What is a follower versus a free member?

They look similar from a listener’s perspective — both get your public RSS feed and can receive your broadcast emails — but they come from different infrastructure and require different things from you.

A follower signs up through the [benecaster_follower_signup] shortcode with just an email address. No membership plugin required. No payment of any kind. No Benecaster account required on your end. This shortcode works on a plain WordPress.org install with no license at all.

Use follower signup when you want the lowest possible friction for listeners to join your list — before you’ve set up subscription infrastructure, or alongside a paid tier as a “stay in touch” option that doesn’t require anyone to create a membership account.

A free member is someone who joins through your membership plugin at a free tier — a level you’ve configured with no payment required. Free members require a supported membership plugin (MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, or Restrict Content Pro) and an active Benecaster license. Unlike followers, free members can be given access to a custom subscriber feed with specific episode visibility rules — content gated separately from your public feed.

Use free membership tiers when you want to offer structured gated content at no cost alongside your paid tiers, and you already have membership infrastructure in place.

Both followers and free-tier members count toward your plan’s total token cap but not toward your paying subscriber limit. See Do followers count against my token cap? →