As an agency proprietor for over a years, I rely on software application and automation to streamline procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Walkthrough.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service devices integrated together. As an entrepreneur constantly looking to streamline and scale my company, it appeared like a dream come to life theoretically. That would not desire a solitary solution that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company needs, ideally you can pick up from my painful mistakes and pumped up expectations.
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 searching for a sales, marketing, and job management alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help small businesses keep their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making sure leads and customers get the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use site and social networks types to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy consultation scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours each week and increase profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a detailed client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales processes and supporting consumer partnerships through powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one strategy combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially attractive for companies wanting to settle their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply functioned reliably with very little fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without any concerns.
So why on earth was I lured 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 siren telephone call of “shiny things syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a new tool that will reinvent your company … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might reduce rubbing factors that I would certainly learned to endure for many years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a couple of even more aggravations led me to believe possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I understood switching platforms was going to need migrating all my Keap data and basically restoring my whole tech framework from the ground up making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s a review of simply several of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and task data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement job transitioning everything over– and also taking care of lost productivity throughout the button.
Yet ultimately, it was a calculated financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a far better long-term service for my business, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a huge mistake. The concerns started accumulating promptly, till it reached a factor I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I encountered.
Safety And Security Issues & Numerous Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel positioned 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 consisted of series for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out occasion suggestions, handling membership expiries and far more.
Every little thing seemed to be functioning fine … till unexpectedly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 completely irrelevant e-mails had actually been sent to users who ought to NOT have obtained them. This occurred three days straight, with a different batch of 160 individuals every day.
I desperately tried fixing and reconstructing the automation from scratch. However the problem continued.
When I desperately reached out to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “server problems” were to blame. However this explanation really did not make any feeling, because the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this huge failing was entirely unacceptable and simply didn’t work for my business. I have countless calls relying on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unreliable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer data to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these issues …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and complicated.
Simple tasks like editing workflows involved digging with menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in completely different areas. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage total, private, and product arrangements. Yet for some crazy factor, the web links to access each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously irritated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a refined product ready for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with inadequate usability as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the low price tag came with pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Walkthrough
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the inexpensive cost for accessibility to numerous features. Yet I rapidly discovered this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic fees for core capability. All of a sudden my credit card declarations had vague $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get billed every time you send out an e-mail via their servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unforeseen prices.
Between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, however simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open prices plunge almost overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending out techniques or tried every repairing technique, I could hardly nudge open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Walkthrough.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had horrible interaction. The only thing I might believe that would be triggering this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed costs, damaged features, and horrible interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a big mistake. The cons significantly surpassed any type of benefits.
No software application is ideal, yet the sheer quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to manage vital features competently or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after spending considerable time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the hard contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I learned from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. But in knowledge, it showed me a couple of key lessons:
- Stick to what works. Don’t upset what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet asserts extensively. Marketing buzz around new software application commonly covers bigger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices should make your job life easier, not a lot more challenging and messy.
- Transparency constructs count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles ruins depend on.
- Look for honest evaluations. Pleased assistance evaluates imply less if excessive concerns imply bad general use.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary remedy can perfectly satisfy every one-of-a-kind service demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Incremental renovations generally outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
In short, I learned to be more cynical of “as well great to be real” marketing insurance claims and less tempted by the attraction of shiny brand-new items. The tools you utilize daily should make trust through transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.