As an agency owner for over a years, I count on software program and automation to simplify procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it certainly captured my attention GoHighLevel Funding.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As a business owner always aiming to streamline and scale my service, it appeared like a dream come to life on paper. Who would not want a single option that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of trying (and stopping working) to change to this popular new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, hopefully you can pick up from my agonizing blunders and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer monitoring and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap intuitive to use and it took care of everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help small businesses keep their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making certain leads and clients receive the best messages at the right time. Use site and social media forms to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple consultation scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and repayment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours each week and increase revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a detailed client relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales processes and supporting client relationships through effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it especially eye-catching for organizations wanting to consolidate their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply functioned accurately with minimal hassle or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were wonderful (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm call of “glossy object disorder”. You understand the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new tool that will revolutionize your business … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could lower friction factors that I ‘d found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, but a few more aggravations led me to assume perhaps it was time for a change.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I recognized switching over platforms was going to require migrating all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire technology infrastructure from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s an overview of just a few of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of setup job transitioning everything over– as well as handling lost productivity during the button.
However eventually, it was a computed financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-lasting option for my business, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a large blunder. The concerns began piling up swiftly, until it got to a factor I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s go through the horrible issues I ran into.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new email customers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event suggestions, taking care of membership expirations and far more.
Whatever appeared to be operating penalty … until unexpectedly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 completely pointless emails had actually been sent out to customers who ought to NOT have obtained them. This took place three days in a row, with a different batch of 160 individuals daily.
I frantically tried troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. Yet the issue lingered.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely claimed “server problems” were to blame. However this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, given that the errors proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was totally undesirable and simply didn’t work for my business. I have countless calls relying on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely unstable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these issues …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and challenging.
Simple jobs like editing workflows included excavating via food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely different areas. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to handle overall, specific, and product arrangements. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to gain access to each of these core settings were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek product ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature under the sun, with poor usability as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly understood the affordable price tag included expensive compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Funding
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling factors is the cost effective price for accessibility to numerous features. But I rapidly learned this low-cost base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with sporadic charges for core performance. Suddenly my bank card statements had vague $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed whenever you send out an email through their servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unforeseen prices.
Between these per-email costs and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, however just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported e-mail open rates drop nearly overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction regularly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pathetic 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I optimized my sending methods or attempted every fixing technique, I could hardly push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Funding.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had awful interaction. The only point I might believe that would be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, concealed charges, damaged features, and awful user interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a big mistake. The disadvantages considerably outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software is ideal, however the sheer volume of problems was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to handle essential functions properly or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after investing significant time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse program and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey accident. Yet in knowledge, it educated me a couple of vital lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Do not upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts extensively. Marketing hype around brand-new software usually obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Pick simpleness over features. Well-designed tools should make your job life simpler, not much more challenging and messy.
- Transparency develops count on. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles damages trust.
- Look for objective testimonials. Delighted support examines mean much less if too much problems indicate bad total use.
- Perfection is difficult. No single option can flawlessly satisfy every one-of-a-kind organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Incremental improvements commonly exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
Basically, I found out to be a lot more unconvinced of “too excellent to be true” marketing cases and much less tempted by the attraction of shiny new things. The tools you make use of daily should earn count on through transparency and performance, not slick advertising.