As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I rely on software and automation to streamline operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my interest GoHighLevel Local Business Playbook.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner always aiming to simplify and scale my company, it seemed like a dream happened theoretically. That wouldn’t desire a solitary solution that does it all?
Yet in this comprehensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this popular new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business demands, hopefully you can pick up from my painful mistakes and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task management alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer administration and automation needs.
I discovered Keap intuitive to utilize and it took care of whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to aid small businesses keep their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers obtain the right messages at the right time. Use internet site and social networks kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours weekly and rise revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on streamlining sales processes and supporting consumer partnerships through effective automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one technique integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it specifically attractive for organizations seeking to consolidate their technology pile.
Essentially, it just worked reliably with very little fuss or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I got seduced by the siren telephone call of “shiny object syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s discussing a new device that will reinvent your organization … The lawn often looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could lower friction points that I ‘d discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I stood up to in the beginning, yet a couple of even more disappointments led me to think maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I recognized changing platforms was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap information and basically restoring my entire technology framework from scratch making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s a review of simply some of the initiative required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a completely international UX and interface design
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– and also dealing with shed productivity during the switch.
However eventually, it was a calculated financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a much better lasting service for my company, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to realize I had actually made a huge blunder. The problems began accumulating rapidly, up until it got to a point I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the horrible problems I encountered.
Protection Issues & Many Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event reminders, handling subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever appeared to be operating fine … up until suddenly it had not been. One morning, I awoke to discover 171 totally unimportant e-mails had been sent to individuals who need to NOT have gotten them. This occurred three days straight, with a different batch of 160 people every day.
I frantically attempted fixing and reconstructing the automation from square one. However the problem continued.
When I desperately reached out to their assistance group, they slightly claimed “server issues” were at fault. However this description really did not make any kind of feeling, given that the mistakes proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failure was totally unacceptable and simply really did not help my business. I have hundreds of get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally undependable, how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface just intensified these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complicated.
Straightforward jobs like editing workflows entailed digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in completely different sections. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to manage total, private, and item configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek product prepared for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly realized the small cost tag featured pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Local Business Playbook
One of GoHighLevel’s biggest selling points is the cost effective cost for accessibility to numerous features. However I swiftly learned this affordable base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional costs for core functionality. Suddenly my credit card statements had vague $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed every time you send out an email with their web servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to numerous dollars in unanticipated costs.
In between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, yet simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured e-mail open rates plunge almost over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement regularly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a worthless 9% open price.
Regardless of how much I enhanced my sending methods or attempted every troubleshooting method, I might barely push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Local Business Playbook.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had horrible involvement. The only thing I could think that would certainly be creating this was whatever was taking place 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, concealed costs, broken features, and dreadful user interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a significant error. The disadvantages dramatically surpassed any advantages.
No software application is ideal, yet the large volume of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to depend on. If I can not trust it to deal with important features properly or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after spending considerable time, money, and effort migrating.
So I made the challenging call to turn around course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. However in knowledge, it instructed me a few essential lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Vet claims thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software commonly covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Select simpleness over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your work life simpler, not much more difficult and unpleasant.
- Transparency builds count on. Opaque pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues damages trust.
- Seek impartial evaluations. Happy support assesses imply less if excessive issues imply inadequate total functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No single solution can flawlessly satisfy every unique organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over change. Incremental improvements typically exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
In short, I found out to be a lot more unconvinced of “as well good to be true” marketing claims and much less tempted by the allure of glossy new things. The tools you make use of daily should make count on through openness and performance, not slick advertising.