As a company owner for over a years, I rely on software and automation to streamline operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my attention What Is GoHighLevel Used For.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one customer management platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated together. As an entrepreneur always aiming to streamline and scale my business, it looked like a dream happened theoretically. That would not want a single option that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of trying (and falling short) to switch over to this prominent new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company demands, hopefully you can learn from my excruciating blunders and blew up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of best CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task administration choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it took care of whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business maintain their customers while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the right messages at the correct time. Use site and social media kinds to improve lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and settlement processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and rise earnings by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough customer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for local business and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting consumer relationships through powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it specifically attractive for businesses aiming to consolidate their technology stack.
Generally, it simply worked accurately with minimal difficulty or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran efficiently with no problems.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren telephone call of “shiny things syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when every person’s talking about a brand-new tool that will transform your organization … The turf commonly looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might lower rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, however a few more aggravations led me to think possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending substantially greater than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I recognized switching over platforms was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially restoring my whole technology facilities from scratch using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an introduction of simply a few of the effort called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning every little thing over– in addition to taking care of shed productivity throughout the button.
But ultimately, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel offering a better lasting service for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a large mistake. The problems began piling up quickly, until it reached a point I needed to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish problems I ran into.
Security Issues & Lots of Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event pointers, handling subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning penalty … until suddenly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 entirely irrelevant emails had been sent to individuals that need to NOT have actually received them. This happened three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals daily.
I anxiously attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. Yet the problem continued.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they slightly declared “web server issues” were responsible. Yet this description didn’t make any kind of sense, because the mistakes proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was entirely unacceptable and simply didn’t work for my service. I have countless contacts counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unstable, how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and complex.
Basic jobs like editing workflows involved excavating with food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various sections. Moving between features really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage overall, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a sleek product ready for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon understood the small cost tag featured pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing What Is GoHighLevel Used For
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the inexpensive rate for access to a lot of features. But I quickly learned this economical base price was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic charges for core functionality. All of a sudden my charge card statements had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain billed every time you send out an e-mail with their web servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to hundreds of bucks in unanticipated expenses.
Between these per-email fees and paying added for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, however simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open prices plummet practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market interaction regularly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a useless 9% open price.
Despite how much I optimized my sending methods or attempted every repairing technique, I can hardly push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks What Is GoHighLevel Used For.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails unexpectedly had horrible interaction. The only thing I could believe that would certainly be creating this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, hidden fees, busted features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a substantial error. The cons dramatically outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software is ideal, but the sheer volume of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to deal with critical functions effectively or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after spending substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly ill fortune. But in hindsight, it educated me a few crucial lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts completely. Marketing hype around new software program typically covers larger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Select simpleness over features. Well-designed devices need to make your work life much easier, not a lot more challenging and untidy.
- Transparency builds trust fund. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles ruins depend on.
- Seek unbiased testimonials. Pleased support examines imply less if excessive concerns suggest inadequate total functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary service can flawlessly meet every unique service need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over change. Step-by-step enhancements commonly surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be a lot more cynical of “as well good to be true” marketing claims and less attracted by the attraction of glossy brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily need to make trust fund via openness and performance, not slick advertising.