As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I rely upon software application and automation to enhance operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel Vs GrooveFunnels.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client management system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated together. As an entrepreneur always seeking to simplify and scale my company, it seemed like a dream become a reality theoretically. Who wouldn’t want a single solution that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and failing) to change to this prominent new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own organization demands, ideally you can gain from my painful mistakes and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs instead. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been gladly counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it took care of whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business maintain their customers while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and clients receive the right messages at the right time. Use site and social networks types to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours each week and boost earnings by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers an extensive client partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on streamlining sales processes and nurturing client partnerships through powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it particularly attractive for businesses wanting to settle their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply worked reliably with minimal hassle or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran smoothly with no problems.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that worked to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got seduced by the alarm call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when everyone’s discussing a new tool that will certainly change your service … The turf typically looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could lower rubbing factors that I ‘d found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to in the beginning, but a couple of more irritations led me to believe perhaps it was time for a change.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably greater than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I knew switching over platforms was going to need moving all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my whole tech infrastructure from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an introduction of just some of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a totally international UX and interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of arrangement job transitioning whatever over– in addition to handling lost performance throughout the button.
However eventually, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would settle with GoHighLevel supplying a better long-term service for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had made a big blunder. The issues started accumulating quickly, up until it reached a point I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish problems I encountered.
Safety And Security Issues & Many Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event pointers, managing membership expirations and a lot more.
Whatever appeared to be working penalty … until suddenly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 entirely pointless emails had been sent to individuals who should NOT have received them. This took place 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 people every day.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. But the trouble persisted.
When I desperately connected to their support group, they slightly asserted “web server issues” were to blame. Yet this explanation really did not make any type of feeling, considering that the mistakes continued taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely unacceptable and just really did not help my service. I have hundreds of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unreliable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer data to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Discouraging UX
Coming from Keap where everything was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and complex.
Basic tasks like editing workflows entailed excavating via food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably spread in entirely different areas. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of overall, private, and item configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek product prepared for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the low cost tag came with costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Vs GrooveFunnels
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the inexpensive rate for accessibility to many features. However I quickly discovered this cheap base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional costs for core performance. All of a sudden my charge card statements had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send out an email with their servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to thousands of bucks in unanticipated costs.
Between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, yet just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open rates plunge practically over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market involvement regularly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a useless 9% open rate.
Despite how much I maximized my sending practices or attempted every troubleshooting trick, I can hardly push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Vs GrooveFunnels.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails instantly had awful interaction. The only point I might think that would certainly be creating this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden fees, broken features, and terrible user interface, I had lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a substantial mistake. The cons dramatically exceeded any advantages.
No software program is ideal, yet the sheer volume of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to handle vital features properly or think a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after investing significant time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the tough phone call to turn around program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. Yet in hindsight, it educated me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around brand-new software commonly covers bigger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is important.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life simpler, not more complex and unpleasant.
- Openness builds count on. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert issues damages count on.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Satisfied support examines indicate much less if excessive concerns indicate bad overall use.
- Perfection is difficult. No single service can flawlessly satisfy every one-of-a-kind company need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental enhancements generally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Simply put, I found out to be a lot more unconvinced of “too great to be true” marketing claims and less attracted by the allure of glossy brand-new things. The devices you use daily must make depend on via transparency and performance, not slick advertising.