As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to improve procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel PayLater.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and service devices integrated together. As a business owner constantly wanting to simplify and scale my business, it looked like a desire happened on paper. Who wouldn’t want a solitary option that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of attempting (and failing) to change to this popular brand-new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business needs, with any luck you can gain from my excruciating blunders and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job management alternative to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation needs.
I discovered Keap intuitive to make use of and it managed everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to assist local business maintain their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making certain leads and clients obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Usage site and social media sites forms to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your development with easy appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours per week and rise profits by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive consumer connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on enhancing sales procedures and supporting customer connections with powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one method combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it particularly attractive for services aiming to consolidate their tech stack.
Essentially, it simply worked reliably with marginal hassle or upkeep called for. My open and click-through rates were wonderful (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without problems.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the alarm phone call of “shiny item disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s speaking about a new device that will certainly change your business … The lawn commonly looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might lower friction points that I would certainly discovered to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a couple of even more stress led me to think perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing significantly more than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I understood changing platforms was mosting likely to need migrating all my Keap information and basically restoring my whole technology infrastructure from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s a summary of simply some of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a completely international UX and interface style
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning everything over– in addition to handling lost productivity throughout the switch.
Yet eventually, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-lasting remedy for my service, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a large error. The issues began piling up quickly, till it got to a point I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible issues I encountered.
Protection Issues & Many Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event reminders, handling membership expiries and a lot more.
Everything appeared to be working fine … up until suddenly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to locate 171 completely unimportant e-mails had been sent out to users that should NOT have gotten them. This occurred three days straight, with a various set of 160 people every day.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from square one. However the problem continued.
When I seriously reached out to their assistance team, they slightly asserted “server concerns” were to blame. However this explanation really did not make any type of sense, since the mistakes proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failure was totally unacceptable and just really did not work for my service. I have countless contacts relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely undependable, exactly how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and complex.
Basic jobs like modifying workflows involved digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably scattered in completely different areas. Relocating between functions felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to handle general, individual, and product configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously irritated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a polished item ready for prime-time usage. Their concerns appeared focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad use as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly realized the low cost tag came with costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel PayLater
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the budget friendly price for access to numerous features. Yet I rapidly learned this cheap base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic charges for core performance. Suddenly my credit card statements had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain billed whenever you send out an e-mail via their servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to numerous dollars in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel membership wound up setting you back substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured e-mail open prices plummet practically over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market involvement regularly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a worthless 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending out practices or tried every repairing technique, I could hardly push open rates back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel PayLater.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had dreadful engagement. The only point I might think that would be triggering this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden charges, broken features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a substantial mistake. The disadvantages drastically surpassed any benefits.
No software program is excellent, however the sheer quantity of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to deal with important functions properly or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after spending considerable time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard phone call to reverse program and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a couple of essential lessons:
- Stay with what works. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software frequently obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices must make your work life simpler, not extra difficult and messy.
- Openness builds count on. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles destroys count on.
- Seek impartial evaluations. Happy support examines indicate less if excessive concerns imply bad general use.
- Perfection is impossible. No single option can perfectly satisfy every one-of-a-kind company demand. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over revolution. Step-by-step enhancements typically outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
In short, I found out to be more skeptical of “also excellent to be true” marketing insurance claims and less lured by the allure of glossy brand-new items. The tools you use daily must gain trust with transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.