As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I rely on software program and automation to improve procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely caught my attention GoHighLevel Docs.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur always seeking to simplify and scale my organization, it felt like a desire become a reality on paper. That wouldn’t want a single service that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my devastating trip of attempting (and stopping working) to change to this popular new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company demands, ideally you can pick up from my uncomfortable errors and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, then here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation requirements.
I located Keap instinctive to use and it managed everything I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small companies maintain their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and clients receive the appropriate messages at the right time. Use internet site and social networks types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours per week and rise earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive consumer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for small businesses and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales processes and nurturing consumer connections with powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one technique integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it particularly attractive for services wanting to consolidate their tech pile.
Generally, it just worked accurately with minimal difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% terrific). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that worked to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the siren phone call of “glossy object syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when every person’s speaking about a new tool that will change your company … The grass often looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could decrease friction factors that I would certainly learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted initially, yet a couple of even more frustrations led me to think possibly it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing dramatically greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I knew changing platforms was going to call for migrating all my Keap information and essentially restoring my entire technology framework from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s an introduction of simply several of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface style
Done in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– and also dealing with shed productivity during the switch.
However eventually, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a far better lasting solution for my service, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to realize I had made a big mistake. The issues started accumulating promptly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish troubles I experienced.
Protection Issues & Numerous Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email customers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event pointers, taking care of subscription expiries and much more.
Everything appeared to be functioning penalty … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally unnecessary e-mails had actually been sent to individuals who need to NOT have actually obtained them. This occurred 3 days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals every day.
I anxiously attempted repairing and restoring the automation from scratch. But the issue persisted.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they vaguely declared “web server concerns” were at fault. However this description didn’t make any kind of feeling, since the errors continued taking place each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was completely undesirable and simply didn’t work for my service. I have thousands of contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely unreliable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only intensified these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and complicated.
Straightforward tasks like editing workflows entailed digging with menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely different areas. Relocating between functions felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to handle general, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane factor, the links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished product ready for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature under the sun, with poor functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the low cost tag included costly compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Docs
One of GoHighLevel’s largest marketing factors is the economical cost for accessibility to numerous features. Yet I promptly discovered this cheap base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional charges for core capability. Unexpectedly my charge card statements had vague $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain billed whenever you send out an e-mail through their servers. So for high volume customers, this added up to hundreds of dollars in unanticipated costs.
In between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, but simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured e-mail open prices drop almost over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction consistently hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a pathetic 9% open price.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending practices or attempted every troubleshooting technique, I might hardly push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Docs.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails suddenly had awful engagement. The only thing I might assume that would be triggering this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability concerns, hidden fees, broken features, and terrible interface, I had lastly reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a huge mistake. The disadvantages significantly surpassed any benefits.
No software program is perfect, but the sheer quantity of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to manage vital functions effectively or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the difficult phone call to turn around course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. However in knowledge, it showed me a few essential lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Vet asserts thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software program often obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is important.
- Pick simplicity over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your work life much easier, not more complex and untidy.
- Transparency builds depend on. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues destroys trust fund.
- Look for honest reviews. Happy assistance assesses suggest less if too much concerns imply inadequate overall functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No single option can perfectly meet every one-of-a-kind business demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over change. Step-by-step enhancements normally outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
Basically, I discovered to be more skeptical of “as well excellent to be true” marketing claims and less attracted by the appeal of shiny new items. The tools you utilize daily need to make trust fund through transparency and performance, not slick advertising.