As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I rely upon software application and automation to enhance procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it most definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Basic Account Setup.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it seemed like a desire come true on paper. That wouldn’t want a single option that does it all?
Yet in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and failing) to switch over to this popular new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company needs, ideally you can learn from my agonizing errors and blew up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of best CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer monitoring and automation needs.
I located Keap instinctive to use and it managed whatever I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small businesses keep their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making sure leads and clients obtain the ideal messages at the right time. Usage website and social networks types to improve lead follow-up, and handle your growth with very easy consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and repayment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours per week and increase profits by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough consumer relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting consumer connections with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one strategy incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it particularly attractive for organizations aiming to consolidate their tech stack.
For the most part, it simply worked reliably with very little difficulty or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% great). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I got seduced by the siren phone call of “shiny object disorder”. You know the sensation: when everybody’s discussing a brand-new device that will certainly change your service … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could lower rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, however a couple of even more irritations led me to think possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I knew changing platforms was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my entire technology framework from scratch utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s a summary of just some of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels around once more
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– as well as handling lost performance throughout the switch.
But ultimately, it was a computed investment I wanted to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel providing a much better lasting service for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a large blunder. The issues began accumulating quickly, up until it reached a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the horrible problems I experienced.
Protection Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail clients, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event reminders, handling membership expiries and a lot more.
Every little thing seemed to be working fine … until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely pointless e-mails had been sent to users that must NOT have obtained them. This happened 3 days in a row, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I frantically attempted repairing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. However the problem persisted.
When I frantically connected to their assistance team, they vaguely declared “server problems” were at fault. Yet this explanation really did not make any sense, because the errors proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was totally inappropriate and simply didn’t help my business. I have countless calls relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely undependable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer data to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface just intensified these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and difficult.
Simple tasks like editing workflows involved excavating via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably scattered in completely various areas. Relocating in between functions felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to handle total, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some crazy 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 style, this seriously annoyed me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared focused on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with poor use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the affordable price tag featured expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Basic Account Setup
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the budget-friendly price for accessibility to so many features. Yet I rapidly learned this inexpensive base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core performance. All of a sudden my bank card declarations had obscure $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send an email through their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unanticipated costs.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open prices plunge practically over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement constantly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a useless 9% open price.
No matter how much I maximized my sending practices or attempted every troubleshooting method, I might hardly push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Basic Account Setup.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails instantly had awful involvement. The only thing I can believe that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, hidden fees, busted features, and awful user interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a huge error. The cons considerably outweighed any advantages.
No software is best, however the large volume of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to depend on. If I can not trust it to handle critical functions properly or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after spending significant time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough contact us to turn around training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey accident. However in knowledge, it educated me a few vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software program typically obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed devices need to make your job life easier, not extra challenging and untidy.
- Openness develops count on. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues destroys trust fund.
- Seek unbiased testimonials. Satisfied assistance evaluates mean less if excessive concerns indicate bad overall functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No single solution can flawlessly meet every distinct service demand. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Incremental improvements normally surpass dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
Simply put, I found out to be much more cynical of “too excellent to be true” marketing cases and much less tempted by the appeal of shiny new things. The devices you make use of daily ought to earn count on through openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.