As an agency proprietor for over a years, I count on software and automation to simplify operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my focus GoHighLevel No Payment Provider Found.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As an entrepreneur constantly wanting to streamline and scale my service, it appeared like a desire happened on paper. Who would not want a single remedy that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch to this preferred new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service requirements, with any luck you can gain from my uncomfortable mistakes and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this checklist of finest CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been gladly counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation demands.
I discovered Keap instinctive to utilize and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to aid small companies maintain their clients while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the best messages at the correct time. Use website and social media sites types to improve lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours per week and rise revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and supporting customer connections with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it specifically appealing for organizations aiming to consolidate their tech stack.
For the most part, it simply functioned dependably with very little fuss or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently with no problems.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I got seduced by the siren call of “glossy item syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a new tool that will certainly revolutionize your service … The lawn usually looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d found out to endure for many years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, but a couple of more aggravations led me to think perhaps it was time for a change.
The Investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I knew switching systems was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap information and basically rebuilding my entire technology framework from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s a review of just several of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning every little thing over– as well as handling shed efficiency during the button.
But inevitably, it was a computed investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-lasting service for my service, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a large mistake. The concerns began accumulating rapidly, up until it reached a factor I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I ran into.
Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion reminders, taking care of subscription expiries and much more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning penalty … till suddenly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 totally pointless e-mails had been sent to users that must NOT have actually gotten them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a different set of 160 individuals daily.
I desperately tried fixing and restoring the automation from square one. But the problem continued.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely declared “web server issues” were to blame. However this description really did not make any sense, since the errors proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was totally undesirable and just didn’t help my company. I have hundreds of calls relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unreliable, exactly how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and difficult.
Straightforward jobs like editing workflows involved digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in totally various sections. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I mean by discussing 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 reason, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As a person that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek product all set for prime-time usage. Their concerns appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the small cost tag came with costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel No Payment Provider Found
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the economical cost for access to numerous features. Yet I swiftly discovered this inexpensive base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic costs for core performance. All of a sudden my bank card statements had unclear $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain billed every single time you send out an email through their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to thousands of dollars in unanticipated prices.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, however just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported email open prices plummet nearly overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement regularly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a useless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I optimized my sending out practices or attempted every repairing trick, I could barely push open rates back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards GoHighLevel No Payment Provider Found.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had horrible involvement. The only point I could assume that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability concerns, concealed charges, damaged features, and horrible user interface, I had ultimately reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a big blunder. The cons drastically surpassed any kind of benefits.
No software application is perfect, but the large volume of problems was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can not trust it to manage vital functions properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after investing substantial time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the difficult contact us to reverse course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. However in knowledge, it taught me a couple of key lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t distress what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet asserts thoroughly. Marketing buzz around brand-new software program typically covers bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed tools must make your work life much easier, not much more complicated and unpleasant.
- Transparency builds depend on. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages depend on.
- Seek honest testimonials. Delighted support evaluates suggest less if extreme concerns suggest poor general use.
- Perfection is difficult. No single solution can completely meet every one-of-a-kind organization requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental enhancements commonly exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
Simply put, I found out to be more doubtful of “also good to be true” marketing cases and less lured by the appeal of shiny brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily ought to earn trust fund with transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.