As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to streamline operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it certainly caught my focus GoHighLevel AfterPay.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly wanting to streamline and scale my business, it felt like a desire happened on paper. Who wouldn’t want a single service that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred brand-new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business requirements, ideally you can pick up from my unpleasant mistakes and blew up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this listing of best CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and job management alternative to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation demands.
I discovered Keap instinctive to utilize and it dealt with whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help small companies keep their customers while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers obtain the appropriate messages at the right time. Usage site and social networks kinds to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your development with easy visit organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours each week and increase profits by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive customer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and nurturing consumer relationships through effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it especially eye-catching for companies wanting to consolidate their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply worked accurately with marginal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were fantastic (like 35% great). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I got seduced by the siren call of “shiny item disorder”. You recognize the feeling: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new device that will change your business … The grass typically looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might minimize rubbing points that I ‘d found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood initially, but a few more frustrations led me to believe perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I decided to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I understood switching systems was going to call for migrating all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my whole tech framework from square one utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s an overview of just a few of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and project information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface style
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of arrangement work transitioning everything over– as well as handling lost efficiency during the switch.
Yet eventually, it was a calculated investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-term solution for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had made a large error. The concerns started piling up quickly, until it got to a point I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish troubles I encountered.
Security Issues & Lots of Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event tips, taking care of membership expirations and much more.
Everything appeared to be working penalty … till all of a sudden it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 completely pointless e-mails had been sent to individuals who must NOT have actually obtained them. This happened three days straight, with a different set of 160 individuals each day.
I anxiously attempted fixing and rebuilding the automation from scratch. Yet the problem continued.
When I frantically connected to their assistance team, they vaguely claimed “server issues” were responsible. But this explanation didn’t make any kind of sense, since the mistakes proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely inappropriate and simply really did not help my service. I have countless calls relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unstable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and difficult.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely different areas. Moving between functions felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to take care of overall, private, and product setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to accessibility each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item all set for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with bad use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the low cost tag came with pricey concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel AfterPay
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing factors is the affordable price for accessibility to many features. However I swiftly discovered this affordable base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional fees for core performance. Suddenly my charge card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get charged every time you send an e-mail via their servers. So for high quantity individuals, this added up to numerous bucks in unanticipated expenses.
Between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel registration wound up costing significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open rates drop virtually overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience interaction consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a worthless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I optimized my sending methods or tried every repairing method, I can barely push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel AfterPay.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails all of a sudden had dreadful involvement. The only thing I might assume that would be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden charges, broken features, and dreadful user interface, I had finally reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a massive blunder. The cons drastically surpassed any kind of advantages.
No software application is perfect, but the sheer volume of troubles was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to manage vital features properly or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the challenging contact us to turn around course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. Yet in hindsight, it taught me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet declares thoroughly. Marketing buzz around brand-new software commonly obscures bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is essential.
- Pick simpleness over features. Well-designed tools need to make your job life much easier, not extra complex and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs depend on. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles damages count on.
- Look for unbiased evaluations. Delighted assistance reviews indicate much less if excessive concerns imply inadequate general functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary solution can perfectly meet every unique business need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Incremental enhancements normally exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I found out to be much more hesitant of “as well great to be real” marketing cases and much less attracted by the appeal of shiny brand-new things. The devices you use daily must gain trust fund with transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.