Show Settings Reference

Each show has its own settings. Go to Benecaster → Shows and click Settings on the show’s card. The screen is headed with the show’s title and ID; a left navigation lists the sections, and the right area shows the section you pick.

Settings apply to that show only. If you run multiple shows, each has its own configuration. Site-wide settings — your account, add-ons, permalinks, email sending and tools — are under Benecaster → Settings instead.

Settings Sections

The left navigation contains the following sections, in this order:

Add-ons can add their own sections after these. The Migration Wizard adds Migration, shown only on shows the add-on is switched on for: it moves the show’s supporters from Patreon, Supercast or any CSV export, and once the show has run an import it opens on the migration dashboard, with the wizard behind Start another import.

Nothing saves automatically. Most sections have one Save button; a few blocks within a section have their own (the Details tab’s Social Links and Platform Links, and each part of the Subscription tab), and the button saves only its own block. Tier mapping, reference groups and episode types are the exceptions — each change saves as you make it.

Show settings are defaults, not rules. Any episode can override its show’s default from the episode editor, and doing so changes only that episode. What happens when you later change the show setting depends on the setting:

• Explicit rating, author and artwork follow the show until an episode sets its own. An episode left on the show’s value picks up your change immediately. An episode where you chose a value keeps it, whatever you do here.
• Default buy-ups are applied once, when you create the episode. Changing them affects new episodes only and never rewrites existing ones.
• The default credit is offered, not applied. A new episode’s Credits section has the default pre-selected; it goes onto the episode when you click Apply. Changing the default never rewrites credits already stamped.

Set what is true most of the time at the show level, and treat the exceptions as exceptions. That is the fastest way to publish, and it means a change of mind at the show level carries forward to every episode you have not deliberately overridden.

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Details

Subtitle, Author Name, Author Email, Short Description, Artwork URL, Feed Slug and Copyright can be cleared: empty the field, click Save, and the blank is saved (a blank Feed Slug goes back to the default). For Category or Subcategory, choose — None —.

Show

Short description and RSS: Podcast directories display the channel <description> in search results and directory listings — keep it concise and representative. If you leave it blank, listeners will see a stripped version of your full description instead, which may be cut off at an awkward point.

Author

Technical

The feed slug is part of your public feed URL. Changing it after you’ve submitted the feed to Apple Podcasts, Spotify or any other directory breaks that submission — the old address stops working. Subscribers’ private feed links keep working after a change. Set the slug before you submit the feed anywhere.

iTunes Settings

Episodic vs. Serial: Most podcasts are Episodic — each episode stands alone and the most recent appears first. Serial is for story-based podcasts where listening order matters; some podcast apps present Serial shows differently, encouraging listeners to start from episode 1.

This is a single setting for the whole show — RSS has no way to mark individual episodes as serial. If your show is episodic but some topics run across several episodes, leave it on Episodic and group the arc with Seasons or episode numbering instead. Switching the whole show to Serial for the sake of a few multi-part topics changes how apps present your entire back catalogue, which is rarely what you want.

Advanced

Default availability sets when each tier gets a new episode, counted from its release. Every tier the show has is listed — on a show using built-in membership, its tiers in Memberships → Tiers order, with a retired tier marked (inactive), since its members still get what is scheduled for it; on a show using a membership plugin, the tiers from its tier mapping. For each tier:

• Ticked — the tier gets the episode a set number of days after release (0 means on release day; up to 365).
• Unticked — Never: the defaults give that tier no date.

A new episode follows these defaults until you set its own dates on its Access tab. While it follows them, its tier dates are worked out again from its web publish date every time you save it, so moving the publish date moves the unlocks with it. Changing the defaults here does not touch episodes that have their own dates. See Tier Availability.

Default Release Time is the time of day those unlocks happen: “Episodes following the default availability unlock at this time on their release day. Leave blank to use each episode’s own publish time.” Clear the field and save to go back to each episode’s publish time.

The Show Flags group:

Feed Cache

Benecaster caches each compiled feed. Clear cache for this show rebuilds this show’s feeds on their next request; Clear all show caches does the same for every show on the site. Both ask you to confirm. You rarely need either — feeds rebuild by themselves when you save an episode or a setting.

Reference Groups

Reference groups are headings that organize links and resources in the References section of episode pages. Define groups here, then assign references to them from the episode editor.

The groups list shows all defined group names for this show in their current order. Drag rows to reorder — the display order here is the display order on episode pages.

To add a group, click Add group, type the name, and press Enter or click Add. To rename a group, click its name, edit it, and press Enter. To delete one, click its trash icon — it is removed straight away, without a confirmation.

