As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I rely on software and automation to streamline operations and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Content Army.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one customer administration system with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to streamline and scale my service, it appeared like a desire happened on paper. That wouldn’t desire a solitary service that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of trying (and failing) to change to this preferred new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business requirements, with any luck you can learn from my uncomfortable blunders and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching 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 been happily depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation requirements.
I found Keap intuitive to utilize and it managed everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid small businesses maintain their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, ensuring leads and customers obtain the right messages at the right time. Usage website and social media sites types to improve lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours each week and boost profits by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a comprehensive client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing client partnerships through powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially attractive for companies looking to consolidate their tech pile.
Essentially, it simply worked reliably with very little fuss or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% great). Automations ran efficiently without any concerns.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that worked to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the siren telephone call of “shiny things disorder”. You know the feeling: when every person’s talking about a new tool that will certainly revolutionize your business … The yard often looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could reduce rubbing points that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, however a few more aggravations led me to assume possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing significantly greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was going to need moving all my Keap information and basically restoring my whole technology infrastructure from scratch making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s a summary of simply a few of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface design
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of arrangement job transitioning whatever over– in addition to dealing with lost efficiency throughout the button.
However ultimately, it was a calculated investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly repay with GoHighLevel supplying a far better long-lasting solution for my business, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to realize I had actually made a huge blunder. The problems started accumulating quickly, up until it got to a point I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I encountered.
Safety Issues & Lots of Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event suggestions, taking care of subscription expiries and much more.
Everything appeared to be functioning penalty … until instantly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely pointless e-mails had actually been sent out to individuals who ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This happened three days in a row, with a various set of 160 people every day.
I anxiously attempted fixing and reconstructing the automation from the ground up. However the problem continued.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “server concerns” were at fault. Yet this description really did not make any feeling, because the errors proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely unacceptable and just really did not benefit my organization. I have hundreds of calls relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally unreliable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these issues …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and complicated.
Easy tasks like modifying workflows included digging via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably scattered in entirely various sections. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle overall, individual, and product arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As a person that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a refined item all set for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with bad usability as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the low cost tag came with pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Content Army
Among GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the budget friendly cost for accessibility to so many features. However I rapidly discovered this affordable base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic fees for core functionality. Unexpectedly my bank card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send out an email through their servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to hundreds of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email costs and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel membership ended up costing dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, however just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured email open rates plummet practically over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market interaction regularly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a worthless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I maximized my sending techniques or tried every fixing trick, I could hardly nudge open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Content Army.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had dreadful interaction. The only thing I could think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden costs, damaged features, and awful interface, I had lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a massive mistake. The cons significantly surpassed any type of advantages.
No software application is best, however the sheer volume of troubles was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to take care of crucial functions properly or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after investing considerable time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the difficult phone call to reverse course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I picked up from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a costly ill fortune. Yet in knowledge, it instructed me a few vital lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software application often covers bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Pick simpleness over features. Well-designed tools must make your work life less complicated, not more complex and unpleasant.
- Transparency builds depend on. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles ruins trust.
- Look for impartial reviews. Satisfied support evaluates mean less if extreme concerns suggest bad overall functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary remedy can flawlessly fulfill every distinct business demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step enhancements typically exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I found out to be extra hesitant of “too great to be real” marketing claims and less lured by the allure of shiny brand-new items. The devices you utilize daily should earn count on via transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.