As an agency proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to simplify operations and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Landing Pages.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated with each other. As an entrepreneur always seeking to streamline and scale my business, it looked like a dream come to life theoretically. That would not want a single option that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch to this prominent new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business demands, with any luck you can learn from my excruciating errors and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation requirements.
I found Keap user-friendly to make use of and it managed every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small companies maintain their clients while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers obtain the right messages at the right time. Usage web site and social networks types to streamline lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours per week and boost revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive consumer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on enhancing sales processes and supporting customer relationships via powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it specifically appealing for organizations looking to combine their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply worked reliably with minimal fuss or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were wonderful (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran efficiently without problems.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm telephone call of “glossy object disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when every person’s discussing a new tool that will reinvent your organization … The grass commonly looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, yet a couple of even more disappointments led me to believe maybe it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I understood changing platforms was going to call for moving all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my entire tech facilities from the ground up utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s a review of simply some of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a completely foreign UX and user interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– as well as taking care of lost efficiency throughout the button.
Yet eventually, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly repay with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-term remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to realize I had actually made a large blunder. The issues began accumulating swiftly, till it reached a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Allow’s go through the horrible issues I came across.
Protection Issues & Lots of Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned 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 consisted of series for onboarding new email clients, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event suggestions, taking care of membership expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be operating penalty … till all of a sudden it had not been. One morning, I woke up to find 171 completely pointless e-mails had actually been sent out to users who should NOT have actually received them. This took place three days straight, with a different set of 160 individuals each day.
I anxiously tried fixing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. But the problem continued.
When I seriously reached out to their support team, they slightly claimed “server concerns” were responsible. However this description really did not make any sense, given that the mistakes continued happening each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was entirely unacceptable and simply really did not benefit my business. I have thousands of calls relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely undependable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only compounded these issues …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and complex.
Simple jobs like editing workflows involved digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in totally various areas. Moving between features really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to take care of overall, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the links to access each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As a person that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item all set for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with bad use as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon understood the low price tag featured costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Landing Pages
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest marketing factors is the cost effective cost for access to so many features. However I rapidly learned this affordable base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core capability. Instantly my credit card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get charged each time you send an email with their servers. So for high volume users, this amounted to numerous dollars in unforeseen costs.
In between these per-email fees and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, however simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open rates plunge nearly overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a worthless 9% open rate.
Despite how much I optimized my sending methods or attempted every fixing trick, I can barely push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Landing Pages.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had terrible involvement. The only point I could believe that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed charges, busted features, and dreadful user interface, I had ultimately reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a significant mistake. The disadvantages dramatically outweighed any benefits.
No software application is excellent, yet the large quantity of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to take care of critical functions competently or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after investing significant time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard call to reverse training course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this ordeal.
Key Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. However in hindsight, it showed me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software commonly obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Select simpleness over features. Well-designed tools ought to make your job life simpler, not much more complex and messy.
- Transparency builds trust. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues ruins trust.
- Look for impartial reviews. Satisfied assistance reviews mean less if extreme issues indicate poor overall use.
- Excellence is impossible. No single solution can completely satisfy every distinct business demand. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Step-by-step renovations commonly exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
Simply put, I learned to be a lot more skeptical of “as well excellent to be real” marketing insurance claims and less lured by the allure of shiny brand-new things. The tools you use daily should gain trust with transparency and performance, not slick advertising.