How much disk space does Benecaster need?

It depends primarily on whether you use the download proxy, but the core footprint is very small.

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.

Download proxy log — the one that grows:
If you enable the optional download proxy for episode analytics, 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, not gigabytes. At large scale (5,000+ active subscribers) it becomes worth monitoring.

When to set a retention window:
If you have abundant storage and want full analytics history, leave the retention at Forever (the default) — nothing is ever deleted. If you’re on shared hosting or have been running the proxy for years at scale, set a retention window (5 years, 2 years, 1 year, or custom) in Settings → Tools → Analytics Data. Once set, Benecaster enforces it automatically with a nightly cleanup job. The “Prune now” button handles on-demand cleanup at any time, 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 →.