As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to simplify procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it absolutely caught my focus Why Should I Use GoHighLevel.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly wanting to streamline and scale my service, it seemed like a dream happened theoretically. That wouldn’t want a single remedy that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and failing) to switch to this popular brand-new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service requirements, hopefully you can pick up from my unpleasant blunders and blew up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job management option to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation needs.
I located Keap instinctive to make use of and it handled every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help local business maintain their clients while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, making certain leads and customers receive the appropriate messages at the correct time. Usage web site and social networks forms to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy consultation scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and repayment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours weekly and increase income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a comprehensive client partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing customer connections with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one method combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it specifically appealing for organizations looking to combine their tech stack.
Generally, it simply functioned reliably with minimal hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% great). Automations ran smoothly without any issues.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained seduced by the siren call of “shiny object disorder”. You understand the sensation: when everyone’s speaking about a brand-new device that will change your company … The yard typically looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might lower friction factors that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a couple of more disappointments led me to think maybe it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I understood changing platforms was going to require migrating all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my entire tech facilities from the ground up making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an introduction of just several of the initiative called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and task data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a totally international UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement work transitioning everything over– not to mention handling shed performance during the switch.
However ultimately, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel offering a far better long-lasting solution for my business, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a large blunder. The concerns began piling up promptly, until it reached a point I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Let’s go through the horrible problems I ran into.
Security Issues & Many Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new email subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion pointers, managing subscription expiries and a lot more.
Every little thing appeared to be operating penalty … until all of a sudden it had not been. One morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally unnecessary e-mails had actually been sent out to individuals who should NOT have gotten them. This occurred three days straight, with a different set of 160 individuals each day.
I hysterically tried troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from square one. But the trouble lingered.
When I seriously reached out to their support team, they slightly claimed “web server concerns” were at fault. Yet this description really did not make any type of feeling, considering that the errors continued taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this massive failure was entirely inappropriate and simply really did not work for my organization. I have hundreds of calls relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally unstable, exactly how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate customer data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complicated.
Easy jobs like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating via food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely various sections. Relocating between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I imply by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle overall, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to access each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item all set for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared focused on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with bad use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the affordable price tag featured pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing Why Should I Use GoHighLevel
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest selling points is the budget-friendly cost for accessibility to many features. However I swiftly discovered this economical base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic charges for core capability. Instantly my bank card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send an e-mail via their servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unanticipated costs.
In between these per-email fees and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel registration ended up costing dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, however just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open prices plummet virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement consistently struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a worthless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I maximized my sending practices or attempted every troubleshooting technique, I might barely push open rates back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards Why Should I Use GoHighLevel.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had horrible involvement. The only thing I can think that would be creating this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed costs, broken features, and awful interface, I had finally reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a substantial error. The cons significantly surpassed any benefits.
No software program is best, yet the large quantity of problems was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can not trust it to manage critical features effectively or think a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the difficult phone call to turn around program and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I picked up from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a costly ill fortune. However in knowledge, it showed me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software program usually obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is important.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools ought to make your work life less complicated, not much more complex and messy.
- Openness constructs trust fund. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems damages trust fund.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Satisfied assistance reviews suggest much less if excessive concerns suggest inadequate overall functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary remedy can completely fulfill every one-of-a-kind organization requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Incremental enhancements normally surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
Basically, I learned to be more skeptical of “as well great to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less lured by the allure of glossy new things. The devices you use daily must make count on via transparency and performance, not slick advertising.