Skip to main content

Classes Reference

The public PHP classes Benecaster exposes, grouped by namespace. Each name links to its reference page with the constructor dependencies, public methods and the hooks the class fires.

Admin

Support Mode’s read-only state in wp-admin.

Class Description
SupportMode Public read-only class exposing the current state of Benecaster’s Support Mode feature.

Analytics

Reads the platform benchmark figures from benecaster.com that the dashboard compares your show against.

Class Description
BenchmarkFetcher Fetches platform benchmark statistics from the license server and caches it per license for 24 hours, so each show reads its own license’s figures.

Availability

Stores when each episode becomes available to each tier, and converts between the times you enter and the times Benecaster stores.

Class Description
AvailabilityRepository Reads and writes episode/tier availability rows, and owns the conversion between the two time representations availability uses.

Avatar

Stores and outputs subscriber avatars.

Class Description
AvatarManager Manages subscriber avatar storage and output.

Bridge

The contract every membership bridge follows, and the classes that detect, activate and look up the bridge a show uses. Start here to write your own bridge.

Class Description
BridgeInterface The contract all membership bridges must implement.
BridgeManager Responsible for bridge detection, activation, and lookup.
BridgeWritable Additional interface a bridge must implement to appear as a valid destination in the Promote to Bridge wizard.
NativeBridgeActivationGate Whether built-in membership is ready to sell (is_active()) and whether it is being set up (is_in_use()) — two different answers.
ManualMembershipUnsupportedTrait Provides a throwing default implementation of BridgeInterface::create_manual_membership().
PromotionService Drives the Promote to Bridge wizard’s run step and grace period management.
SubscriptionEndReason Why a membership ended, as a bridge reports it to the callback registered through BridgeInterface::on_subscription_cancelled().

Bridge\Bridges

The built-in bridges: Benecaster’s own built-in membership, plus MemberPress, Paid Memberships Pro, Restrict Content Pro and WooCommerce Subscriptions. Each page covers only what that bridge does differently from the contract.

Class Description
MemberPressBridge The built-in bridge for MemberPress and the canonical reference implementation for custom bridge development.
NativeBridge The built-in membership bridge.
PaidMembershipsBridge The built-in bridge for Paid Memberships Pro.
RestrictContentBridge The built-in bridge for Restrict Content Pro.
WooSubscriptionsBridge The built-in bridge for WooCommerce Subscriptions.

Community

The interface a community platform implements to join the Community Integrations add-on.

Class Description
CommunityPlatformInterface The interface a community platform integration must implement to join the Community Integrations add-on.

Email

Renders each email from its template, and enforces each subscriber’s unsubscribe choices.

Class Description
EmailQueue The outgoing email queue. Add-ons may list one job’s per-recipient rows and retry failures, for any email type.
EmailRenderer Renders email templates into the message Benecaster sends. Add-ons call add_template_dir() on it to register a directory of their own email templates.
UnsubscribeManager Manages subscriber email opt-out preferences and unsubscribe tokens, and enforces those preferences at dispatch time by hooking benecaster_email_should_send.

Email\Warmup

The sending warm-up: how many emails a new or quiet sending address may send each day, and how a bulk send can ask to go more slowly. Emails per hour is the ceiling; the warm-up sits beneath it.

Class Description
WarmupRamp Paces a new sending address and projects when a large send will finish. Read it through describe(), posture() and capacity_over_next_days().
SendingPosture Whether a mail service handles the site’s email, and whether the domain has SPF and DMARC records.
SendingPace The paces a bulk job group can ask for: standard, gentle or slowest. A pace only ever sends less.
JobPaces Records which job groups asked for a gentler pace.
WarmupState Internal. Each sending domain’s history for the warm-up.

Entitlement

Access a person holds outside their membership tier, such as a single episode or a bundle bought outright.

Class Description
EntitlementRepository Benecaster’s record of non-tier access: which episodes or bundles a person holds outside any membership tier.
GrantSlugResolver Answers one question: what access does this person hold on this show that is not part of their tier?

Episode

Reads episode settings, renders the explicit badge, applies the per-show comments setting and stamps credits onto episodes.

Class Description
CreditStampService Internal class responsible for the credit stamp operation.
EpisodeCommentsGate Enforces the per-show comments toggle on episode pages at the WordPress filter layer, without calling remove_post_type_support().
EpisodeMeta Accessor class for episode-level post meta.
ExplicitBadgeRenderer Renders the explicit-content badge.

Feed

Serves every feed request, and imports episodes from an existing RSS feed.

Class Description
FeedBulkImporter The one-time episode import: every item in a podcast RSS feed becomes a draft episode on a show, in a background WP-Cron job with a progress counter.
FeedCompiler Builds each feed. is_compiling() tells a filter callback whether its output is going into a feed or a web page.
FeedController Front-controller for every feed request.

Feed\Namespaces

The handlers that write each XML namespace into the feed (iTunes, Podcasting 2.0, Podlove chapters, show notes) and the interfaces for adding your own.

