As an agency owner for over a years, I rely on software program and automation to improve operations and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Lead Generation.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly aiming to streamline and scale my service, it looked like a dream come true theoretically. That would not want a single remedy that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this preferred brand-new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company demands, ideally you can pick up from my painful errors and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job administration choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client administration and automation demands.
I located Keap user-friendly to make use of and it handled whatever I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to help local business maintain their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, ensuring leads and clients get the ideal messages at the correct time. Usage site and social media sites types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours weekly and increase income by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a detailed client partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and nurturing consumer connections via effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it particularly appealing for businesses looking to settle their tech stack.
Generally, it simply worked reliably with minimal hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without any concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can confess I got attracted by the siren telephone call of “glossy object disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new device that will reinvent your company … The grass often looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may minimize friction points that I ‘d discovered to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood at first, yet a few more stress led me to assume maybe it was time for a change.
The Investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing significantly more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I recognized changing systems was going to require moving all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire technology facilities from the ground up utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s a review of just some of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup work transitioning every little thing over– and also managing shed efficiency during the button.
However ultimately, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would settle with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-term service for my service, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a big mistake. The concerns began accumulating quickly, until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish issues I ran into.
Protection Issues & Lots of Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion pointers, handling membership expirations and far more.
Whatever seemed to be operating fine … until suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely unnecessary emails had actually been sent to users that should NOT have obtained them. This occurred three days straight, with a various set of 160 people every day.
I frantically attempted repairing and rebuilding the automation from square one. Yet the issue persisted.
When I desperately connected to their support group, they slightly declared “server issues” were responsible. But this explanation really did not make any sense, considering that the mistakes continued taking place each morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failing was totally undesirable and simply didn’t work for my organization. I have countless contacts relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally unreliable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just worsened these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and complicated.
Straightforward jobs like editing and enhancing workflows included digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably spread in entirely different areas. Moving in between functions felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle total, specific, and product setups. Yet for some crazy factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously annoyed me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with poor use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the small cost tag included pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Lead Generation
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the inexpensive cost for accessibility to so many features. Yet I promptly learned this economical base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional fees for core functionality. All of a sudden my charge card statements had vague $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain billed every time you send out an e-mail via their web servers. So for high quantity customers, this added up to hundreds of bucks in unexpected expenses.
Between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back significantly MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was tempting, yet just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open rates plunge practically overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market interaction consistently struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a worthless 9% open rate.
Despite how much I maximized my sending out practices or tried every fixing technique, I might barely push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Lead Generation.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had dreadful interaction. The only point I might assume that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden fees, damaged features, and horrible user interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a big blunder. The cons drastically surpassed any kind of benefits.
No software program is excellent, but the large volume of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to deal with important features capably or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing significant time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the hard phone call to turn around course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I gained from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. However in knowledge, it instructed me a couple of key lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian asserts extensively. Marketing buzz around new software application commonly obscures bigger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Select simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life easier, not much more challenging and unpleasant.
- Openness builds trust. Opaque pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages trust fund.
- Seek honest evaluations. Happy support examines indicate much less if extreme problems indicate poor total use.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary solution can flawlessly meet every one-of-a-kind organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Step-by-step enhancements usually outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I discovered to be much more unconvinced of “as well great to be real” marketing cases and less attracted by the appeal of shiny new items. The devices you make use of daily should gain depend on with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.