How much disk space does Benecaster need?

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Two things determine Benecaster’s disk footprint: the feed request log and the optional download proxy. Both have configurable retention. The core tables and analytics snapshots are negligible.
Core tables — a few megabytes:
Subscriber tokens, availability rules, email queue, sync logs, and similar tables add up to a few megabytes even at the Pro tier with hundreds of subscribers.
Analytics data — negligible:
Benecaster records subscriber lifecycle events (subscribe, cancel, tier change) and nightly per-tier snapshots from day one. Even a busy show with 1,000 subscribers generates less than 5MB of analytics data over five years — this is not a disk space concern.
Feed request log — the primary storage factor:
Benecaster logs every feed poll by default to power the Analytics Dashboard and churn diagnostics. At roughly 250 bytes per row:

500 subscribers: ~6 MB/day → ~180 MB at the 30-day default retention
1,000 subscribers: ~12 MB/day → ~360 MB at 30 days
5,000 subscribers: ~60 MB/day — a built-in hard cap at 5 million rows (~1.25 GB) triggers an automatic trim and admin warning before the table grows unchecked

The 30-day default is the right balance for most shows. If you extend retention to a year or more, budget several hundred megabytes to over a gigabyte at Growth scale and above.
“Failed only” mode logs only failed polls — revoked, not-found, or expired tokens — and skips valid requests. Volume drops by 90–99% at the cost of feed analytics in the Analytics Dashboard. Configure in Settings → Tools → Feed Request Log.
Download proxy log — secondary storage factor:
If you enable the optional download proxy for episode download tracking, every download generates a log row. Actual growth depends on subscriber count, episode frequency, and download behavior:

100 subscribers, 2 downloads/week: ~200 rows/week → ~1–2MB per year
1,000 subscribers, 4 downloads/week: ~4,000 rows/week → ~20–30MB per year
5,000 subscribers, 4 downloads/week: ~1M rows/year → ~100–150MB per year

For most shows the download proxy log is measured in megabytes. At large scale it’s worth monitoring, but it’s typically smaller than the feed request log for the same subscriber base.
Retention settings:
Both logs have independent retention controls under Settings → Tools. The feed request log defaults to 30 days; the download proxy log defaults to Forever. Shortening either window triggers a nightly cleanup job automatically. The “Prune now” button handles on-demand cleanup with a row-count and disk-space preview before you confirm.
Backups:
Benecaster’s scoped backup files (migration backups and manual backups) are stored in your WordPress uploads folder. These are listed in the Tools screen with their file sizes, and you can delete them once you no longer need them. Backups are never deleted automatically — a gentle reminder appears 30 days after each migration backup in case you’ve forgotten one.
For a full guide to managing disk usage — retention settings, disabling the proxy, removing the GeoIP database, and more — see Reducing Disk Usage →.