Groups can also be added inline without leaving the episode editor — choosing + Add new group… from a reference card’s Group dropdown creates the group immediately and selects it for that card.

Episode Types

Episode types label your episodes for podcast apps. Benecaster provisions four default types when a show is created:

Each row shows the type’s label, its slug (a short identifier, set when the type is created and never changed), and its iTunes mapping.

Adding a type: Click Add type, enter a label, and choose the iTunes mapping — Full Episode, Trailer or Bonus. The slug is generated from the label.

Editing a type: Click Edit on any row to change the label or iTunes mapping. The slug is read-only.

Deleting a type: Click the type’s trash icon. The dialog shows how many episodes use the type and asks you to choose a type to Reassign episodes to; Delete type moves those episodes and removes the type in one step. You always choose a replacement, even when no episodes use the type. The last remaining type cannot be deleted.

Social Links and Platform Links

Social Links are your show’s profiles on social platforms; Platform Links are the “Listen on” addresses for podcast apps such as Apple Podcasts and Spotify, which also appear as directory links on the Feeds tab. Both offer a list of known platforms plus custom ones, and each has its own save button — Save Social Links and Save Platform Links — separate from the rest of the tab.

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Subscription

The Subscription tab is where you connect the show to Benecaster, choose the membership plugin that handles billing, and map its levels to Benecaster tiers. From top to bottom it holds: License, Subscription Plugin, Tier Mapping, Signup pages, Welcome and Feed URL Emails, Subscriber Engagement, Subscriber Billing Emails, Buy-up Defaults, Supporter Wall, and — for built-in membership — Promote to a membership plugin and Promotion History. Each part saves on its own.

License

The top of the tab shows whether this show is connected to your Benecaster account. A show that is not connected offers Connect this show to Benecaster (or Reconnect this show). A free show needs no connection. On a site with no license, its note reads “This show is free — no license is needed. To charge for it, choose a subscription plugin under Subscription Plugin on this tab.”

A connected show offers Deactivate this show’s license, which severs the link between this show and your Benecaster account. Do not confuse it with Clear bridge selection below — clearing the bridge leaves subscribers listening; deactivating stops them.

Deactivating stops subscriber delivery for this show immediately. Their feed URLs return an error, and the audio stops downloading with them — including episodes already sitting in their podcast apps. There is no delay, no cron run and no grace window. Your public feed and your follower feeds keep working.

The confirmation prompt says so: “Deactivate this show? Subscriber feeds stop working until you reconnect.”

Nothing is deleted, and reconnecting restores delivery on the next request, on the same feed URLs. See Deactivating Your Site Connection.

Subscription Plugin

The plugin list always starts with Built-in membership, on every plan and whether or not Stripe or a tier is set up yet. Below it come the membership plugins that are installed and active on your site — not every plugin Benecaster supports. If MemberPress and WooCommerce Subscriptions are both active, both appear.

When Built-in membership is selected but not ready, a line beneath the list reads “Built-in membership is selected but not ready — nobody can subscribe until you finish:” with Add your Stripe keys and Create a membership tier links. Each link appears only while that step is outstanding, and the line goes away once both are done. See Built-in Membership.

When no plugin is selected yet, choosing one connects it immediately — there is no separate Save button for this step. When the show already has one, choosing a different plugin opens a wizard that walks you through the switch instead. See Switching Your Subscription Plugin.

To disconnect the active plugin, use the Clear bridge selection link below the list. Existing subscriber tokens are not revoked when you clear — subscribers retain feed access — but Benecaster stops receiving new subscription events from that plugin until a new one is selected.

Tier Mapping

Once a plugin is connected, Tier Mapping lists every subscription level (or plan, or product) from it and lets you assign each one to a Benecaster tier — Free, Paid, or a custom tier — or to No access. It has two views, switched beside the heading:

• Board view (the default) — a column per tier plus an Unmapped levels column; drag a level into the tier it belongs to.
• List view — one row per level, with a dropdown for its tier.

Each change saves as you make it. Levels Benecaster has not seen before carry a NEW badge.

Switched plugin: If your saved mappings were set up for a different plugin, an amber banner says so and names both. Map the levels below to update.

Deleted levels: If a level you had mapped has since been deleted from your membership plugin, a notice lists it. Its mapping is cleared on your next change.

See Mapping Your Membership Tiers for guidance on common tier configurations and troubleshooting.

Signup Pages

Shown below Tier Mapping when the show uses MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro or Restrict Content Pro — never on built-in membership. It sets where the Subscribe button from [benecaster_subscribe] sends a visitor for each membership level.

