As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely on software and automation to improve operations and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Features.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly wanting to streamline and scale my organization, it appeared like a dream come to life theoretically. That wouldn’t want a solitary option that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and falling short) to switch over to this prominent new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business requirements, hopefully you can pick up from my excruciating errors and pumped up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer administration and automation requirements.
I located Keap intuitive to make use of and it handled every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid small businesses keep their clients while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, ensuring leads and customers receive the right messages at the right time. Usage internet site and social media sites forms to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours weekly and rise revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a thorough client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small companies and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and nurturing client connections through effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one method combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it specifically eye-catching for companies wanting to combine their technology stack.
Essentially, it simply worked dependably with marginal fuss or upkeep called for. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without concerns.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I got seduced by the siren phone call of “glossy object syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when every person’s discussing a new tool that will certainly change your business … The turf typically looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel may lower friction factors that I would certainly found out to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted initially, however a few even more frustrations led me to assume perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending dramatically greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I knew switching platforms was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap data and essentially restoring my whole tech infrastructure from scratch using all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s a summary of just some of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning everything over– in addition to handling shed performance throughout the button.
However eventually, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would certainly repay with GoHighLevel giving a much better long-term option for my company, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to realize I had made a huge blunder. The concerns began piling up promptly, until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish issues I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to carefully recreate each and every single 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 pointers, handling membership expirations and much more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning fine … till all of a sudden it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to find 171 totally irrelevant e-mails had actually been sent out to users that need to NOT have actually gotten them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 people daily.
I hysterically attempted fixing and rebuilding the automation from scratch. However the issue persisted.
When I desperately reached out to their support team, they slightly asserted “server concerns” were responsible. However this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, considering that the mistakes continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failure was entirely unacceptable and just really did not benefit my organization. I have hundreds of contacts relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unreliable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and difficult.
Basic tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably scattered in absolutely different sections. Moving in between features 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 handle general, specific, and item setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item all set for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly realized the low cost tag featured costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Features
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest selling factors is the affordable price for access to so many features. However I swiftly learned this economical base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic fees for core performance. All of a sudden my bank card declarations had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain billed every time you send out an email via their servers. So for high volume users, this added up to numerous dollars in unforeseen prices.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open prices plummet practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement continually struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pathetic 9% open rate.
Despite how much I maximized my sending out methods or tried every repairing trick, I could barely push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Features.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had awful engagement. The only point I can believe that would certainly be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden costs, busted features, and awful interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages drastically outweighed any advantages.
No software is best, yet the large volume of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to deal with important features effectively or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after spending significant time, money, and effort migrating.
So I made the tough phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I gained from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. However in hindsight, it instructed me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims thoroughly. Marketing hype around brand-new software application usually obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is important.
- Select simpleness over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life less complicated, not a lot more difficult and messy.
- Openness develops depend on. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles damages count on.
- Look for honest evaluations. Happy assistance assesses suggest less if too much concerns indicate bad general functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No single remedy can perfectly satisfy every one-of-a-kind business demand. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Step-by-step improvements commonly exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
In short, I discovered to be much more cynical of “also excellent to be real” marketing insurance claims and less lured by the allure of shiny new items. The devices you make use of daily need to make trust fund with transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.