As a firm proprietor for over a years, I count on software application and automation to simplify operations and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my attention GoHighLevel Bookkeeper Playbook.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client management platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly aiming to simplify and scale my service, it appeared like a dream become a reality on paper. Who would not desire a solitary remedy that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my dreadful trip of trying (and failing) to change to this popular new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company requirements, ideally you can gain from my unpleasant errors and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of finest CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project administration choice to GoHighLevel, after that below are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation needs.
I located Keap user-friendly to make use of and it dealt with everything I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business keep their clients while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the best messages at the correct time. Use site and social networks forms to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours each week and boost earnings by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a thorough consumer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on enhancing sales procedures and nurturing client partnerships via powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one technique incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially attractive for businesses looking to consolidate their tech pile.
Essentially, it just functioned reliably with minimal fuss or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without any problems.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that worked to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the alarm phone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when every person’s discussing a new tool that will certainly change your service … The yard often looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel may lower friction points that I ‘d learned to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a few even more frustrations led me to believe possibly it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my entire technology infrastructure from scratch making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s a review of simply a few of the effort called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of setup job transitioning everything over– not to mention taking care of shed performance during the button.
But inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a far better long-term solution for my company, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had made a huge error. The problems began piling up quickly, until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Let’s go through the horrible troubles I experienced.
Safety Issues & Several Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion pointers, taking care of subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever appeared to be functioning fine … till instantly it had not been. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally irrelevant e-mails had been sent out to individuals that should NOT have actually gotten them. This happened three days in a row, with a different set of 160 people every day.
I anxiously attempted troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from scratch. However the problem continued.
When I desperately connected to their support group, they slightly asserted “server concerns” were to blame. Yet this description really did not make any type of sense, considering that the errors proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failure was entirely unacceptable and simply really did not work for my service. I have thousands of get in touches with relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unstable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and challenging.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows included excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various areas. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle total, specific, and item setups. Yet for some insane reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As a person who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with bad functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the affordable price tag featured pricey concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Bookkeeper Playbook
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest selling factors is the budget friendly cost for access to so many features. But I rapidly learned this inexpensive base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core capability. Unexpectedly my bank card statements had vague $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send an e-mail through their web servers. So for high quantity customers, this added up to hundreds of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel membership ended up costing significantly MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was tempting, however just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open prices plunge nearly over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement continually hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a useless 9% open rate.
Regardless of how much I maximized my sending techniques or attempted every troubleshooting method, I might barely nudge open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Bookkeeper Playbook.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails suddenly had dreadful involvement. The only point I could think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed costs, broken features, and awful interface, I had actually lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a substantial mistake. The disadvantages substantially surpassed any type of advantages.
No software program is best, yet the sheer volume of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to manage essential functions effectively or think a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after spending significant time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging call to turn around course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a costly accident. Yet in hindsight, it taught me a few essential lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Veterinarian asserts completely. Marketing hype around new software application typically covers larger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is important.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools need to make your work life easier, not more difficult and messy.
- Transparency builds count on. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues destroys trust.
- Seek objective evaluations. Delighted support examines indicate much less if excessive problems suggest bad overall use.
- Excellence is impossible. No single solution can perfectly fulfill every unique organization demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step enhancements commonly surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Simply put, I learned to be a lot more doubtful of “too excellent to be real” marketing cases and much less attracted by the allure of glossy brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily need to earn depend on via openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.