As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software application and automation to streamline procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel Test Mode.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly aiming to streamline and scale my service, it felt like a dream happened on paper. Who wouldn’t desire a single option that does it all?
Yet in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and failing) to switch to this preferred new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company requirements, with any luck you can learn from my unpleasant blunders and pumped up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer management and automation needs.
I located Keap intuitive to use and it managed whatever I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist local business maintain their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making certain leads and customers get the right messages at the right time. Use internet site and social networks kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your development with easy appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and settlement handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours each week and increase earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a thorough client partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small companies and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales procedures and supporting client connections with powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one method combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it specifically appealing for organizations seeking to combine their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply worked dependably with minimal hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly with no problems.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I got attracted by the alarm call of “shiny things disorder”. You recognize the feeling: when every person’s discussing a new device that will certainly change your business … The lawn typically looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel may reduce rubbing factors that I would certainly found out to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a few even more frustrations led me to assume possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I recognized switching systems was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole tech facilities from the ground up making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an introduction of just several of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning everything over– as well as taking care of shed productivity during the button.
However ultimately, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-term service for my service, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a huge mistake. The concerns began accumulating quickly, until it got to a factor I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish troubles I experienced.
Safety Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail clients, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, handling membership expiries and much more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning penalty … up until all of a sudden it had not been. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally pointless e-mails had actually been sent to individuals that need to NOT have received them. This took place three days in a row, with a different batch of 160 people daily.
I desperately attempted repairing and restoring the automation from the ground up. Yet the issue continued.
When I desperately reached out to their support team, they vaguely declared “web server issues” were at fault. Yet this description didn’t make any type of sense, since the mistakes continued taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was entirely unacceptable and just didn’t work for my company. I have thousands of get in touches with relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unreliable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only compounded these problems …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and challenging.
Basic tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably spread in entirely different sections. Moving between features felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of total, private, and product setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined product all set for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with bad functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the low price tag included pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Test Mode
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the budget-friendly rate for accessibility to a lot of features. However I quickly discovered this economical base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic costs for core functionality. Suddenly my credit card statements had vague $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get charged whenever you send an email through their servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to thousands of dollars in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email charges and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel membership ended up costing substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, but simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open prices plummet practically over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement consistently struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pathetic 9% open rate.
Despite how much I enhanced my sending out practices or attempted every repairing technique, I might hardly push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Test Mode.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails all of a sudden had dreadful interaction. The only point I might believe that would be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability concerns, concealed costs, broken features, and dreadful interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a substantial error. The disadvantages drastically surpassed any benefits.
No software is excellent, however the large quantity of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to count on. If I can’t trust it to manage important functions properly or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after investing significant time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the hard contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey accident. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a few crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Don’t distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software program typically obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed tools must make your job life easier, not more challenging and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues ruins trust.
- Seek impartial reviews. Happy support reviews indicate less if excessive concerns indicate inadequate total use.
- Excellence is impossible. No single solution can flawlessly satisfy every unique service requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental renovations normally exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I discovered to be extra doubtful of “as well great to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less lured by the attraction of glossy brand-new items. The tools you use daily ought to gain depend on through transparency and performance, not slick advertising.