As a company owner for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to improve procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel For Beginners.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur always looking to simplify and scale my organization, it looked like a desire come true theoretically. That wouldn’t desire a single option that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this prominent new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own organization needs, hopefully you can pick up from my agonizing blunders and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered 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 actually been happily depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation needs.
I located Keap user-friendly to utilize and it dealt with every little thing I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help local business keep their customers while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers get the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use website and social media sites types to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours weekly and boost profits by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a comprehensive client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting consumer relationships with powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it especially eye-catching for services wanting to settle their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply functioned accurately with minimal difficulty or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran smoothly without issues.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained attracted by the alarm phone call of “glossy things syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new device that will reinvent your organization … The grass frequently looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might lower rubbing points that I ‘d discovered to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, but a couple of more irritations led me to think perhaps it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing dramatically more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I recognized switching systems was going to call for moving all my Keap information and essentially restoring my whole technology infrastructure from the ground up using all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s a summary of just a few of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration work transitioning everything over– as well as managing lost performance during the switch.
But ultimately, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly settle with GoHighLevel giving a much better lasting service for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a huge blunder. The problems began piling up promptly, until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the horrible problems I experienced.
Safety Issues & Numerous Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event pointers, managing subscription expiries and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be working fine … until instantly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 completely irrelevant emails had been sent out to users who should NOT have received them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a different batch of 160 people each day.
I frantically tried repairing and rebuilding the automation from scratch. Yet the issue continued.
When I desperately reached out to their support team, they slightly declared “server issues” were at fault. Yet this description really did not make any sense, given that the mistakes continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was entirely unacceptable and just really did not benefit my service. I have hundreds of contacts counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally undependable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just compounded these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and difficult.
Basic tasks like editing and enhancing workflows included excavating through menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in completely different areas. Relocating between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to manage general, private, and item setups. Yet for some insane reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with inadequate use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the affordable price tag came with pricey concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel For Beginners
Among GoHighLevel’s largest marketing factors is the economical rate for accessibility to numerous features. However I promptly learned this inexpensive base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with sporadic charges for core capability. Instantly my bank card declarations had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain billed every single time you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity customers, this added up to hundreds of bucks in unforeseen costs.
Between these per-email charges and paying added for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel membership ended up costing dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, however just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured email open rates drop practically overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience interaction consistently struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a pathetic 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I maximized my sending practices or tried every fixing technique, I could hardly nudge open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel For Beginners.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had horrible involvement. The only thing I could believe that would be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed fees, damaged features, and terrible user interface, I had lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a massive error. The cons drastically outweighed any advantages.
No software program is excellent, however the sheer quantity of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to count on. If I can’t trust it to take care of important features capably or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending significant time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging call to reverse training course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey ill fortune. Yet in knowledge, it educated me a few crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Vet declares extensively. Marketing buzz around new software application commonly covers bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is important.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed devices must make your work life less complicated, not a lot more complicated and untidy.
- Transparency builds trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles damages count on.
- Look for objective evaluations. Delighted assistance evaluates indicate less if extreme problems indicate poor general use.
- Excellence is impossible. No single service can perfectly fulfill every distinct organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental renovations usually outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
In short, I learned to be a lot more skeptical of “as well great to be true” marketing cases and less lured by the appeal of shiny brand-new items. The tools you use daily must earn depend on with transparency and performance, not slick advertising.