Class Description
ContentNamespace Handles the content:encoded tag for episode show notes (full HTML content).
DataDrivenNamespaceInterface Opt-in extension for namespace handlers that render from the filtered benecaster_feed_channel_data / benecaster_feed_episode_data arrays instead of reading show and episode meta themselves.
FeedNamespaceInterface The contract every registered XML namespace handler must implement.
ItunesNamespace Handles all itunes: namespace tags.
PodcastIndexNamespace Implements TierAwareFeedNamespaceInterface.
PodcastNamespace Deprecated — a backward-compatibility shim only, not registered in the namespace registry.
PodloveNamespace Handles psc:chapters (Podlove Simple Chapters).
TierAwareEpisodeNamespaceInterface The episode-level counterpart of TierAwareFeedNamespaceInterface.
TierAwareFeedNamespaceInterface Opt-in extension for feed namespace handlers whose channel-level output depends on which episodes the requesting tier can actually see.

Fields

The custom fields system: registering field groups and fields, and reading and writing their stored values.

Class Description
FieldRegistry Manages CPT registration, field group CRUD, and field definition CRUD for the custom fields system.
FieldValueStore Handles all reads and writes of stored custom field values.

License

Benecaster’s side of your plan: talking to the license server, the cached plan and add-on entitlements, the payment-failure grace window, and what happens when a show goes over its subscriber limit.

Class Description
GraceExpiryTracker Owns the plugin-side payment-failure grace window: when it opened, whether the Day-30 hard cutoff has been applied, and the token bookkeeping at both the cutoff and the recovery.
LicenseClient HTTP client for the Benecaster license server API (https://staging.benecaster.com/wp-json/benecaster-license/v1, overridable with BENECASTER_LICENSE_URL for staging).
LicenseManager The plugin’s cached view of what the license server has said: plan, entitlements, and add-on access.
LicenseValidationCron Daily WP-Cron job on the benecaster_license_validation hook.
LiveReferralFigures The live referral figures from the license server, for the Refer a Friend page and benecaster_get_live_referral_balance().
OverLimitFlagManager Evaluates over-limit state on every license validation cycle and maintains the is_over_limit flag on subscriber tokens.
ShowAddonRepository Storage for per-show add-on state.

Membership

Tiers, prices, subscriptions, buy-ups and badges for built-in membership, plus bulk enrollment and the Supporter Wall roster.

Class Description
BadgeChipRenderer Renders subscriber badge rows as HTML chip components.
BadgeReconciler Keeps each subscriber’s badge grants in sync with tier badge definitions.
BulkEnrollBridgeNotBuiltin Thrown by BulkEnrollmentProcessor::enroll() when a subscriber batch targets a show whose active bridge is not the built-in membership (operator ruling 2026-09-14).
BulkEnrollmentJobRunner Asynchronous orchestrator around BulkEnrollmentProcessor.
BulkEnrollmentProcessor Synchronous core of bulk enrollment — callable directly from custom code (WP-CLI, scheduled jobs, custom REST endpoints) without going through the cron-backed BulkEnrollmentJobRunner.
BuyupAutoGrant Gives a buy-up to subscribers when it is priced at 0 on their billing period — on save, at sign-up, and on a billing-period switch.
BuyupDeclineRepository Remembers that a subscriber declined a buy-up they were offered free, so it isn’t given to them automatically.
FreeBuyupBackfillQueue The buy-up price rows that have just become free and haven’t been given away yet.
BuyupBillingCompatibility Decides whether a subscriber can buy a buy-up now (billing period, currency, sale window) and which of its price rows they buy.
BuyupPeriodEndCancellation Ends a held buy-up at the end of its billing period — the one path for the subscriber’s Remove button and for a tier upgrade that leaves a buy-up behind.
BuyupPriceRepository Data access for a buy-up’s prices — one row per billing period it is sold on.
BuyupRepository Data access for buy-up definitions, including the sale window.
FollowerBadgeAppender Appends a “Follower” chip to a follower’s badge list when a show is in context, so a follower and a paying subscriber no longer look identical on the Supporter Wall and in [benecaster_user_badge show_id="…"].
MembershipPriceRepository Data access for the billing cadences attached to a built-in membership tier.
MembershipTierRepository Data access for the tiers sold by the built-in membership system.
NativeRevenueEstimator Works out the dashboard’s “This Month (est.)” revenue for a Built-in Membership show from its subscribers’ billing.
PauseReasons Encodes the sentinel values written to benecaster_subscriptions.paused_reason when this plugin pauses billing on a built-in-membership subscription it created.
SubscriberBadgeRepository CRUD layer for subscriber badge grants — the supported entry point for reading and writing them.
SubscriberBuyupRepository Data access for buy-up grants — who holds which buy-up, and on which Stripe subscription item.
SubscriptionRepository Data access for native membership subscription rows — the records behind Built-in Membership, including billing state, Stripe identifiers and the Promote to Bridge grace-period columns.
SupporterWallQuery Queries the opted-in Supporter Wall roster, joined with user meta for avatar, tier, badges, and “Why I support” messages.
TenureBadgeAppender Injects tenure badge rows into the shared badge pipeline.
TenureBadgeCalculator Computes tenure snapshots from subscriber token records.