• One row per mapped level, labelled with the tier and the level — Supporter (Gold Monthly). Levels mapped to a public tier are not listed, and an unmapped level has no row: map it to a tier above to give it one.
• The suggested page appears greyed out in the field. It comes from your membership plugin’s settings, and it is used while the field is empty — the row says Using the suggested page. Open it to check it is the right signup form.
• To use a different page, type its address. To go back to the suggestion, clear the field.
• Only pages on this site can be used. An address on another domain — a subdomain included — shows Must be a page on {your domain} and disables Save signup pages until it is fixed.
• A level with no suggestion and nothing entered says no Subscribe button will show for it until you add a page.

Where each plugin’s suggestion comes from is on its setup page: MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, Restrict Content Pro.

Welcome and Feed URL Emails

Three switches control whether Benecaster’s own transactional emails send for this show — sent whichever membership plugin handles billing, and each on by default:

A yellow note appears above the Save welcome and feed URL emails button while Welcome or Feed URL reset email is off, naming which subscribers will not be emailed their feed URL (with the follower exemption called out).

Subscriber Engagement

Shown on every show, whichever membership plugin handles billing. Feed inactivity threshold (days) sets how long a subscriber’s or follower’s podcast app can go without checking the feed before they count as inactive: 1–365 days, default 30.

Ask new followers to confirm their email is off by default. When it’s on, a new follower is sent a confirmation email and only follows once they click it, which stops someone filling your list with other people’s addresses. Followers you add or import get the email too, so nobody on an imported list follows until they click. An email marketing add-on may need this on before followers who aren’t logged in can join your list, and each of them then has to click the button that says yes to it.

Click Save engagement settings to keep either one.

The same number sets the activity dots and counts on Benecaster → Subscribers: green up to the threshold, amber up to twice it, red beyond. Add-ons such as email marketing can act when a listener goes inactive, for example with a win-back email. See Subscriber Dashboard.

Subscriber Billing Emails

Shown only when this show uses Built-in membership — under MemberPress, WooCommerce Subscriptions, Paid Memberships Pro, Restrict Content Pro, or with no plugin selected, the section is hidden, since those plugins handle their own billing emails. It has six switches and a Days before renewal to send reminder field (1–30, default 7). See Built-in Membership Billing Emails for what each switch controls.

Buy-up Defaults

A checkbox list of the show’s active buy-ups. Check any you want new episodes on this show to unlock by default for subscribers already holding that buy-up — tick a few boxes once instead of setting the same buy-ups on every new episode you create.

This is create-time only: it seeds a new episode’s required buy-ups at the moment you create it. Changing the defaults here never rewrites episodes that already exist, and it is not a feed gate on its own — an episode still needs its own access rules for the buy-up requirement to actually apply.

Supporter Wall

Controls the public wall of subscribers who have opted in to appear on it.

Each supporter chooses the name shown on their own card from their account page. Save with Save Supporter Wall settings. See Supporter Wall for the full setup guide.

Promote to a Membership Plugin

Shown when the show uses Built-in membership. Start promote wizard moves your built-in members to a membership plugin, with a grace period while they switch. Promotion History lists past promotions. See Promote to Bridge.

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Visibility

The Visibility tab, headed Legacy Platform Subscribers, lets you upload your patron lists from Patreon or Supercast so your total audience appears alongside your Benecaster subscribers — without sending anyone anything or counting them against your Benecaster subscriber limit.

Each platform has its own panel. They work independently and can both be populated at the same time.

Why bother uploading at all? Because it turns “roughly how many patrons do I have” into a number on your Subscribers screen, next to your Benecaster subscribers, before you decide whether a migration is worth the work. Nothing is sent to anyone, nothing counts against your subscriber limit, and your patrons never know it happened.

Patreon Panel

Upload patron list — Export your patron list from Patreon’s creator dashboard as a CSV file, then upload it here. Benecaster reads the email column, ignores invalid addresses and duplicates, and creates a shadow record for each address. A file with no valid addresses is refused with a message asking for an “email” column header. Once uploaded, the button becomes Update patron list.

Enter count manually — If you can’t export a CSV (for example, if your Patreon tier is too low to access exports), enter your current patron count instead. This gives you a ballpark number without per-email records. Saving a count replaces any list you uploaded for that platform.

The panel shows what is recorded: the count, whether it came from a CSV or was entered manually, and the date. Uploading again replaces the previous list entirely — it doesn’t merge or append.

On the Subscribers screen, the patrons appear in their own Patreon (unlinked) section, marked as not counted toward your license limit, and the subscriber total includes them.

