As a company proprietor for over a decade, I rely upon software program and automation to streamline operations and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it certainly captured my interest GoHighLevel BambooHR.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly looking to streamline and scale my company, it looked like a dream happened on paper. That wouldn’t want a solitary solution that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and falling short) to switch over to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company demands, ideally you can gain from my agonizing blunders and pumped up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of finest CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job administration choice to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client management and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap instinctive to make use of and it handled every little thing I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist small businesses keep their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, guaranteeing leads and clients receive the right messages at the correct time. Usage site and social media sites forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours weekly and rise revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for local business and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on enhancing sales processes and supporting customer relationships via powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one strategy incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it specifically eye-catching for organizations looking to combine their tech pile.
For the most part, it just worked dependably with marginal difficulty or maintenance called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently with no problems.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that worked to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained attracted by the siren phone call of “shiny things disorder”. You know the sensation: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new tool that will certainly change your service … The yard typically looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel may reduce friction factors that I would certainly learned to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, yet a couple of even more irritations led me to assume possibly it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I recognized switching systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole tech framework from square one making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an overview of simply a few of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email subscriber records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface style
All in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– in addition to handling lost productivity during the button.
However inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-lasting solution for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to understand I had actually made a big blunder. The problems started accumulating promptly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish troubles I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Lots of Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion reminders, managing subscription expirations and a lot more.
Whatever seemed to be working fine … up until instantly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally pointless e-mails had been sent out to customers that need to NOT have actually gotten them. This happened 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 people each day.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. But the problem persisted.
When I seriously connected to their support group, they slightly asserted “web server concerns” were responsible. Yet this description didn’t make any type of sense, given that the errors proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this huge failing was totally undesirable and simply really did not benefit my company. I have thousands of get in touches with relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely undependable, how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where everything was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and difficult.
Basic jobs like editing workflows included excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely various areas. Relocating in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of overall, individual, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to access each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As a person that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a refined product ready for prime-time use. Their concerns appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the affordable price tag featured costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel BambooHR
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the economical rate for access to numerous features. But I swiftly discovered this inexpensive base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional charges for core functionality. Instantly my credit card declarations had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed whenever you send an e-mail through their servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to thousands of dollars in unforeseen prices.
Between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was appealing, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open rates plunge virtually overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement constantly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantly to a pitiful 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I maximized my sending out practices or tried every troubleshooting technique, I might hardly push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel BambooHR.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had terrible engagement. The only thing I could assume that would be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden charges, busted features, and horrible user interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a substantial blunder. The cons significantly outweighed any kind of benefits.
No software is ideal, but the large volume of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to handle important features effectively or think a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the difficult contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I picked up from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey misadventure. But in knowledge, it instructed me a few key lessons:
- Stay with what works. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software often covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is important.
- Choose simplicity over features. Properly designed devices should make your work life simpler, not more challenging and untidy.
- Openness constructs trust. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems destroys count on.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Satisfied assistance evaluates imply much less if excessive issues imply bad overall usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary option can flawlessly meet every one-of-a-kind organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Step-by-step enhancements commonly surpass dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
In short, I discovered to be extra hesitant of “as well great to be true” marketing claims and less tempted by the appeal of shiny new objects. The devices you use daily should gain count on via transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.