As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to enhance operations and provide results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel For Agencies.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated with each other. As an entrepreneur always aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it looked like a dream come true on paper. That wouldn’t desire a solitary remedy that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this popular brand-new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, ideally you can gain from my unpleasant blunders and inflated assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of finest CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then here are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer monitoring and automation demands.
I located Keap intuitive to utilize and it handled whatever I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business maintain their customers while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers receive the ideal messages at the correct time. Usage site and social networks forms to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple consultation scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and repayment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours weekly and rise income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no bank card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting consumer relationships through effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it specifically attractive for companies wanting to consolidate their tech pile.
Generally, it simply functioned reliably with minimal fuss or upkeep needed. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% great). Automations ran efficiently with no concerns.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I got seduced by the alarm phone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will certainly reinvent your company … The grass commonly looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may decrease rubbing factors that I would certainly found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, however a couple of even more frustrations led me to assume perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I knew switching over systems was going to require moving all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my entire tech facilities from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s an introduction of simply some of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels around once more
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and user interface layout
Done in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement job transitioning whatever over– and also taking care of lost efficiency during the button.
However eventually, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel supplying a far better lasting remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a large mistake. The concerns started accumulating promptly, until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish issues I ran into.
Safety Issues & Many Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion tips, taking care of subscription expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning fine … till instantly it had not been. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 entirely unnecessary e-mails had been sent out to customers who should NOT have actually received them. This took place three days straight, with a different batch of 160 individuals every day.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. However the problem lingered.
When I frantically connected to their assistance team, they vaguely claimed “web server issues” were responsible. But this description didn’t make any sense, because the mistakes continued taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this huge failure was completely unacceptable and just didn’t work for my service. I have countless calls counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unreliable, just how could I leave mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and complex.
Easy tasks like modifying workflows involved digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various areas. Relocating between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of overall, specific, and product setups. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the small cost tag featured expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel For Agencies
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the budget friendly price for accessibility to so many features. Yet I promptly learned this affordable base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic fees for core performance. Suddenly my bank card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain billed each time you send out an e-mail through their web servers. So for high volume customers, this added up to numerous bucks in unforeseen costs.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back significantly MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, yet simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully supported e-mail open rates plunge almost over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement constantly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked quickly to a useless 9% open rate.
Regardless of just how much I maximized my sending methods or tried every fixing trick, I can barely nudge open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel For Agencies.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails instantly had dreadful involvement. The only thing I can assume that would certainly be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden costs, damaged features, and horrible interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a massive mistake. The cons considerably outweighed any kind of benefits.
No software application is best, however the large volume of troubles was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to deal with critical functions competently or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after investing significant time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the difficult call to turn around program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I gained from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a costly ill fortune. However in hindsight, it showed me a few vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software application typically covers bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Select simpleness over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your work life easier, not extra complicated and unpleasant.
- Transparency develops trust fund. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems destroys depend on.
- Seek objective reviews. Pleased support assesses mean much less if extreme concerns imply bad total usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary option can completely fulfill every special organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Incremental improvements normally exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be much more hesitant of “as well great to be real” marketing claims and much less tempted by the appeal of glossy new items. The tools you use daily need to make count on via transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.