Membership\PriceChange

Changing the price of a tier or buy-up: the stored price changes, and moving subscribers onto the new price when their notice period ends.

Class Description
PriceChangeApplier The hourly job that sends due reminders and moves subscribers onto a new price once their notice period has passed.
PriceChangeRepository Data access for price changes and the per-subscriber record of who was told and what happened to them.

Notices

Creates, shows and dismisses Benecaster’s admin notices.

Class Description
NoticeManager Manages admin notices in the Benecaster plugin.

Notices\HealthChecks

Checks that raise an admin notice when a site needs attention, and the interface for writing your own.

Class Description
HealthCheck Interface for custom admin notice health checks.

Payment

Stripe and other payment gateways: the Stripe client and subscriptions, encrypted storage of donation webhook secrets, and the guard that stops a copied site from charging anyone.

Class Description
DonationWebhookSecrets Manages encrypted storage of per-platform webhook verification credentials for non-Stripe Listener Support donation platforms (Ko-fi, PayPal, Buy Me a Coffee).
NonProductionChargeBlocked The exception OutboundChargeGuard throws when a money or subscription-lifecycle call is refused because this install is a copy of the one that armed itself.
OutboundChargeGuard Blocks money movement and subscription-lifecycle writes from an install that is a copy of another one.
PodcastPaymentGateway The payment gateway contract all gateway implementations must satisfy.
StripeClient Wraps the Stripe PHP SDK and owns every Stripe credential Benecaster holds.
StripeSubscriptionManager Thin wrapper over the Stripe Subscriptions and Billing Portal APIs.

REST

The controllers behind Benecaster’s REST API, covering both the subscriber-facing account endpoints and the admin endpoints the dashboard and settings screens use.

Class Description
AccountController REST controller registered at /wp-json/benecaster/v1/account.
AddonActivationController Serves the per-show add-on activation controls on Settings → Add-ons, over `GET
BillingPortalController Subscriber-facing REST endpoints for the native membership billing portal.
BuyupsAccountController Subscriber-facing REST endpoints for buy-up listing, purchase, and cancellation.
DashboardController Dashboard endpoints: the stat cards, the subscriber-growth sparkline and the per-tier breakdown.
EpisodeChaptersController REST controller serving the Podcasting 2.0 chapters JSON endpoint and the auto-suggest endpoint.
EpisodeCreditsController Admin REST endpoint for stamping a credit onto an episode.
LicenseOAuthController Handles connecting and disconnecting a show’s license — POST /license/oauth/start and POST /license/oauth/deactivate.
LicensePushController Inbound receiver for POST /benecaster/v1/license-push.
ManualSubscriberController REST controller for the “Add subscriber manually” admin action.
MembershipStripeSettingsController Admin REST endpoints for the Settings → Payments panel.
PriceChangesController Admin endpoints to list pending and past price changes, cancel one, and retry the subscribers it failed to move.
ShowCreditsController Admin REST controller for per-show episode credit templates.
SupporterWallController REST controller for the public Supporter Wall endpoint.

Security

Watches for feed requests using tokens that match no subscriber, and warns you when a show sees too many.

Class Description
InvalidTokenMonitor Counts feed requests whose token matches no subscriber and raises an admin notice when a show sees too many.

Show

Reads show-level settings.

Class Description
ShowMeta Accessor class for show-level post meta.

Staging

Decides whether this install is production or staging, notices when a site has been copied, and manages the subscriber set a staging site uses.

Class Description
EnvironmentResolver The one place BENECASTER_IS_PRODUCTION and BENECASTER_STAGING are read, and the one place the precedence between them is expressed.
InstallIdentity Answers one question: is this still the install it was when it first armed itself?
StagingManager The entry point for staging mode detection and staging subscriber-set management.

Support

Shared utilities: rate limiting, the signed single-use links Benecaster emails to subscribers, and the signup password rules.

Class Description
RateLimitStore The shared fixed-window counter behind every rate limit in the plugin — today the REST limiter and the [benecaster_follower_signup] abuse throttle.
SignedLink Mints and validates the HMAC-SHA256 signed, time-limited, single-use links Benecaster emails to subscribers.
SignupPasswordPolicy The single definition of the password rules applied when a subscriber chooses their own password during signup.

SupporterWall

Each subscriber’s choice to appear on the Supporter Wall, and their “Why I support” message.

Class Description
SupporterWallManager Manages the per-subscriber opt-in flag and “Why I support” message for the Supporter Wall.

Token

Subscriber feed tokens: creating, changing and revoking them, the token types Benecaster knows about, and the rules each one follows.

Class Description
BackdateGuard Validates a backdated created_at before it reaches a token row.
RevocationReasons Encodes the sentinel values recorded as a token’s revocation reason, and answers the one question the token lifecycle needs from them: may a later subscription activation event bring this token back?
TokenManager Service layer for the subscriber token lifecycle.
TokenRepository Data-access layer for subscriber feed tokens — the supported entry point for reading and writing token records.
TokenTypeRegistry The list of token types Benecaster knows about, and the rules for how each one behaves.

See Also

Need this built rather than just documented? See our services →

Last updated