As a company proprietor for over a decade, I rely upon software program and automation to improve procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel Vs ClientManager.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one customer management platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner always looking to simplify and scale my business, it appeared like a desire happened on paper. Who would not desire a single remedy that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of attempting (and falling short) to change to this prominent new software. You’ll discover:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service requirements, with any luck you can pick up from my agonizing errors and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job management option to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to make use of and it dealt with every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business maintain their clients while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers get the best messages at the correct time. Use site and social media sites types to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your growth with very easy consultation scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and increase income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a comprehensive consumer connection management (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and supporting customer relationships via effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it specifically eye-catching for organizations wanting to combine their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply worked dependably with very little hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned 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 everyone’s speaking about a new tool that will change your organization … The grass commonly looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could decrease friction factors that I would certainly discovered to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a few even more stress led me to believe perhaps it was time for a change.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending substantially greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my whole technology infrastructure from square one making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s an introduction of just a few of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and project data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement work transitioning everything over– as well as handling lost productivity during the switch.
Yet eventually, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would pay off with GoHighLevel giving a much better long-term remedy for my business, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to realize I had actually made a large blunder. The concerns began accumulating promptly, until it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap totally.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish troubles I encountered.
Safety And Security Issues & Numerous Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding new e-mail clients, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion suggestions, taking care of membership expiries and much more.
Everything seemed to be functioning penalty … till unexpectedly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely pointless e-mails had actually been sent to individuals that ought to NOT have gotten them. This happened three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals daily.
I hysterically tried troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. Yet the issue persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance team, they slightly declared “web server problems” were at fault. However this description really did not make any sense, since the mistakes proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely inappropriate and simply didn’t help my service. I have thousands of calls relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unstable, how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these problems …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complicated.
Simple jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably scattered in totally various areas. Moving in between functions felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage overall, private, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to access each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a polished product all set for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with poor functionality as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the low price tag included pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Vs ClientManager
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest selling factors is the cost effective price for access to a lot of features. Yet I promptly learned this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core capability. Unexpectedly my bank card declarations had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get billed each time you send an e-mail via their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unexpected expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was appealing, but simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported e-mail open rates drop practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a worthless 9% open price.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending practices or tried every fixing trick, I might hardly push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Vs ClientManager.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had terrible involvement. The only point I can assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed costs, damaged features, and terrible interface, I had lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a big blunder. The cons drastically exceeded any type of advantages.
No software is excellent, yet the sheer quantity of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to handle critical functions competently or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending considerable time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. Yet in knowledge, it taught me a few crucial lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian claims extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software program typically obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is essential.
- Select simplicity over features. Well-designed devices should make your work life less complicated, not extra challenging and untidy.
- Openness builds trust. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles destroys depend on.
- Look for unbiased evaluations. Pleased assistance assesses indicate less if too much issues suggest poor general functionality.
- Perfection is difficult. No single solution can flawlessly satisfy every unique business requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over change. Incremental improvements commonly exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
In short, I found out to be a lot more doubtful of “also excellent to be true” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the attraction of shiny new items. The devices you utilize daily ought to gain trust with openness and performance, not slick advertising.