As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to enhance procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel Duplicate Contacts.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As a business owner always looking to streamline and scale my business, it looked like a dream happened theoretically. Who would not desire a single service that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of attempting (and falling short) to switch over to this prominent new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company needs, with any luck you can gain from my uncomfortable errors and blew up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and project management option to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer management and automation demands.
I located Keap instinctive to use and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to assist small companies keep their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers receive the appropriate messages at the right time. Use website and social networks kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours each week and increase income by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and nurturing customer relationships with powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially attractive for organizations looking to settle their tech pile.
Generally, it simply functioned accurately with very little hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran smoothly with no concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the siren call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s speaking about a brand-new device that will transform your organization … The lawn usually looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may decrease rubbing points that I would certainly discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, however a couple of more irritations led me to believe maybe it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was going to require moving all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my entire technology facilities from square one utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s a review of just some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and project information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface layout
Done in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement job transitioning everything over– in addition to dealing with shed productivity throughout the switch.
However ultimately, it was a calculated financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel giving a much better long-term remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a big blunder. The issues began accumulating swiftly, till it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I encountered.
Safety Issues & Lots of Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion pointers, handling subscription expirations and far more.
Every little thing seemed to be functioning penalty … till instantly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to find 171 totally unnecessary emails had actually been sent out to users that should NOT have actually obtained them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals every day.
I anxiously tried repairing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. But the problem continued.
When I seriously reached out to their support team, they slightly asserted “web server problems” were to blame. But this description really did not make any kind of sense, considering that the errors continued happening each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was entirely inappropriate and simply didn’t help my company. I have countless calls counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely unreliable, how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complicated.
Simple tasks like editing workflows involved excavating with food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various areas. Relocating between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage overall, individual, and product setups. Yet for some crazy factor, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined product ready for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the low cost tag came with costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Duplicate Contacts
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest selling points is the inexpensive rate for accessibility to numerous features. But I quickly learned this cheap base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core capability. All of a sudden my bank card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed every single time you send an e-mail with their servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unexpected expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel registration wound up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, however simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported e-mail open prices plunge virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open price.
No matter how much I enhanced my sending out methods or attempted every repairing method, I could barely push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards GoHighLevel Duplicate Contacts.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails suddenly had horrible engagement. The only thing I can assume that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed charges, broken features, and awful interface, I had actually ultimately reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a massive blunder. The disadvantages substantially exceeded any benefits.
No software is best, but the sheer quantity of troubles was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to handle essential functions competently or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending significant time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the tough contact us to reverse training course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly accident. Yet in hindsight, it showed me a few vital lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software usually covers larger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices need to make your job life simpler, not more complex and untidy.
- Transparency develops trust. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems ruins trust fund.
- Look for impartial testimonials. Pleased support examines mean much less if too much concerns indicate poor overall use.
- Excellence is difficult. No single solution can flawlessly satisfy every special organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Incremental enhancements typically outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Basically, I learned to be extra cynical of “also good to be true” marketing claims and less attracted by the attraction of glossy new objects. The tools you use daily should gain count on via transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.