As a company owner for over a decade, I count on software and automation to improve procedures and provide results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it certainly caught my interest GoHighLevel Documents and Contracts.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to simplify and scale my company, it seemed like a dream become a reality on paper. Who would not desire a solitary option that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and falling short) to switch over to this prominent new software. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, with any luck you can gain from my uncomfortable errors and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task management alternative to GoHighLevel, after that below are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation demands.
I located Keap intuitive to utilize and it handled everything I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to assist local business keep their clients while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making certain leads and clients receive the right messages at the correct time. Use internet site and social networks kinds to improve lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple visit organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and increase income by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a thorough customer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for small companies and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales processes and nurturing consumer partnerships through powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it specifically attractive for organizations seeking to combine their tech pile.
Generally, it simply functioned accurately with marginal difficulty or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently with no issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I got seduced by the alarm phone call of “glossy things syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s talking about a new tool that will transform your organization … The lawn often looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might lower rubbing factors that I would certainly found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a couple of more stress led me to think possibly it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I recognized switching over platforms was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap information and basically reconstructing my entire technology infrastructure from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s an introduction of simply some of the initiative required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email customer documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and project information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning whatever over– in addition to handling lost efficiency throughout the button.
But eventually, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a better lasting service for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on use to recognize I had made a big blunder. The issues started piling up rapidly, until it reached a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish problems I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Lots of Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event tips, managing membership expiries and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be working fine … till all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to find 171 totally unnecessary e-mails had been sent out to users that should NOT have actually received them. This happened 3 days straight, with a different set of 160 individuals each day.
I frantically tried repairing and restoring the automation from square one. But the trouble persisted.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they vaguely claimed “web server issues” were at fault. Yet this explanation really did not make any feeling, considering that the mistakes continued taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely undesirable and just didn’t work for my organization. I have thousands of calls depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely undependable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate customer data to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these issues …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and difficult.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in entirely different sections. Moving between features really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage total, individual, and item setups. Yet for some insane reason, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As a person that values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously irritated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a refined item prepared for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with bad usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the small cost tag came with expensive compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Documents and Contracts
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest selling factors is the cost effective price for access to many features. But I rapidly discovered this inexpensive base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic fees for core functionality. All of a sudden my bank card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain billed every time you send out an e-mail via their servers. So for high quantity individuals, this added up to numerous dollars in unforeseen prices.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was appealing, yet just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured email open rates plummet virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience involvement regularly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending techniques or tried every repairing trick, I can hardly push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Documents and Contracts.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had awful engagement. The only thing I might assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed charges, busted features, and horrible user interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a big blunder. The cons significantly exceeded any kind of benefits.
No software application is perfect, yet the sheer volume of issues was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to handle critical features effectively or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after spending considerable time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the hard phone call to reverse program and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey accident. However in hindsight, it showed me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Veterinarian asserts completely. Marketing buzz around new software program frequently covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed devices ought to make your job life less complicated, not extra complex and untidy.
- Transparency builds count on. Opaque pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles destroys count on.
- Seek objective testimonials. Pleased assistance evaluates suggest much less if extreme concerns imply bad overall usability.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary remedy can flawlessly meet every distinct business need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step renovations usually surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I found out to be much more doubtful of “as well good to be true” marketing cases and less attracted by the allure of shiny brand-new things. The tools you make use of daily need to make count on with openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.