As an agency owner for over a years, I rely upon software and automation to enhance operations and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel Subscription Management.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated together. As a business owner always seeking to simplify and scale my business, it looked like a dream become a reality theoretically. Who wouldn’t desire a solitary solution that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of trying (and falling short) to change to this popular new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service needs, hopefully you can gain from my unpleasant blunders and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest 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 administration alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation demands.
I discovered Keap instinctive to make use of and it dealt with whatever I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist small companies keep their customers while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making sure leads and clients obtain the best messages at the correct time. Usage site and social media sites kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours per week and increase revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a thorough customer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on streamlining sales processes and nurturing customer partnerships with effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially attractive for businesses aiming to settle their technology stack.
Essentially, it just worked reliably with very little hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly without any problems.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I got seduced by the alarm call of “glossy object syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everybody’s discussing a new tool that will certainly change your service … The lawn often looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could decrease rubbing points that I ‘d learned to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a couple of even more aggravations led me to think possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I knew changing systems was going to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire tech infrastructure from square one utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s an introduction of just a few of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and task data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a totally international UX and interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning everything over– not to mention taking care of shed efficiency throughout the switch.
However inevitably, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel supplying a better long-term option for my organization, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to understand I had made a huge error. The concerns began accumulating swiftly, till it reached a point I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email clients, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event reminders, managing membership expiries and a lot more.
Everything seemed to be operating fine … up until unexpectedly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 totally pointless e-mails had been sent out to individuals that ought to NOT have obtained them. This took place three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals each day.
I anxiously attempted repairing and reconstructing the automation from scratch. However the problem continued.
When I desperately connected to their support team, they vaguely declared “server problems” were at fault. However this description didn’t make any kind of feeling, considering that the mistakes continued occurring each morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this large failure was totally unacceptable and just really did not help my company. I have thousands of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unstable, just how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and complex.
Simple jobs like editing workflows included excavating via menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in totally different sections. Relocating in between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to take care of total, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek product ready for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature under the sun, with bad use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the low cost tag featured costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Subscription Management
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest selling factors is the inexpensive rate for access to so many features. Yet I promptly learned this low-cost base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core capability. Unexpectedly my charge card statements had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get billed whenever you send an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to thousands of bucks in unexpected prices.
In between these per-email fees and paying added for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured e-mail open prices plunge almost overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement continually hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pathetic 9% open price.
Regardless of how much I maximized my sending out methods or tried every repairing method, I might barely push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Subscription Management.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails unexpectedly had dreadful engagement. The only thing I might assume that would be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden fees, broken features, and terrible user interface, I had ultimately reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a big mistake. The cons substantially surpassed any kind of advantages.
No software is perfect, however the large volume of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to depend on. If I can not trust it to take care of essential features effectively or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after investing significant time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging contact us to reverse program and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. But in hindsight, it showed me a couple of essential lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings threat.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing hype around new software application typically covers larger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Pick simplicity over features. Properly designed tools must make your job life easier, not extra challenging and unpleasant.
- Openness develops count on. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles destroys count on.
- Look for objective reviews. Delighted support evaluates suggest less if extreme problems indicate inadequate general use.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary solution can completely fulfill every unique organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over revolution. Step-by-step improvements commonly surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
In other words, I found out to be much more hesitant of “too excellent to be true” marketing cases and less tempted by the appeal of glossy new things. The devices you make use of daily should make count on through openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.