As a company proprietor for over a decade, I rely on software application and automation to improve operations and provide results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Merge Fields.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it seemed like a dream come true on paper. Who wouldn’t want a single service that does it all?
But in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my devastating trip of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, with any luck you can gain from my excruciating errors and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this checklist of best CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project administration alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client administration and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to use and it handled everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small businesses keep their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, ensuring leads and clients obtain the appropriate messages at the right time. Usage site and social media sites forms to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and repayment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours weekly and rise earnings by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a comprehensive customer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and supporting customer partnerships via powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it particularly appealing for services looking to consolidate their technology pile.
Essentially, it just functioned dependably with very little fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly with no concerns.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained seduced by the alarm phone call of “glossy object disorder”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s speaking about a brand-new tool that will certainly change your company … The lawn usually looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might decrease rubbing factors that I would certainly learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, however a couple of more frustrations led me to think maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I understood switching platforms was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire tech framework from square one using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s a review of simply several of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of setup work transitioning whatever over– in addition to handling shed efficiency throughout the switch.
But ultimately, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a much better lasting service 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 made a large mistake. The problems began accumulating promptly, until it got to a point I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible issues I ran into.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to diligently recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event reminders, handling subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning penalty … up until suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to discover 171 completely unnecessary e-mails had actually been sent to customers who should NOT have received them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 people daily.
I hysterically attempted fixing and restoring the automation from the ground up. But the issue persisted.
When I frantically connected to their assistance team, they slightly asserted “web server problems” were at fault. But this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, because the mistakes proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failure was completely inappropriate and simply didn’t benefit my business. I have thousands of calls depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unstable, exactly how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface just compounded these concerns …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and challenging.
Straightforward jobs like editing workflows included excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably spread in totally various areas. Moving in between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to handle general, individual, and product arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item ready for prime-time use. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on packing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the low cost tag came with costly compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Merge Fields
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest selling points is the budget-friendly rate for access to a lot of features. However I quickly learned this economical base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic costs for core capability. Instantly my credit card statements had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged every single time you send an e-mail via their servers. So for high volume users, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unexpected expenses.
Between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, but simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open prices drop practically overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market interaction continually struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked quickly to a useless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I enhanced my sending practices or attempted every fixing technique, I might hardly nudge open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Merge Fields.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails instantly had dreadful engagement. The only thing I could think that would be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden costs, busted features, and awful interface, I had actually finally reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a huge blunder. The disadvantages dramatically surpassed any benefits.
No software program is ideal, yet the large quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to count on. If I can’t trust it to deal with important functions capably or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after spending considerable time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard phone call to reverse program and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a couple of essential lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Vet asserts extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software application often covers bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is important.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed devices ought to make your job life less complicated, not a lot more challenging and untidy.
- Transparency constructs trust fund. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles damages trust.
- Seek objective reviews. Happy assistance examines imply less if extreme issues suggest poor overall usability.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary service can flawlessly satisfy every special company need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Step-by-step renovations normally surpass dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
In other words, I discovered to be extra skeptical of “also excellent to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less attracted by the appeal of glossy new items. The devices you utilize daily must gain count on via transparency and performance, not slick advertising.