The Rainmaker Platform is a hosting, online marketing and sales solution from Rainmaker Digital, the company behind Studiopress and the Genesis Framework, and formerly known as Copyblogger Media.
The backbone for the hosting is provided by Synthesis, another brand of Rainmaker Digital. Synthesis is a managed WordPress host, taking care of security (Sucuri), performance and updates for you.
You can build your website with the latest mobile responsive Studiopress themes.
A few of the great features of the Rainmaker Platform:
- Membership solution (build on Premise),
- Podcast hosting,
- Sales & Landing Page solution (no more Leadpages…),
- Access to Authority, Copyblogger’s content marketing training and network.
Some see these as strengths, others as weaknesses of the Rainmaker Platform:
- very restrictive policy regarding plugins. You will not be able to use “outside” plugins (e.g. Pop-up plugins, …),
- only a few email/autoresponder providers are supported at this point: AWeber, Mailchimp, Infusionsoft, Convertkit and Constant Contact (Recently, Rainmaker added their own email marketing solution called RainMail),
- custom Genesis child themes need approval and custom post types are handled very restrictively,
- integrates with only four payment processors at this point: Authorize.net, Stripe, Paypal, Braintree,
- only supports the English language.
There is no doubt: The Rainmaker Platform is a high-quality product from a very reputable company.
But you have to keep in mind that it was build with a very specific target market in mind.
It can be THE solution for your business; just check the glowing testimonials on the website.
The caveat is, you have to be looking for exactly the solutions that the Rainmaker Platform is providing.
If your needs are even a little bit out of this scope, you probably will not be happy with it.
Do you need different integrations, or specific plugins, or a different payment processor?
You most likely need a different solution.
Alternatives to hosting with the Rainmaker Platform
Like I mentioned above, Rainmaker Digital has its own hosting service Synthesis.
But there are many companies that provide managed WordPress hosting, like Pantheon, WP Engine or Flywheel.
Every one of them offers a slightly different solution and has different pricing options available.
The “right solution” depends on your personal or business needs and the amount of traffic to your website and services.
It seems a bit odd that many Genesis developers are hesitant to, or even don’t want to, work with the Rainmaker Platform. In my opinion, the restrictive nature of the platform is one of the main reasons for that because it is a challenge (or impossible) to follow our usual workflows. Also, many features and functions we and our clients are used to are simply not available.
Be aware, there is a high probability that not all customizations you might want will be possible.
Take the Rainmaker Platform for a test drive
Whether you are really excited about the complete solution the Rainmaker Platform can provide or you are not sure if it is the right fit for you, I urge you to take full advantage of the 14 day trial period.
Make sure to test everything. If the platform cannot cater to your needs, move on for now.
Rainmaker Digital is constantly improving all of their products. In a couple of months, the Rainmaker Platform might have the feature you are missing today.
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