A Patreon list ages out after 90 days. From day 60 an amber banner counts down the days left and asks for a current export; from day 90 a red banner says the scorecard has expired. Upload a fresh export to restart the clock.

Supercast Panel

Works the same way, with Upload subscriber list and Enter count manually. It has no expiry banners, but the 90-day clearing-out applies to it too.

Shadow Records

A shadow record is a placeholder for one imported patron who hasn’t joined Benecaster yet. Uploading a CSV creates one per email address — it exists only so your patron count is real. It is not a subscriber, has no token, and does not appear anywhere subscribers do.

Shadow records are:

• Deleted automatically after 90 days — a nightly job clears out any upload or manual count older than that, for either platform. A developer can change the window with the benecaster_shadow_record_expiry_days filter.
• Not counted against your Benecaster subscriber limit — they are visibility data, not active subscribers
• Not sent any emails — shadow records have no user account and receive nothing from Benecaster
• Used by a migration — when you run a full Patreon or Supercast migration with the Migration Wizard add-on, a patron it imports who matches a shadow record takes that record over rather than being added twice

The expiry is deliberate, and worth understanding before you set a longer one. These are email addresses of people who have never interacted with your WordPress site — they came out of a third-party export, and they do not know the records exist. Keeping them past the point where they are useful is holding other people’s contact details for no reason. Your privacy policy should say that you temporarily store imported patron contact data and that it is deleted automatically. If you extend the window, extend that disclosure with it.

Clearing Records

Once a panel holds data it shows Clear, which removes that platform’s list or count for this show straight away, without a confirmation. Clearing does not affect any Benecaster subscribers.

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Feeds

Public feed URL — your show’s public feed address with a copy button, and links to the show’s page on each directory you’ve added under Platform Links.

Feed Settings:

Advanced: Block from podcast directories and Mark show as complete, the same switches as on the Details tab.

Explicit Content

Whether the show contains explicit content — Clean, Yes, or Explicit. It becomes <itunes:explicit>; both Yes and Explicit report the show as explicit, and the choice between those two words is yours. It applies to every episode that has not set its own value. This tab is the only place the show-level value is set.

The Setup Wizard asks the same question on first run and offers all three options, so a new show arrives here already set to whatever you chose there.

Any episode can override the show value in either direction from its own Details tab — explicit on a clean show, or clean on an explicit show. See Creating Episodes.

This setting is visible to listeners, not just to podcast apps. Setting the show to Yes or Explicit puts a badge on every one of its episodes on your site — the episode page, archive cards, episode lists, and the player — unless an individual episode overrides it. Setting the show to Clean shows no badge anywhere, which is the intended behaviour: a badge on everything carries no information.

Worth a moment’s thought before you set it, then. A show marked explicit for the sake of two episodes will carry the badge on all of them; the cleaner arrangement is to leave the show clean and mark those two episodes Yes individually.

Enclosure URL Prefix

Added to the front of every episode’s audio URL — for a podcast measurement service (such as Podtrac, OP3 or Podscribe) or a CDN redirect. Placeholder: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/. Leave it empty to turn it off.

Benecaster warns, without blocking save, if the value doesn’t start with https:// or doesn’t end with /. Because these services expect their own URL form, the episode audio URL’s leading https:// is dropped right after the prefix is joined to it; a leading http:// is left as-is.

The prefix takes effect on every one of the show’s feeds — the public feed and every paid tier — and on <podcast:trailer>, not just the tier you’re looking at when you save. Feeds pick it up the next time they’re compiled. If download tracking is on for an episode, a subscriber’s feed link still points at your site as usual; it’s the redirect from your site to the host that carries the prefix, so the measurement service still counts the download without ever seeing that subscriber’s private link. The prefix has no effect on the website’s own player — only on what goes out in your feeds.

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Feed Sync

Feed Sync watches the RSS feed at your current podcast host and brings new episodes into Benecaster. Under Import Settings, enter the Source feed URL, choose when it checks — Manual only, On admin login or Daily (automatic) — and choose whether new episodes become draft episodes or just notify you. Sync Now runs a check straight away, and Last Sync shows what the most recent one found. See Importing Episodes from Your Host.

Feed Sync brings episodes across, not subscribers.

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Credits

Reusable credit templates for this show. Each has a name and a body (which can contain shortcodes); Add credit creates one, and one can be set as the show’s default — the template pre-selected on new episodes. See Episode Credits.

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Emails

Business Address is the postal address printed in the footer of every email this show sends. Sending Rate shows the site-wide sending rate; Change → takes you to Benecaster → Settings → Email, where it is set.

