As a firm owner for over a decade, I depend on software and automation to simplify operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel $497 Pricing Plan.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly seeking to streamline and scale my business, it appeared like a dream come true theoretically. That wouldn’t want a single remedy that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this popular new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service needs, with any luck you can pick up from my painful mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client monitoring and automation needs.
I discovered Keap intuitive to make use of and it dealt with everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business maintain their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the appropriate messages at the right time. Use site and social media sites forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy visit organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours weekly and increase earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a thorough customer relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for small companies and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and supporting customer relationships with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it specifically appealing for businesses aiming to settle their technology pile.
For the most part, it just worked reliably with marginal hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any concerns.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got attracted by the siren phone call of “shiny object disorder”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new device that will revolutionize your business … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could minimize friction points that I would certainly discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a couple of even more frustrations led me to believe maybe it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I knew switching over platforms was going to call for migrating all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my whole tech framework from the ground up using all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s a review of simply some of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email customer records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface style
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning every little thing over– not to mention managing shed performance throughout the switch.
However ultimately, it was a calculated financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would settle with GoHighLevel offering a far better long-lasting remedy for my service, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a huge blunder. The problems began accumulating quickly, until it reached a point I needed to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the horrible problems I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new email clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion tips, handling membership expiries and much more.
Every little thing seemed to be working fine … until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to find 171 totally irrelevant e-mails had actually been sent to customers who need to NOT have gotten them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a various set of 160 people daily.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from square one. But the problem persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance team, they slightly claimed “server issues” were to blame. Yet this explanation didn’t make any sense, considering that the mistakes continued occurring each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this large failure was entirely inappropriate and simply didn’t help my organization. I have thousands of calls counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally undependable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only compounded these problems …
Discouraging UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and challenging.
Simple tasks like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in totally different areas. Relocating in between functions felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage overall, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the links to gain access to each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a polished item prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the low price tag included expensive compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel $497 Pricing Plan
Among GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the budget-friendly price for access to so many features. However I rapidly learned this cheap base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic costs for core functionality. All of a sudden my bank card declarations had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged whenever you send an email with their web servers. So for high volume users, this added up to hundreds of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, yet simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open prices plunge almost over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market involvement continually hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a pitiful 9% open price.
Despite just how much I maximized my sending practices or attempted every troubleshooting method, I could barely nudge open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel $497 Pricing Plan.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails instantly had horrible interaction. The only thing I might assume that would be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, hidden costs, busted features, and horrible user interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a big error. The cons drastically outweighed any advantages.
No software is ideal, however the large volume of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to deal with crucial functions effectively or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after spending considerable time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the challenging call to turn around program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly misadventure. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a few vital lessons:
- Stay with what works. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software application typically obscures bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is important.
- Select simplicity over features. Well-designed devices need to make your work life easier, not more complex and unpleasant.
- Openness develops trust fund. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles destroys depend on.
- Seek honest reviews. Happy assistance evaluates indicate less if extreme concerns suggest inadequate total functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary option can completely meet every special service requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Step-by-step renovations typically outweigh dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In other words, I learned to be extra unconvinced of “also excellent to be real” marketing insurance claims and much less lured by the appeal of shiny new items. The devices you utilize daily need to gain count on via openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.