As an agency owner for over a decade, I count on software application and automation to simplify procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel A2P 10DLC.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As a business owner always aiming to streamline and scale my organization, it looked like a desire come to life on paper. That wouldn’t desire a solitary service that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and stopping working) to switch to this preferred new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company demands, hopefully you can gain from my excruciating blunders and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task administration alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer administration and automation needs.
I found Keap intuitive to use and it took care of every little thing I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to assist small businesses keep their clients while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers get the right messages at the correct time. Use internet site and social media sites types to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your growth with easy appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and boost income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a thorough consumer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for local business and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and supporting consumer relationships via powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it particularly eye-catching for companies wanting to combine their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply worked accurately with very little difficulty or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I got attracted by the alarm phone call of “glossy things syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when every person’s talking about a brand-new device that will transform your organization … The yard often looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might decrease rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted initially, however a couple of even more stress led me to believe possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending substantially more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I understood switching systems was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole tech facilities from the ground up making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s an overview of just some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface layout
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– not to mention dealing with lost performance during the button.
But ultimately, it was a calculated investment I wanted to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a far better long-lasting option for my service, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a big error. The problems started piling up rapidly, till it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I experienced.
Security Issues & Lots of Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event tips, taking care of subscription expiries and much more.
Every little thing seemed to be functioning fine … till all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to locate 171 totally pointless emails had been sent out to individuals that should NOT have received them. This took place three days in a row, with a various batch of 160 individuals every day.
I anxiously attempted fixing and rebuilding the automation from square one. Yet the issue persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they vaguely asserted “server problems” were responsible. But this description really did not make any feeling, because the mistakes proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely undesirable and just didn’t benefit my organization. I have hundreds of contacts relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely undependable, how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate customer data to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just intensified these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and challenging.
Easy tasks like editing workflows entailed excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely different areas. Moving between features really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to handle overall, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a refined item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared focused on packing in every feature imaginable, with poor use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly recognized the affordable price tag included pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel A2P 10DLC
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling factors is the budget-friendly price for access to so many features. But I quickly learned this economical base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic fees for core capability. Suddenly my bank card declarations had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain billed whenever you send an email through their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, but just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured email open prices plummet almost overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience interaction regularly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite how much I maximized my sending out methods or attempted every troubleshooting technique, I could barely nudge open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel A2P 10DLC.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had awful involvement. The only point I can think that would be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability concerns, hidden costs, busted features, and awful user interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a big blunder. The disadvantages substantially outweighed any advantages.
No software program is perfect, yet the large volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to manage important functions capably or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing considerable time, money, and effort migrating.
So I made the hard contact us to reverse training course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. However in hindsight, it educated me a couple of key lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing hype around new software application frequently covers larger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life much easier, not much more complicated and messy.
- Openness develops depend on. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems ruins count on.
- Look for impartial testimonials. Pleased assistance evaluates mean less if excessive problems suggest poor overall use.
- Excellence is difficult. No single option can flawlessly fulfill every special company need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Incremental enhancements normally outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
In short, I found out to be a lot more hesitant of “too good to be true” marketing cases and less lured by the attraction of glossy brand-new items. The devices you utilize daily ought to gain trust with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.