MemberPress Setup

MemberPress is a premium WordPress membership plugin that handles subscription levels, payment processing, and member access rules. It is one of four third-party membership plugins Benecaster bridges to, and it handles both simple and complex membership structures well.

This page is for connecting a MemberPress install you already run, or one you have decided on. If you are starting from scratch and have not chosen a membership plugin yet, see Choosing a Subscription Plugin first — Benecaster’s own built-in membership needs no third-party plugin at all and is usually the simpler path.

Before You Start

• MemberPress 1.12.0 or later must be installed, activated, and licensed on your WordPress site. Versions 1.11.37 and earlier also have a content-restriction bypass, so update in any case. An older version is listed greyed out in the subscription plugin picker, the setup wizard and the switch wizard, with “Requires MemberPress 1.12.0 or later (you have …)”, and Promote to Bridge doesn’t offer it. A show already connected to an older version keeps working, but shows a Membership plugin needs attention notice until you update (see below).
• At least one MemberPress membership level should exist before connecting the bridge — you’ll need something to map tiers against
• You should have a Benecaster paid license activated — the bridge system requires a paid license

Step 1: Connect the Bridge

Go to Benecaster → Shows → [your show] → Settings → Subscription.

If MemberPress is active, it appears automatically in the subscription plugin list. Select it and click Connect.

Benecaster reads your MemberPress membership levels and confirms the connection. You’ll see a green status indicator and the number of levels detected.

If MemberPress doesn’t appear in the list, see Membership Plugin Not Connecting.

Step 2: Map Your Tiers

With the bridge connected, go to Benecaster → Shows → [your show] → Settings → Subscription → Tier Mapping.

Benecaster lists all your MemberPress membership levels. For each level, select the corresponding Benecaster tier from the dropdown. Levels left unmapped generate no feed access — a member who pays for one gets no feed URL and no welcome email from Benecaster.

Common configurations:

• Single paid tier: Map all paying levels to one tier. Keep it simple.
• Multiple tiers with early access: Map your premium level to gold and standard to silver. Set different availability dates per tier on each episode.
• Monthly and annual variants: “Gold Monthly” and “Gold Annual” can both map to gold — the billing distinction is MemberPress’s concern, not Benecaster’s.

See Mapping Your Membership Tiers for detailed guidance.

A membership set to Draft or Private is still listed, with a grey Signups closed label. Its members keep it and keep paying, so map it. [benecaster_pricing_table] and [benecaster_subscribe] leave it off, because nobody can sign up for it. A membership in the trash isn’t listed.

You can also map from MemberPress itself: edit a membership under MemberPress → Memberships and use the Benecaster Tier box in the sidebar, which has one dropdown per show. The dropdown lists the same tiers as Tier Mapping: Free, Paid, then each of the show’s tiers once, by name, including a tier no level is mapped to yet. Every show’s choice is saved when you save the membership, so a show left on — None (unmapped) — is unmapped for it, even if it was mapped before.

Members who joined before you connected don’t have feed links yet. Benecaster only hears about a member when MemberPress reports their membership starting, and Sync existing members isn’t available for MemberPress yet, so each existing member gets their link the next time MemberPress reports their membership starting.

Your Subscribe Buttons

Once your levels are mapped, [benecaster_subscribe] shows each tier with the price MemberPress charges for it and a Subscribe button (Join free on a free tier). The button goes to each membership’s own page — in MemberPress a membership’s page is its signup form.

Check those pages under Show Settings → Subscription → Signup pages, and replace any that are wrong — see Signup Pages. Only pages on this site can be used.

Step 3: Test the Connection

Create a test subscriber manually in MemberPress — go to MemberPress → Members → Add New, assign them a membership level with a completed transaction, and save.

Within a few seconds, a Benecaster token should be generated for that subscriber. To verify: go to Benecaster → Subscribers and confirm the test user appears with a feed URL.

If the token isn’t generated, check that the tier is mapped and that MemberPress recorded the membership’s transaction as complete. See Membership Plugin Not Connecting for troubleshooting steps.

How MemberPress Events Map to Benecaster

Nothing happens when the checkout form is submitted. The token and Welcome email wait until MemberPress records the payment, so an abandoned or declined checkout gets nothing. An Offline-gateway payment that needs your approval counts when you mark its transaction complete.

Benecaster waits for MemberPress to fire these events. If a subscriber’s membership lapses in MemberPress but the event hasn’t fired yet, Benecaster continues serving their feed until it does. Most MemberPress events fire promptly.

MemberPress-Specific Notes

“Membership plugin needs attention”: Benecaster checks the plugin each show uses at most once an hour in wp-admin, and on the first admin page after a Benecaster update. If MemberPress is deactivated or older than 1.12.0, a Membership plugin needs attention notice appears under Notifications (the bell), naming the show and what is wrong, with a Go to Updates button. The show keeps working; the notice clears itself once the problem is fixed. See Membership Plugin Not Connecting.

Access rules and content protection: MemberPress includes its own content restriction rules (locking WordPress pages, posts, and custom post types). These are separate from Benecaster’s feed gating — you don’t need to set MemberPress access rules for Benecaster to work. Benecaster controls feed access through the token system independently of MemberPress’s page-level rules.

Corporate accounts and sub-accounts: If you use MemberPress’s corporate accounts feature, each sub-account user is treated as an independent subscriber by Benecaster. Each gets their own token.

Free trial periods: a free trial needs no payment, so Benecaster generates a token and sends the welcome email when MemberPress starts the trial. The feed works throughout the trial. If a subscriber doesn’t convert after the trial, MemberPress fires the cancellation event and the feed stops.

MemberPress Drip: MemberPress includes a Drip feature that releases content on a time-based schedule after a member joins — for example, unlocking a page seven days after signup. MemberPress Drip operates at the WordPress content layer and has no effect on Benecaster’s RSS feeds. Benecaster uses membership level and active status only. If you want to release podcast episodes on a schedule (Premium subscribers first, then Basic, then Free), use Benecaster’s availability dates — not MemberPress Drip.

MemberPress add-ons: Benecaster connects to MemberPress Benecaster. Any MemberPress add-ons (Courses, CoachKit, etc.) don’t affect the bridge — Benecaster only cares about membership level and active status.