As a company owner for over a years, I rely upon software program and automation to streamline operations and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Mailgun.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one customer monitoring system with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly wanting to streamline and scale my service, it seemed like a desire come to life theoretically. Who would not desire a solitary service that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this prominent new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business requirements, with any luck you can learn from my unpleasant errors and blew up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task administration option to GoHighLevel, after that below are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer monitoring and automation requirements.
I discovered 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 made to help small businesses keep their clients while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, guaranteeing leads and clients obtain the best messages at the right time. Use site and social networks types to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and rise revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and nurturing customer connections through effective automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one approach integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it especially appealing for organizations wanting to consolidate their technology stack.
For the most part, it simply worked reliably with minimal hassle or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without any problems.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I got seduced by the siren call of “shiny things syndrome”. You know the sensation: when every person’s discussing a new device that will certainly transform your company … The yard commonly looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might reduce friction factors that I would certainly found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a few even more frustrations led me to assume perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, investing dramatically greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I understood switching over systems was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap information and essentially restoring my entire tech framework from square one making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s a summary of simply some of the initiative called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– in addition to dealing with shed performance during the button.
But inevitably, it was a computed investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better long-lasting option for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a big mistake. The concerns started piling up promptly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish troubles I ran into.
Protection Issues & Many Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event pointers, managing membership expirations and much more.
Every little thing appeared to be operating penalty … till unexpectedly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to discover 171 entirely pointless emails had been sent to customers who ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This happened 3 days in a row, with a various set of 160 people each day.
I hysterically attempted repairing and restoring the automation from the ground up. Yet the issue lingered.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance team, they vaguely claimed “web server problems” were to blame. But this explanation really did not make any sense, because the errors proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was totally inappropriate and just really did not benefit my service. I have thousands of get in touches with depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally undependable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface just compounded these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and complicated.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows included excavating with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably spread in absolutely various areas. Moving in between features felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I mean by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of overall, individual, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously irritated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item prepared for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate use as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon understood the low price tag included expensive compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Mailgun
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest selling points is the budget friendly cost for accessibility to many features. But I rapidly learned this affordable base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core capability. Instantly my credit card declarations 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 added up to thousands of dollars in unforeseen costs.
Between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, but simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully supported email open rates drop almost over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction regularly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a worthless 9% open price.
No matter just how much I maximized my sending out techniques or tried every repairing method, I can hardly nudge open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Mailgun.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails unexpectedly had horrible engagement. The only thing I might assume that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden fees, busted features, and dreadful interface, I had finally reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a big blunder. The disadvantages substantially outweighed any benefits.
No software application is perfect, yet the sheer volume of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to deal with critical features capably or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after spending substantial time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the tough contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. However in knowledge, it taught me a few crucial lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software often obscures bigger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Pick simpleness over features. Properly designed devices must make your job life less complicated, not much more challenging and untidy.
- Transparency develops trust. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues ruins depend on.
- Seek honest testimonials. Pleased assistance evaluates indicate less if excessive problems suggest inadequate general usability.
- Perfection is impossible. No single remedy can completely satisfy every one-of-a-kind business requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step improvements usually outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
In other words, I learned to be much more unconvinced of “as well good to be real” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the attraction of shiny new items. The devices you use daily should gain count on with transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.