As an agency owner for over a years, I rely on software application and automation to improve procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my interest Is GoHighLevel Trustworthy.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one client management system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly seeking to streamline and scale my company, it looked like a desire come to life on paper. That would not want a solitary remedy that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and falling short) to switch to this preferred brand-new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company requirements, ideally you can gain from my uncomfortable mistakes and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project monitoring option to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation requirements.
I located Keap user-friendly to utilize and it took care of whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to assist small businesses maintain their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making sure leads and customers obtain the right messages at the right time. Usage site and social networks kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours each week and boost revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales processes and supporting consumer partnerships via powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one approach integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it specifically attractive for companies aiming to consolidate their technology pile.
Generally, it simply functioned dependably with minimal hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without problems.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the alarm telephone call of “shiny things disorder”. You understand the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new device that will transform your business … The yard usually looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could reduce rubbing factors that I would certainly found out to endure over the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a few even more disappointments led me to assume maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I recognized changing systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire technology framework from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s a summary of just several of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface layout
All in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning every little thing over– not to mention handling shed performance during the switch.
But eventually, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel offering a far better long-lasting remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a large blunder. The issues started accumulating rapidly, till it reached a factor I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish issues I experienced.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion suggestions, handling membership expiries and far more.
Everything seemed to be functioning fine … till suddenly it had not been. One morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely irrelevant e-mails had been sent to customers who ought to NOT have gotten them. This took place 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 individuals every day.
I desperately attempted fixing and reconstructing the automation from square one. But the problem persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance group, they slightly claimed “web server problems” were to blame. However this explanation didn’t make any feeling, because the errors continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was completely undesirable and just really did not help my company. I have countless calls counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unstable, exactly how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and difficult.
Basic tasks like editing workflows included digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in completely various areas. Moving between functions felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage overall, specific, and product setups. Yet for some insane reason, the links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item prepared for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with poor use as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the low price tag featured expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing Is GoHighLevel Trustworthy
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest marketing points is the cost effective rate for accessibility to a lot of features. But I quickly discovered this low-cost base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core performance. Instantly my bank card statements had obscure $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get charged every time you send an email via their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unforeseen prices.
Between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel registration ended up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, yet simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open rates drop virtually overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement continually hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Regardless of just how much I enhanced my sending out techniques or attempted every troubleshooting trick, I can barely nudge open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks Is GoHighLevel Trustworthy.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails instantly had dreadful involvement. The only point I might believe that would be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden fees, damaged features, and terrible interface, I had actually ultimately reached my restriction …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a big mistake. The cons substantially outweighed any type of benefits.
No software program is perfect, however the large volume of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to deal with important features competently or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after spending considerable time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the difficult phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. Yet in hindsight, it taught me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stay with what works. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing hype around new software program typically covers bigger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is important.
- Pick simpleness over features. Well-designed tools need to make your work life much easier, not a lot more challenging and untidy.
- Transparency constructs trust. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems ruins trust.
- Seek objective reviews. Delighted support reviews mean less if too much problems indicate inadequate overall functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary option can flawlessly meet every unique company requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Incremental improvements normally exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In other words, I found out to be extra hesitant of “too great to be true” marketing insurance claims and less lured by the allure of shiny brand-new objects. The tools you make use of daily must make trust with openness and performance, not slick advertising.