As a firm owner for over a decade, I count on software and automation to simplify operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my focus GoHighLevel For Automative Businesses.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated together. As an entrepreneur always wanting to simplify and scale my service, it seemed like a desire become a reality theoretically. That wouldn’t desire a solitary service that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my devastating trip of trying (and stopping working) to switch to this preferred brand-new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service needs, with any luck you can pick up from my excruciating mistakes and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, after that here are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been happily depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client monitoring and automation demands.
I located Keap instinctive to make use of and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist small businesses maintain their customers while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, ensuring leads and customers get the best messages at the correct time. Use website and social media sites kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy visit organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and payment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours per week and rise profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for local business and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting client relationships via powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one strategy incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it specifically eye-catching for services looking to combine their technology pile.
Generally, it just worked dependably with very little hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran efficiently with no issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained attracted by the siren call of “shiny object disorder”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s discussing a brand-new device that will certainly transform your service … The lawn commonly looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might decrease rubbing factors that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, but a few more disappointments led me to think maybe it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending substantially greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I recognized changing platforms was going to require migrating all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my entire tech facilities from square one utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s a summary of just several of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and user interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement job transitioning every little thing over– not to mention managing shed productivity during the switch.
But inevitably, it was a computed financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel offering a far better lasting remedy for my company, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to realize I had made a huge mistake. The problems began accumulating promptly, up until it reached a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I came across.
Protection Issues & Many Vermin
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, managing subscription expiries and far more.
Everything seemed to be operating fine … up until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 totally pointless e-mails had actually been sent to customers who need to NOT have actually obtained them. This happened three days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals daily.
I anxiously attempted fixing and restoring the automation from scratch. But the problem persisted.
When I seriously reached out to their support team, they vaguely asserted “server problems” were to blame. Yet this description really did not make any feeling, given that the errors continued happening each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was completely undesirable and just didn’t help my company. I have countless calls depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unstable, exactly how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just intensified these problems …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and difficult.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows included digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably scattered in entirely various areas. Moving between functions felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage overall, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to access each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item all set for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with inadequate use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the low price tag came with costly compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel For Automative Businesses
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the budget friendly cost for accessibility to many features. Yet I swiftly learned this cheap base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic costs for core performance. Instantly my credit card statements had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send out an email through their web servers. So for high quantity users, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unforeseen costs.
Between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel membership ended up setting you back substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, yet just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured email open prices drop virtually overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market involvement constantly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open price.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending out techniques or attempted every fixing trick, I might hardly push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel For Automative Businesses.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails unexpectedly had dreadful interaction. The only point I can believe that would be creating this was whatever was taking place 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, concealed charges, broken features, and dreadful user interface, I had lastly reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages significantly outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software is perfect, but the large quantity of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to count on. If I can’t trust it to take care of essential features effectively or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after spending significant time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging contact us to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. But in hindsight, it educated me a few essential lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares completely. Marketing buzz around brand-new software application frequently obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed devices must make your work life less complicated, not a lot more complex and unpleasant.
- Transparency develops trust. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems destroys count on.
- Seek impartial reviews. Satisfied support evaluates indicate less if excessive concerns suggest poor overall usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary solution can completely meet every unique business demand. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental renovations generally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
In short, I found out to be more hesitant of “as well good to be real” marketing insurance claims and less tempted by the appeal of glossy brand-new objects. The devices you make use of daily ought to make trust via openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.