As an agency proprietor for over a years, I rely on software application and automation to enhance procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly caught my focus GoHighLevel Agency Unlimited Plan.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client management platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As a business owner always aiming to simplify and scale my business, it appeared like a desire come to life theoretically. Who wouldn’t desire a single option that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of attempting (and falling short) to switch to this prominent new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own organization needs, ideally you can gain from my uncomfortable mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to make use of and it dealt with every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid small companies maintain their clients while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers receive the ideal messages at the right time. Usage site and social media forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with simple visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and repayment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and boost income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides an extensive client partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales processes and supporting client partnerships through effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it specifically appealing for services wanting to combine their tech stack.
For the most part, it just worked reliably with very little hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the siren telephone call of “glossy object disorder”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s talking about a new tool that will certainly revolutionize your service … The turf frequently looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might reduce friction factors that I ‘d discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, however a couple of even more irritations led me to assume perhaps it was time for a change.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I knew switching platforms was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my entire technology infrastructure from the ground up utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s a review of simply a few of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– in addition to dealing with shed performance during the button.
Yet inevitably, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would settle with GoHighLevel giving a better long-term 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 actually made a huge error. The problems started piling up promptly, till it reached a factor I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish troubles I came across.
Safety Issues & Lots of Vermin
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion pointers, handling subscription expirations and far more.
Everything appeared to be functioning fine … until all of a sudden it had not been. One morning, I awoke to locate 171 totally unimportant e-mails had been sent to individuals that must NOT have gotten them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 people every day.
I anxiously tried fixing and reconstructing the automation from the ground up. Yet the trouble lingered.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they vaguely claimed “web server problems” were at fault. But this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, because the errors continued taking place each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was totally inappropriate and simply didn’t help my business. I have hundreds of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unreliable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and difficult.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating through menu systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various sections. Moving in between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I mean by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of total, individual, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek item prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the low cost tag featured expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Agency Unlimited Plan
Among GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the affordable rate for access to so many features. However I swiftly discovered this economical base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional fees for core functionality. Unexpectedly my charge card declarations had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain billed each time you send an email via their web servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to thousands of dollars in unanticipated costs.
In between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, yet simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported e-mail open prices plunge almost over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction continually struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I optimized my sending techniques or tried every fixing trick, I might hardly push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Agency Unlimited Plan.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had dreadful engagement. The only point I could believe that would certainly be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden costs, busted features, and horrible user interface, I had actually lastly reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages substantially exceeded any advantages.
No software program is best, however the large quantity of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to count on. If I can not trust it to take care of important features effectively or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the difficult contact us to reverse course and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey misadventure. Yet in hindsight, it educated me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software program often covers larger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Select simpleness over features. Properly designed devices should make your work life much easier, not extra complex and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs count on. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles damages count on.
- Look for honest reviews. Pleased assistance assesses indicate much less if excessive issues imply inadequate general use.
- Excellence is difficult. No single solution can completely satisfy every distinct service demand. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Step-by-step enhancements commonly outweigh dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In short, I discovered to be much more doubtful of “as well excellent to be true” marketing cases and much less tempted by the allure of glossy new things. The devices you make use of daily need to gain depend on via transparency and performance, not slick advertising.