As an agency proprietor for over a years, I depend on software program and automation to improve procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel ClickFunnels 2.0 Importer.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated with each other. As a business owner always aiming to simplify and scale my service, it seemed like a desire come to life on paper. That would not desire a single remedy that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch to this preferred brand-new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, ideally you can pick up from my unpleasant mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of ideal CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job monitoring option to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation demands.
I found Keap intuitive to utilize and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to assist local business maintain their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the ideal messages at the right time. Usage web site and social networks kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and repayment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours weekly and rise revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a detailed client connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small businesses and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on streamlining sales processes and nurturing consumer partnerships with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it particularly attractive for organizations aiming to settle their technology pile.
Essentially, it just functioned reliably with very little difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were fantastic (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently with no problems.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can confess I got seduced by the alarm phone call of “glossy object syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new device that will transform your organization … The grass usually looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d discovered to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to in the beginning, but a couple of even more frustrations led me to believe perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I knew switching over platforms was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my whole technology facilities from scratch using all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an overview of just several of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– and also handling shed productivity throughout the button.
However eventually, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel giving a far better lasting option for my business, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to realize I had actually made a huge mistake. The concerns started piling up swiftly, till it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap totally.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish issues I came across.
Protection Issues & Numerous Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion tips, managing membership expirations and a lot more.
Everything appeared to be functioning penalty … until all of a sudden it had not been. One morning, I woke up to find 171 totally irrelevant e-mails had been sent out to customers that need to NOT have obtained them. This occurred 3 days in a row, with a various batch of 160 people every day.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. But the problem persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they vaguely claimed “server concerns” were at fault. Yet this description really did not make any kind of sense, given that the errors continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this huge failing was totally unacceptable and simply really did not help my business. I have hundreds of contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally undependable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just intensified these problems …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complicated.
Easy jobs like modifying workflows involved excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely different sections. Moving between features really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I imply by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage total, private, and product configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously irritated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item all set for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with bad usability as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon understood the low price tag included expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel ClickFunnels 2.0 Importer
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the budget-friendly cost for accessibility to a lot of features. Yet I promptly discovered this inexpensive base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic costs for core capability. All of a sudden my bank card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you get charged whenever you send out an email through their servers. So for high quantity customers, this added up to thousands of dollars in unanticipated expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel membership ended up costing dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, however simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open prices plummet virtually overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement regularly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a worthless 9% open price.
Despite how much I maximized my sending practices or attempted every repairing trick, I can hardly push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel ClickFunnels 2.0 Importer.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails suddenly had dreadful engagement. The only point I can think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden charges, broken features, and terrible user interface, I had actually finally reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a massive blunder. The cons substantially exceeded any type of advantages.
No software is excellent, yet the sheer quantity of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to manage crucial features capably or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing significant time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging phone call to reverse training course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I gained from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. But in knowledge, it taught me a few vital lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings threat.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software commonly obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed devices must make your job life easier, not much more challenging and unpleasant.
- Transparency builds depend on. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues ruins trust.
- Look for objective evaluations. Satisfied assistance evaluates indicate less if extreme problems suggest inadequate general usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary service can completely fulfill every distinct company demand. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Step-by-step improvements usually exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Basically, I learned to be a lot more cynical of “as well excellent to be real” marketing claims and less lured by the allure of shiny brand-new items. The tools you use daily need to make count on through openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.