As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software application and automation to enhance procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it most definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Email Services.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one customer management platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly seeking to simplify and scale my business, it appeared like a desire happened theoretically. That would not desire a single option that does it all?
Yet in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of trying (and stopping working) to change to this prominent new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business requirements, hopefully you can gain from my excruciating mistakes and blew up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of ideal CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation demands.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to use and it dealt with everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help small businesses maintain their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the appropriate messages at the right time. Use web site and social media types to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours weekly and increase revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides an extensive consumer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on enhancing sales processes and nurturing customer connections via powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it particularly attractive for services aiming to combine their technology pile.
Essentially, it just worked reliably with very little hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were wonderful (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly with no concerns.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the siren telephone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new device that will change your service … The yard typically looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might decrease rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I withstood initially, yet a few more aggravations led me to think perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I understood changing platforms was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire tech infrastructure from the ground up making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Here’s a review of just a few of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email customer records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and task information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface style
All in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning whatever over– in addition to taking care of shed efficiency throughout the button.
But eventually, it was a calculated financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel providing a better long-term remedy for my company, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on use to recognize I had made a big blunder. The concerns started accumulating promptly, until it reached a point I had to reduce my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish problems I experienced.
Protection Issues & Numerous Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out occasion reminders, managing membership expiries and a lot more.
Everything seemed to be functioning fine … up until unexpectedly it had not been. One early morning, I woke up to discover 171 completely unnecessary emails had been sent out to individuals that must NOT have gotten them. This happened three days in a row, with a different set of 160 individuals daily.
I anxiously tried repairing and restoring the automation from scratch. However the issue lingered.
When I desperately connected to their support group, they slightly asserted “server issues” were to blame. But this description didn’t make any type of sense, given that the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was entirely undesirable and just didn’t benefit my company. I have hundreds of contacts counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally unstable, exactly how could I leave mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just intensified these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Coming from Keap where everything was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and complex.
Easy jobs like editing workflows involved excavating with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely different sections. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I mean by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage total, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously irritated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished item ready for prime-time usage. Their top priorities appeared focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with poor use as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon realized the low price tag came with costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Email Services
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the cost effective rate for access to numerous features. However I promptly learned this affordable base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic charges for core functionality. Unexpectedly my charge card declarations had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get billed every time you send out an email via their servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous dollars in unexpected prices.
Between these per-email charges and paying added for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured email open rates drop nearly over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a worthless 9% open rate.
Regardless of just how much I optimized my sending techniques or attempted every fixing technique, I might barely push open rates back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Email Services.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails instantly had horrible engagement. The only point I could believe that would be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden costs, damaged features, and dreadful interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a significant mistake. The disadvantages dramatically surpassed any benefits.
No software program is perfect, however the sheer volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to deal with vital functions properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending considerable time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the difficult call to reverse training course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I gained from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive misadventure. However in knowledge, it showed me a few key lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Do not upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software frequently covers larger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Select simplicity over features. Well-designed tools need to make your work life much easier, not more difficult and untidy.
- Transparency develops count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems ruins depend on.
- Seek honest evaluations. Happy support examines indicate less if excessive concerns suggest poor total use.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary remedy can flawlessly satisfy every special business requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over revolution. Incremental enhancements commonly exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
In other words, I discovered to be more skeptical of “also great to be true” marketing claims and less attracted by the appeal of glossy brand-new items. The tools you utilize daily must gain trust through transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.