Benecaster.

Your Patreon patrons don’t count toward your Benecaster plan. You’re billed on your Benecaster subscribers only, so the Launch plan ($0, up to 10 paying subscribers) stays free until the Benecaster side of your audience crosses that threshold on its own.

Move your audio files to a podcast hosting provider first. Benecaster doesn’t host audio — it generates RSS feeds that point at audio URLs on your existing host. If your audio lives on Patreon’s servers, your feed will break the moment your Patreon account is closed.

The Migration Wizard includes a pre-migration checklist step that surfaces this requirement before subscriber import begins. Recommended hosts for podcasters moving from Patreon: Buzzsprout, Transistor, Libsyn, Captivate, or S3. Most offer import tools to bring episodes over from another host.

The technical steps — importing the CSV, creating accounts, generating feeds, sending the first migration email — take minutes. The migration completes over the grace period you choose (30, 60, or 90 days), as patrons receive their email, click through, and set up payment on your site.

Plan for a 4–6 week active migration window for most shows. The Migration Wizard tracks completion in real time so you know exactly where everyone is.

No — with a few exceptions worth knowing about.

Benecaster gates the RSS feed, not the audio. Your audio files stay wherever they are. Benecaster generates an RSS feed pointing directly at your existing hosted audio URLs. No migration, no bandwidth cost to your WordPress server.

Platforms you’ll need to move off:

Spotify. Spotify creates two separate problems for private podcast setups:

• Spotify for Podcasters as your audio host — If your audio is currently hosted through Spotify for Podcasters (formerly Anchor), moving to a private subscriber model requires switching audio hosts first. Spotify for Podcasters bundles hosting and distribution in a closed platform; the audio URLs it generates aren’t designed to be used independently in another feed.

• Spotify as a distribution platform — Spotify only accepts open, public RSS feeds. Private subscriber feeds — Benecaster’s or anyone else’s — can’t be submitted to Spotify. Your public free episodes can still be listed on Spotify; your private subscriber content can’t. This is a Spotify platform decision, not a Benecaster limitation, but it’s worth knowing before you commit to a subscriber model.

Patreon. If your audio is currently hosted through Patreon, you’ll need to move it to a standard podcast host before switching to Benecaster. Patreon bundles audio hosting with its membership platform — the audio URLs it generates aren’t portable to an independent feed. Any major podcast host (Buzzsprout, Libsyn, Transistor, Captivate, Podbean, S3, etc.) works as a replacement.

A platform that works, but ties you to the subscription:

Castos. Castos-hosted audio sits at ordinary URLs, so a Benecaster feed can point straight at them and everything works normally — no migration needed to get started. The catch is that those URLs stop resolving when your Castos account closes. So you can run Benecaster alongside Castos indefinitely, but you can’t cancel Castos and keep the audio. If your goal is to leave Castos entirely, move your audio files to a host you control first and update the audio URLs on your episodes before you cancel. If you’re keeping Castos for hosting and only using Benecaster for private subscriber feeds, nothing needs to move at all.

Every other major podcast host works without changes.

Yes. The Migration Wizard accepts Supercast CSV exports and auto-detects the format from the column structure. Upload your Supercast subscriber export, map your plan names to Benecaster subscription tiers, set a grace period, and the wizard creates private feed URLs and sends your subscribers a migration email sequence.

See the full migration walkthrough →

If you’re migrating from Patreon: your subscribers currently have Patreon-issued feed URLs. Those will stop working when your Patreon account closes regardless — there’s no continuity possible since Patreon controls those URLs. The Migration Wizard generates new Benecaster feed URLs and sends them to your patrons. The grace period gives patrons time to add the new URL before their old one stops working.

If you’re migrating from Supercast: standard Supercast feeds are on Supercast’s domain, so the same situation applies — your subscribers will receive new Benecaster feed URLs via the migration email sequence and will need to swap the URL in their podcast app. The one exception is if you were serving your Supercast feed through your own custom domain. In that case, you can repoint your DNS to Benecaster and your subscribers’ existing feed URLs will keep working with no action required on their end.

The Setup Service is a personal, hands-on service where we configure everything on your WordPress installation — plugin install, membership plugin bridge, feed setup, email templates, subscriber account page. For migrations, it includes the full Patreon or Supercast CSV import, subscriber notification sequence, and post-migration monitoring.

Studio customers receive a Setup Service discount. See the Setup Service page → for tiers and pricing.

The Migration Wizard accepts CSV files (.csv). Excel files (.xlsx, .xls) are not supported — if your subscriber list is in a spreadsheet, you’ll need to export or save it as a CSV first. Most spreadsheet apps make this a one-step export. See how to export a spreadsheet to CSV →

For known platforms, the wizard auto-detects the source from the CSV column structure and pre-fills the field mappings — no manual setup required. Supported platforms at launch: Patreon, Supercast, Hello Audio, Memberful, Castos.

For any other CSV format — or a custom subscriber spreadsheet — the visual field mapper lets you assign columns manually. As long as your file has an email address column, the import will work.

Growth, Pro, Multi-Show, and Studio all include Migration Wizard at no extra cost. For Starter, it’s available as a one-time add-on purchase ($79). Migration Wizard is a one-time-use tool — you pay once for the migration event, not annually.