As a firm owner for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to streamline procedures and provide results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel For Business.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner always wanting to streamline and scale my company, it seemed like a desire happened on paper. That would not want a single remedy that does it all?
Yet in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my devastating trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this prominent new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service requirements, hopefully you can learn from my agonizing blunders and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest 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 trying to find a sales, marketing, and task administration option to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer management and automation demands.
I found Keap instinctive to use and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist local business keep their customers while adding new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making certain leads and customers get the appropriate messages at the correct time. Usage internet site and social networks forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy consultation scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours each week and rise profits by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough client relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing client partnerships via powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it particularly attractive for businesses seeking to consolidate their technology pile.
For the most part, it just worked dependably with very little hassle or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently with no concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren call of “shiny object disorder”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s talking about a new device that will certainly transform your company … The grass usually looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might decrease friction factors that I would certainly discovered to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, yet a couple of more aggravations led me to believe perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I knew switching platforms was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap information and basically rebuilding my entire tech facilities from the ground up utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s an overview of simply a few of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– and also taking care of lost efficiency throughout the switch.
But inevitably, it was a calculated financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term pain would settle with GoHighLevel supplying a much better lasting option for my service, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on use to realize I had made a big blunder. The problems started accumulating swiftly, up until it reached a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the horrible problems I ran into.
Safety Issues & Several Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new email clients, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event tips, handling membership expirations and much more.
Everything seemed to be working penalty … until all of a sudden it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally irrelevant emails had actually been sent to individuals that ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This occurred three days straight, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I hysterically tried repairing and reconstructing the automation from the ground up. But the problem persisted.
When I desperately reached out to their assistance team, they vaguely declared “server problems” were responsible. However this explanation really did not make any type of sense, because the errors proceeded happening each morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failure was totally undesirable and simply really did not benefit my business. I have hundreds of get in touches with counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unstable, exactly how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and difficult.
Straightforward jobs like modifying workflows included digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably spread in entirely various areas. Moving in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to manage general, private, and product setups. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to access each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined product prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon understood the small cost tag included expensive concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel For Business
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant selling factors is the budget-friendly price for access to numerous features. However I rapidly learned this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic costs for core capability. Suddenly my credit card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get billed whenever you send out an e-mail through their servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous dollars in unexpected costs.
Between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was tempting, but simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported e-mail open rates plunge virtually overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction consistently struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked quickly to a worthless 9% open rate.
Regardless of how much I optimized my sending out practices or attempted every fixing technique, I might barely push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel For Business.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had dreadful interaction. The only thing I could believe that would be creating this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability concerns, concealed fees, busted features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages substantially exceeded any advantages.
No software application is best, but the large quantity of issues was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to manage important features properly or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the challenging phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly ill fortune. However in knowledge, it educated me a couple of essential lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Don’t upset what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around brand-new software often obscures bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed tools should make your job life simpler, not much more difficult and messy.
- Openness constructs count on. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert issues destroys trust fund.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Satisfied support evaluates indicate much less if excessive concerns suggest inadequate general functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No single remedy can perfectly meet every one-of-a-kind organization demand. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Step-by-step improvements normally exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In short, I learned to be more cynical of “also good to be true” marketing claims and much less lured by the allure of shiny brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily must make count on through openness and performance, not slick advertising.