As a company owner for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to enhance procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly caught my attention Vbout Vs GoHighLevel.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated together. As a business owner constantly aiming to streamline and scale my business, it seemed like a desire come to life on paper. Who would not want a single solution that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and failing) to change to this popular new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company demands, hopefully you can learn from my excruciating mistakes and blew up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and task management choice to GoHighLevel, after that below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer administration and automation demands.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it managed whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid small businesses keep their clients while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers obtain the right messages at the right time. Use web site and social media kinds to improve lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and settlement handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours each week and increase earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a detailed consumer relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and nurturing consumer relationships with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially attractive for businesses looking to combine their tech pile.
Essentially, it just functioned accurately with marginal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were fantastic (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got attracted by the alarm telephone call of “shiny things disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when everyone’s talking about a brand-new device that will change your service … The turf commonly looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could lower friction factors that I ‘d discovered to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I stood up to in the beginning, yet a couple of more irritations led me to think maybe it was time for a change.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing dramatically more than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I recognized switching over platforms was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap information and basically rebuilding my entire tech facilities from scratch using all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s an overview of simply some of the effort needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and task data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning every little thing over– not to mention managing shed efficiency during the switch.
Yet ultimately, it was a computed investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-term option for my business, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a large error. The concerns started accumulating rapidly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap totally.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish troubles I encountered.
Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion reminders, handling subscription expiries and a lot more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning penalty … up until instantly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely unimportant emails had actually been sent out to users that should NOT have received them. This occurred three days straight, with a different batch of 160 individuals every day.
I desperately tried troubleshooting and restoring the automation from the ground up. Yet the problem lingered.
When I seriously reached out to their support group, they slightly claimed “web server concerns” were responsible. Yet this description really did not make any sense, considering that the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was completely inappropriate and simply really did not work for my company. I have hundreds of get in touches with counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unstable, just how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just intensified these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and challenging.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating with food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably spread in entirely different areas. Relocating in between functions felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage general, private, and product setups. Yet for some insane reason, the links to access each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As a person that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item ready for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the affordable price tag featured pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing Vbout Vs GoHighLevel
Among GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the budget friendly price for access to so many features. Yet I quickly discovered this low-cost base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional costs for core performance. Suddenly my charge card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain charged whenever you send an e-mail via their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to numerous dollars in unforeseen prices.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured email open rates plummet virtually over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience interaction regularly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pathetic 9% open price.
No matter how much I optimized my sending practices or tried every troubleshooting technique, I could barely push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards Vbout Vs GoHighLevel.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails unexpectedly had horrible engagement. The only point I could think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden costs, damaged features, and terrible interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a significant blunder. The cons considerably outweighed any benefits.
No software program is excellent, yet the large volume of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can not trust it to handle crucial functions effectively or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing considerable time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the difficult call to turn around training course and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. But in knowledge, it taught me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet declares completely. Marketing hype around new software application typically obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life simpler, not a lot more challenging and messy.
- Transparency builds trust fund. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles destroys depend on.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Pleased support assesses suggest much less if too much concerns suggest poor overall use.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary solution can flawlessly meet every distinct company need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Step-by-step enhancements typically exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
In short, I discovered to be a lot more skeptical of “as well good to be real” marketing insurance claims and less lured by the attraction of shiny new objects. The tools you utilize daily ought to gain depend on with transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.