As an agency proprietor for over a years, I count on software program and automation to enhance operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Payment Gateways.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur always aiming to streamline and scale my service, it appeared like a desire become a reality on paper. That wouldn’t want a single solution that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of attempting (and stopping working) to switch to this popular brand-new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, with any luck you can gain from my agonizing mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this listing of best CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and task monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation demands.
I discovered Keap intuitive to utilize and it managed everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help small companies keep their clients while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making certain leads and customers get the best messages at the correct time. Use internet site and social networks forms to improve lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours weekly and increase revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough client connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing client connections through effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it specifically eye-catching for companies seeking to settle their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply functioned accurately with very little fuss or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly with no concerns.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that worked to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I got attracted by the siren phone call of “glossy things disorder”. You understand the feeling: when everybody’s speaking about a brand-new tool that will certainly transform your organization … The turf usually looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d found out to endure for many years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, however a few more stress led me to think perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I knew switching over platforms was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my whole technology framework from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s an introduction of just several of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and job information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and user interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning whatever over– not to mention managing lost performance during the button.
Yet inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a far better lasting service for my business, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a big error. The problems began accumulating rapidly, till it reached a point I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible problems I came across.
Protection Issues & Several Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, taking care of membership expiries and much more.
Whatever appeared to be functioning penalty … until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to discover 171 totally unnecessary emails had been sent to customers that need to NOT have received them. This happened three days in a row, with a different set of 160 individuals every day.
I anxiously tried repairing and restoring the automation from square one. However the trouble lingered.
When I desperately reached out to their support group, they slightly claimed “server concerns” were to blame. Yet this description really did not make any kind of feeling, since the mistakes proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was totally unacceptable and just didn’t work for my organization. I have countless contacts relying on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely undependable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and challenging.
Simple tasks like modifying workflows involved digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in completely various sections. Relocating between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage general, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a refined product prepared for prime-time use. Their concerns appeared focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the small cost tag came with expensive concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Payment Gateways
Among GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the budget-friendly cost for access to numerous features. But I rapidly learned this economical base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic fees for core functionality. Suddenly my credit card statements had obscure $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed each time you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to numerous dollars in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back significantly MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, but 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 thoroughly supported e-mail open prices drop almost over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience involvement constantly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a useless 9% open price.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending methods or tried every fixing trick, I could hardly push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Payment Gateways.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails all of a sudden had dreadful engagement. The only point I can think that would certainly be creating this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability concerns, hidden fees, damaged features, and horrible user interface, I had actually lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a massive mistake. The disadvantages significantly outweighed any type of benefits.
No software is ideal, yet the sheer quantity of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to manage crucial features properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after spending considerable time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the tough contact us to reverse program and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I learned from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive misadventure. Yet in hindsight, it instructed me a few vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software application usually obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simplicity over features. Properly designed tools must make your job life simpler, not much more complex and unpleasant.
- Transparency builds trust fund. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles ruins count on.
- Look for unbiased evaluations. Satisfied support evaluates suggest less if excessive issues indicate inadequate general use.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary option can perfectly meet every unique organization requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental renovations normally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In other words, I discovered to be much more cynical of “also great to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less attracted by the appeal of shiny new objects. The devices you use daily should earn count on via openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.