As a company proprietor for over a years, I depend on software program and automation to improve operations and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel Data Processing Agreement.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated together. As a business owner constantly wanting to simplify and scale my business, it looked like a desire happened theoretically. Who wouldn’t desire a solitary option that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my dreadful trip of attempting (and falling short) to switch to this popular brand-new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business demands, hopefully you can pick up from my agonizing mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer administration and automation demands.
I discovered Keap instinctive to use and it handled everything I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help small companies keep their clients while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, ensuring leads and clients get the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use internet site and social media kinds to improve lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours weekly and boost income by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no bank card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a thorough client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting customer partnerships with powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it particularly attractive for companies seeking to consolidate their tech stack.
For the most part, it just worked reliably with very little fuss or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any problems.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that worked to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I got seduced by the siren phone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s talking about a brand-new device that will change your company … The grass commonly looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may reduce rubbing points that I ‘d found out to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I withstood initially, however a couple of more disappointments led me to assume possibly it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap data and essentially restoring my whole technology facilities from scratch using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an introduction of simply several of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email customer records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving customer accounts, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once more
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning every little thing over– as well as handling lost productivity throughout the button.
But inevitably, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would settle with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-lasting service for my company, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to realize I had made a large mistake. The issues began accumulating promptly, up until it got to a point I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish issues I ran into.
Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, managing subscription expiries and far more.
Everything seemed to be functioning fine … till instantly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 completely irrelevant e-mails had actually been sent out to users who need to NOT have actually obtained them. This took place 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 people every day.
I frantically tried repairing and reconstructing the automation from square one. Yet the issue continued.
When I seriously reached out to their support team, they vaguely asserted “web server issues” were at fault. Yet this explanation really did not make any feeling, considering that the mistakes continued happening each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was completely unacceptable and just didn’t benefit my business. I have countless calls counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unreliable, how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and delicate customer data to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only intensified these issues …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and challenging.
Easy jobs like editing workflows entailed digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely various areas. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of total, private, and product configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the links to gain access to each of these core settings were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished product ready for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with poor use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the low price tag came with costly compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Data Processing Agreement
One of GoHighLevel’s largest marketing factors is the budget-friendly cost for access to so many features. But I quickly discovered this economical base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic fees for core capability. Suddenly my charge card declarations had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain billed whenever you send an e-mail through their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to thousands of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel membership ended up setting you back considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was tempting, yet simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open rates drop virtually over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement continually struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a worthless 9% open price.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending methods or tried every repairing technique, I can barely push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Data Processing Agreement.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails all of a sudden had awful engagement. The only point I could think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden charges, damaged features, and awful interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a significant mistake. The disadvantages significantly outweighed any advantages.
No software is excellent, however the large volume of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to count on. If I can not trust it to handle critical features properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after investing substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the difficult contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey ill fortune. But in knowledge, it taught me a couple of key lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet asserts completely. Marketing hype around new software program commonly covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is important.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed devices must make your work life easier, not a lot more challenging and messy.
- Transparency builds depend on. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles ruins trust.
- Look for honest testimonials. Happy support evaluates suggest much less if extreme problems suggest inadequate general usability.
- Perfection is difficult. No single service can completely meet every special company demand. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over change. Step-by-step improvements generally exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
Basically, I learned to be extra hesitant of “too excellent to be real” marketing claims and much less attracted by the allure of shiny brand-new items. The devices you use daily should make depend on with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.