As an agency proprietor for over a years, I rely on software and automation to simplify procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my focus Can I Host A Website on GoHighLevel.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As a business owner always wanting to streamline and scale my organization, it seemed like a dream come to life on paper. That wouldn’t want a solitary solution that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and failing) to switch to this preferred brand-new software. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company demands, ideally you can gain from my excruciating blunders and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over 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 relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap intuitive to utilize and it managed every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid local business keep their customers while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, making sure leads and clients receive the best messages at the correct time. Use web site and social media sites kinds to improve lead follow-up, and handle your growth with very easy visit organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours each week and rise revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no bank card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a detailed customer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on enhancing sales procedures and nurturing consumer partnerships with powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it especially appealing for organizations wanting to combine their tech pile.
Essentially, it simply worked reliably with very little hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% great). Automations ran smoothly with no issues.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren phone call of “shiny item syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when every person’s discussing a brand-new tool that will certainly revolutionize your organization … The lawn typically looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could decrease rubbing points that I ‘d found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a few more disappointments led me to believe possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I understood changing platforms was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my entire technology infrastructure from scratch utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s an overview of just some of the initiative called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and task information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once more
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning whatever over– and also taking care of shed efficiency during the button.
Yet inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly repay with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-lasting service for my organization, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a large blunder. The concerns started accumulating quickly, up until it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I experienced.
Security Issues & Several Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion suggestions, handling membership expirations and much more.
Everything seemed to be operating fine … up until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to discover 171 totally irrelevant emails had been sent out to users who ought to NOT have obtained them. This occurred three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals each day.
I hysterically attempted fixing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. But the trouble lingered.
When I seriously connected to their support team, they slightly asserted “server issues” were responsible. But this explanation didn’t make any type of sense, since the errors proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failing was entirely inappropriate and simply didn’t benefit my company. I have hundreds of calls relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely undependable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complicated.
Easy tasks like editing and enhancing workflows included digging via menu systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably spread in totally different areas. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of total, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As a person who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined item all set for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed focused on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with poor functionality as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the affordable price tag came with costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing Can I Host A Website on GoHighLevel
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the economical rate for access to so many features. But I swiftly learned this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic fees for core functionality. All of a sudden my charge card declarations had obscure $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain charged whenever you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unanticipated prices.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, however simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open rates plunge virtually overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement continually hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pitiful 9% open price.
Regardless of how much I enhanced my sending practices or attempted every fixing trick, I could barely push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks Can I Host A Website on GoHighLevel.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had horrible involvement. The only point I could think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden fees, busted features, and dreadful interface, I had lastly reached my limit …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a huge mistake. The cons considerably surpassed any type of advantages.
No software program is best, however the large volume of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to take care of essential features capably or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after investing substantial time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the challenging call to turn around course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. Yet in hindsight, it taught me a few crucial lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing buzz around new software program often covers larger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Pick simpleness over features. Well-designed devices should make your work life less complicated, not a lot more complex and unpleasant.
- Openness develops trust. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles destroys trust fund.
- Look for impartial evaluations. Pleased assistance reviews imply much less if excessive issues imply poor total usability.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary option can completely satisfy every one-of-a-kind company requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Incremental improvements commonly surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
In other words, I learned to be much more skeptical of “as well excellent to be real” marketing claims and less lured by the allure of shiny brand-new things. The devices you make use of daily must gain depend on through openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.