As a company proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software application and automation to enhance operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Chat Support.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated together. As a business owner constantly looking to streamline and scale my company, it seemed like a desire come true theoretically. That wouldn’t want a solitary remedy that does it all?
But in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch to this prominent brand-new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service requirements, with any luck you can gain from my painful errors and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To recognize 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 (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client monitoring and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small businesses keep their clients while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, ensuring leads and customers get the best messages at the right time. Use web site and social media types to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple visit organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours per week and rise income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive consumer partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on streamlining sales procedures and nurturing client relationships with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it particularly eye-catching for services aiming to settle their tech stack.
Generally, it simply worked accurately with very little difficulty or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently with no problems.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the siren telephone call of “glossy item disorder”. You understand the sensation: when everyone’s speaking about a new device that will certainly change your organization … The yard usually looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may minimize friction points that I would certainly found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood at first, yet a few even more frustrations led me to assume maybe it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending considerably greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I recognized changing systems was mosting likely to need migrating all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire tech framework from scratch using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s an introduction of simply some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and job information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around again
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– not to mention handling lost efficiency during the button.
But ultimately, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel providing a much better long-term option for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to recognize I had made a big blunder. The problems started accumulating promptly, up until it reached a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish troubles I ran into.
Safety Issues & Numerous Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new e-mail clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion reminders, taking care of membership expiries and a lot more.
Whatever appeared to be operating fine … up until unexpectedly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 totally pointless emails had been sent out to customers who should NOT have actually obtained them. This happened 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from square one. Yet the trouble continued.
When I frantically connected to their assistance team, they slightly declared “web server issues” were at fault. However this explanation really did not make any type of feeling, considering that the mistakes proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was entirely unacceptable and just didn’t work for my company. I have countless calls depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unreliable, exactly how could I leave mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these issues …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and difficult.
Simple tasks like modifying workflows included digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in totally different areas. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage total, specific, and product setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously irritated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item prepared for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature under the sun, with poor use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the low cost tag included pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Chat Support
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the cost effective rate for accessibility to many features. However I quickly learned this affordable base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic fees for core performance. Unexpectedly my charge card declarations had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed each time you send out an email via their web servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unanticipated expenses.
Between these per-email fees and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was appealing, however just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open rates plunge almost overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market involvement regularly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantaneously to a pitiful 9% open price.
Despite just how much I maximized my sending techniques or tried every fixing trick, I could barely push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Chat Support.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails suddenly had awful involvement. The only point I might think that would be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden costs, busted features, and horrible interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a significant error. The cons dramatically outweighed any kind of benefits.
No software is best, yet the sheer volume of issues was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to handle essential functions properly or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging call to reverse training course and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey accident. But in knowledge, it educated me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Don’t distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Change brings threat.
- Veterinarian claims thoroughly. Marketing buzz around brand-new software often covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Choose simplicity over features. Properly designed tools need to make your job life simpler, not a lot more difficult and unpleasant.
- Transparency develops trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues destroys depend on.
- Look for objective reviews. Pleased assistance evaluates suggest much less if excessive issues suggest poor overall functionality.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary remedy can perfectly satisfy every special company requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Step-by-step renovations commonly exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
In other words, I learned to be more hesitant of “as well good to be real” marketing cases and much less tempted by the allure of shiny new things. The devices you utilize daily should gain trust fund via transparency and performance, not slick advertising.