As a firm owner for over a decade, I depend on software and automation to improve procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel Gmail 2-Way Sync.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to streamline and scale my business, it appeared like a dream come to life on paper. Who wouldn’t desire a solitary service that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business demands, with any luck you can learn from my unpleasant errors and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of best CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task management alternative to GoHighLevel, after that below are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client administration and automation requirements.
I located Keap user-friendly to make use of and it managed whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help small companies keep their customers while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, making sure leads and clients obtain the right messages at the correct time. Usage web site and social networks kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple visit organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and increase revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no bank card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and business owners. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing client partnerships via effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it especially appealing for services seeking to consolidate their technology stack.
For the most part, it simply worked dependably with very little hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% terrific). Automations ran smoothly without any issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I obtained seduced by the alarm telephone call of “shiny item disorder”. You understand the sensation: when everybody’s speaking about a new device that will revolutionize your organization … The lawn frequently looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could decrease rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure for many years with Keap.
I resisted initially, yet a couple of more disappointments led me to think possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I made a decision to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing dramatically greater than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I understood switching over systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my whole tech facilities from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s an overview of just some of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and task data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface style
All in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement job transitioning everything over– in addition to handling lost productivity during the button.
But inevitably, it was a computed investment I wanted to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel providing a much better long-term remedy for my service, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on use to recognize I had actually made a huge blunder. The issues began accumulating swiftly, till it reached a factor I had to reduce my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish problems I ran into.
Safety Issues & Lots of Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, taking care of subscription expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning fine … up until instantly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely unimportant e-mails had been sent out to customers who ought to NOT have obtained them. This happened three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals daily.
I anxiously attempted fixing and restoring the automation from scratch. However the trouble continued.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “web server concerns” were responsible. But this description didn’t make any kind of sense, because the errors proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failing was entirely undesirable and just really did not benefit my organization. I have hundreds of contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely undependable, how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these issues …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and difficult.
Easy jobs like editing workflows involved digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably spread in entirely different areas. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage overall, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously annoyed me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished product all set for prime-time usage. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate usability as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly recognized the affordable price tag included pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Gmail 2-Way Sync
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling factors is the budget friendly price for accessibility to numerous features. Yet I quickly discovered this cheap base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core capability. Unexpectedly my credit card declarations had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain charged every single time you send out an e-mail through their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unforeseen costs.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel registration ended up costing considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, however just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully supported email open rates plummet virtually over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a useless 9% open price.
Despite how much I maximized my sending practices or tried every repairing trick, I might hardly push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Gmail 2-Way Sync.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails all of a sudden had dreadful engagement. The only thing I can think that would be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability problems, hidden charges, broken features, and horrible interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a substantial mistake. The cons drastically exceeded any type of benefits.
No software application is perfect, however the large quantity of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to count on. If I can’t trust it to manage essential functions capably or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after spending substantial time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough phone call to reverse training course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey accident. However in knowledge, it taught me a few essential lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software program commonly obscures bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Choose simplicity over features. Properly designed devices must make your job life simpler, not a lot more complicated and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs trust. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems damages count on.
- Look for impartial testimonials. Satisfied support evaluates suggest less if excessive issues suggest inadequate overall functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary solution can flawlessly meet every unique service need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Incremental renovations generally outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
Simply put, I learned to be a lot more skeptical of “also good to be real” marketing claims and much less tempted by the attraction of shiny brand-new things. The tools you utilize daily must earn count on with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.