As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely on software application and automation to streamline procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel Plumbing Playbook.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client management platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly seeking to simplify and scale my service, it looked like a desire happened on paper. Who wouldn’t desire a solitary option that does it all?
Yet in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this prominent new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company needs, hopefully you can learn from my painful errors and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of best CRMs instead. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and job administration option to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client administration and automation demands.
I discovered Keap intuitive to utilize and it dealt with every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to aid small companies keep their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and clients obtain the best messages at the right time. Usage internet site and social media forms to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your development with very easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours per week and increase income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a comprehensive consumer connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and nurturing customer partnerships via powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it particularly appealing for services looking to settle their technology pile.
Generally, it simply functioned dependably with marginal hassle or upkeep called for. My open and click-through rates were wonderful (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without problems.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that worked to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I obtained seduced by the siren telephone call of “shiny object disorder”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s speaking about a brand-new tool that will certainly change your business … The turf often looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could lower friction points that I would certainly found out to endure over the years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, yet a few even more aggravations led me to think perhaps it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I made a decision to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing substantially more than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I understood changing systems was going to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my entire technology infrastructure from square one utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an introduction of simply several of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning a totally international UX and interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning every little thing over– and also dealing with lost performance throughout the button.
However inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-lasting option for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to understand I had actually made a big error. The concerns started piling up rapidly, until it reached a point I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish problems I ran into.
Security Issues & Many Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event tips, managing membership expirations and far more.
Whatever appeared to be functioning fine … until suddenly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to find 171 totally unimportant emails had been sent out to users who need to NOT have obtained them. This occurred three days straight, with a different set of 160 people daily.
I desperately tried repairing and rebuilding the automation from square one. However the trouble lingered.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they slightly asserted “server concerns” were responsible. Yet this explanation didn’t make any sense, because the errors proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was completely undesirable and simply really did not help my company. I have thousands of get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely undependable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these issues …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and complicated.
Simple jobs like editing and enhancing workflows involved digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably spread in completely various areas. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I imply by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of total, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some crazy factor, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a sleek item prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature under the sun, with poor usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the small cost tag featured pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Plumbing Playbook
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the cost effective cost for access to so many features. But I rapidly discovered this cheap base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core performance. Suddenly my credit card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get charged every single time you send an e-mail through their servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to numerous bucks in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, however just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported email open rates plunge virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market involvement consistently struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a pathetic 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I maximized my sending out methods or attempted every troubleshooting method, I can barely nudge open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Plumbing Playbook.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had terrible engagement. The only thing I might believe that would be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden fees, damaged features, and horrible interface, I had actually finally reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a massive error. The disadvantages drastically outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software is best, however the large volume of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to count on. If I can’t trust it to handle vital functions effectively or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after investing substantial time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging phone call to turn around course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey ill fortune. But in hindsight, it taught me a few essential lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings threat.
- Vet asserts completely. Marketing hype around brand-new software usually obscures bigger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is essential.
- Select simpleness over features. Well-designed tools should make your job life less complicated, not more challenging and untidy.
- Openness develops depend on. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues ruins count on.
- Seek unbiased testimonials. Delighted support assesses indicate much less if too much issues indicate poor overall use.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary service can completely meet every distinct business need. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step renovations normally surpass dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
Basically, I learned to be extra cynical of “also excellent to be true” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the appeal of glossy brand-new things. The tools you use daily need to make trust via transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.