As a firm owner for over a years, I count on software application and automation to improve procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel Languages.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client management platform with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly seeking to streamline and scale my organization, it appeared like a dream come true on paper. That wouldn’t desire a single option that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred brand-new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service demands, ideally you can gain from my excruciating mistakes and inflated assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project management choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap instinctive to make use of and it took care of every little thing I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist local business maintain their customers while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making sure leads and customers obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Usage site and social networks forms to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with easy consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours weekly and boost revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a detailed customer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales processes and supporting client partnerships via effective automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it especially eye-catching for companies looking to combine their tech pile.
For the most part, it just worked dependably with minimal hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% great). Automations ran smoothly without problems.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained seduced by the siren call of “shiny object disorder”. You recognize the feeling: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will certainly transform your business … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could minimize rubbing points that I ‘d discovered to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I resisted at first, but a few more stress led me to think possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I recognized switching over systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap information and basically restoring my whole technology framework from the ground up using all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s a review of simply some of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and project information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around again
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface style
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– as well as taking care of lost productivity throughout the switch.
However inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would settle with GoHighLevel providing a better long-term solution for my business, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had made a large blunder. The issues began accumulating rapidly, until it reached a point I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish issues I experienced.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion suggestions, handling subscription expiries and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be operating penalty … till all of a sudden it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to locate 171 completely unimportant emails had actually been sent out to customers that ought to NOT have gotten them. This took place 3 days straight, with a different set of 160 people daily.
I hysterically tried fixing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. However the issue lingered.
When I frantically reached out to their support team, they slightly claimed “server problems” were at fault. But this description didn’t make any kind of feeling, given that the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failure was totally unacceptable and simply really did not work for my company. I have countless contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely undependable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and complex.
Simple jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely different areas. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to manage general, individual, and item setups. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to access each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a sleek product prepared for prime-time usage. Their top priorities appeared focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly recognized the small cost tag came with pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Languages
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest selling points is the economical rate for accessibility to numerous features. However I rapidly learned this affordable base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core capability. Unexpectedly my bank card statements had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you get charged whenever you send an email with their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this added up to thousands of dollars in unanticipated expenses.
In between these per-email costs and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing significantly MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, but just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported email open prices plunge almost over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement continually struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked quickly to a useless 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending out methods or attempted every repairing trick, I might hardly push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Languages.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails unexpectedly had horrible involvement. The only point I could believe that would certainly be creating this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed costs, busted features, and terrible user interface, I had finally reached my limit …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a massive mistake. The disadvantages dramatically outweighed any kind of benefits.
No software application is perfect, yet the sheer volume of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to take care of essential functions competently or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after investing significant time, money, and effort migrating.
So I made the difficult phone call to reverse program and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey ill fortune. However in knowledge, it showed me a couple of vital lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Vet declares completely. Marketing hype around brand-new software application often covers larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simplicity over features. Properly designed devices must make your work life simpler, not extra complex and messy.
- Transparency builds trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles destroys trust.
- Seek objective testimonials. Happy assistance assesses indicate much less if extreme problems suggest bad overall functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary solution can completely satisfy every distinct company requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step improvements generally exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
In short, I found out to be much more unconvinced of “too great to be true” marketing cases and less attracted by the appeal of glossy new items. The tools you utilize daily need to make depend on with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.