As a company owner for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to streamline operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly caught my attention GoHighLevel Offers.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated with each other. As an entrepreneur always seeking to streamline and scale my organization, it felt like a dream become a reality on paper. That wouldn’t desire a single solution that does it all?
Yet in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and failing) to switch over to this preferred brand-new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own organization requirements, hopefully you can gain from my uncomfortable mistakes and blew up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client management and automation needs.
I located Keap instinctive to utilize and it took care of everything I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist local business keep their customers while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, ensuring leads and customers obtain the appropriate messages at the right time. Use website and social media forms to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your growth with simple appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and rise earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a thorough client relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on streamlining sales procedures and supporting client partnerships via powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it particularly appealing for companies aiming to consolidate their tech pile.
Generally, it just worked accurately with very little hassle or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any concerns.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that worked to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren telephone call of “shiny item syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s speaking about a new device that will change your business … The lawn often looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may lower friction factors that I ‘d discovered to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a few even more irritations led me to think possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending considerably greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I recognized switching over platforms was mosting likely to need moving all my Keap information and basically reconstructing my entire tech facilities from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s an overview of simply a few of the effort called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning an entirely international UX and user interface style
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning everything over– as well as taking care of shed productivity throughout the button.
But eventually, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-lasting option for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to realize I had made a huge mistake. The concerns began piling up rapidly, until it reached a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Let’s go through the horrible problems I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Lots of Vermin
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new email clients, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion pointers, managing membership expiries and much more.
Everything appeared to be working penalty … till instantly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely pointless emails had actually been sent out to users that should NOT have gotten them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from the ground up. However the issue continued.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they slightly declared “server issues” were responsible. However this explanation didn’t make any kind of sense, considering that the mistakes proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was entirely undesirable and just didn’t work for my organization. I have thousands of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely undependable, how could I leave mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and difficult.
Simple tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in totally various areas. Relocating in between features really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to manage overall, private, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As a person that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a refined product prepared for prime-time use. Their concerns appeared focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly realized the low price tag came with pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Offers
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the affordable rate for accessibility to a lot of features. Yet I promptly discovered this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic fees for core performance. Unexpectedly my credit card declarations had vague $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged every time you send an e-mail with their web servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to thousands of bucks in unexpected expenses.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, but just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open prices plummet virtually over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement constantly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantly to a pathetic 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I maximized my sending techniques or tried every fixing trick, I could hardly push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Offers.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails unexpectedly had dreadful engagement. The only point I might believe that would be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed fees, damaged features, and horrible user interface, I had actually ultimately reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a substantial mistake. The cons substantially exceeded any type of advantages.
No software application is perfect, however the large volume of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to deal with essential functions competently or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after investing significant time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging phone call to reverse program and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. Yet in hindsight, it showed me a couple of key lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts extensively. Marketing hype around new software often covers bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is important.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices must make your work life simpler, not much more challenging and untidy.
- Openness develops trust. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues damages trust.
- Seek objective testimonials. Satisfied support assesses imply less if extreme concerns indicate bad total functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary remedy can perfectly meet every one-of-a-kind service demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over revolution. Step-by-step renovations typically exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In other words, I discovered to be extra skeptical of “also excellent to be true” marketing claims and much less attracted by the attraction of shiny brand-new items. The devices you use daily ought to earn depend on through transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.