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Language

This section sets which languages Benecaster supports and which one is primary. It appears in each show’s navigation, but the setting is site-wide — changing it here changes it for every show. It is not the same as the show’s own Language on the Details tab. See Language Settings.

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Listener Support

Donation prompts for your listeners: whether they show, their style and placement, who sees them, the payment link, the button label and message, and how long before they appear. These are set site-wide, with a Per-show override for this show. The tab also holds the donor mailing-list opt-in and donation amounts for Stripe mode. See Listener Support Overview.

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Payments

By default a show uses the site-wide Stripe account. Turn on Use a different Stripe account for this show to give it its own keys, test or live mode, and webhook. See Connecting Stripe for Subscriptions.

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Podcasting 2.0

Podcasting 2.0 feed tags for this show: the show’s GUID, Portability Lock, Funding, Content License, Platform Block, TXT Records, Host, Medium, Update Frequency, and — once the show has seasons — Season Display Names. One Save button covers the tab. Most of these are covered in Podcasting 2.0 Tags; two sit below Host and are worth explaining here because both have a catch.

Medium

The Content type field says what kind of thing this feed is: Podcast, Music, Video, Film, Audiobook, Newsletter, Blog, or Course. It starts at Podcast, and the help text under it reads “Leave this on Podcast unless this feed is something else, such as an audiobook or a course.”

Every show’s feed names its medium. A show that has never had a medium chosen reads as Podcast and its feeds say so. There is no “Not set” choice. Pick one of the other seven only when the feed really is something other than a podcast.

Update Frequency

Two inputs. Schedule is free text, up to 128 characters, and it is what listeners actually see — “Every other Tuesday”, “Weekly during term time”. Recurrence rule (optional) is machine-readable (RFC 5545, e.g. FREQ=WEEKLY;BYDAY=TU), for apps that want to work out the next expected release themselves.

The Recurrence rule does not work on its own. It is an attribute on a tag whose visible value is the Schedule text, so with Schedule blank there is no tag for it to attach to — and Benecaster discards the rule when you save in that state, rather than storing something the feed can never use. Fill in Schedule first, then add the rule if you want one.

If the show is marked complete on the Feeds tab, an extra line appears here explaining that the feed will also announce that no further episodes are coming. That comes from the complete flag you set there — nothing on this tab turns it on, and nothing infers it from a quiet show.

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Templates

Installed Templates lists the design templates on your site; activate one, delete one, or upload a new one as a ZIP. The active template applies to the whole site. Episode Pages sets whether this show’s episodes get their own single pages and whether they appear in the episode archive. Episode Page Blocks chooses the blocks shown before and after each episode page’s content, saved with Save Block Settings. See Customizing Templates and Episode Page Layout and Blocks.

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Tiers

Tiers are the access levels subscribers can have for your show, and each paid tier gets its own private feeds. There is no Tiers section in show settings — where tiers come from depends on how the show takes payment:

• Built-in membership: create and order tiers at Benecaster → Memberships → Tiers. See Built-in Membership.
• A membership plugin: your plugin’s levels are mapped to Benecaster tiers on the Subscription tab. See Mapping Your Membership Tiers.

Which tiers can hear each episode is set per episode. See Tier Availability.

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Deleting a Show

Each show’s card on Benecaster → Shows has Settings, Archive and Delete buttons. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone: the confirmation asks you to type the show’s title before Delete permanently is enabled.

A show anyone is subscribed to — followers included — cannot be deleted, from this screen or any other route; the dialog says “Cannot delete a show with subscribers.” Move or remove them first.

Deleting a show removes everything it owns:

• every episode, in any status (drafts, scheduled and trashed episodes included), with its schedule, reference links and custom-field values
• every subscriber and follower token
• its tier mappings, and on built-in membership its tiers and buy-ups, with their prices
• its reference library and reference groups
• its episode types
• its license connection — exactly what Deactivate this show’s license does, so the activation is released

It keeps the show’s records: payments, donations, the unsubscribe log, the email log, and analytics and download history.

Deleting a show frees its slot. Shows count against your plan’s show limit wherever they were created, including on staging sites, so deleting a show you no longer need returns that slot for use elsewhere. If you created test shows while setting up a staging site, delete them before you need the slot in production — see Show Limits and Multi-Site Use.

When deleting via the REST API, pass "confirm": true in the request body. The DELETE endpoint rejects requests without this parameter as a safeguard against accidental deletion.

Deleting a show does not cancel subscriptions in your membership plugin. If you remove a show, you’ll need to manage those memberships separately to stop billing subscribers.