As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I count on software application and automation to improve procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my attention GoHighLevel No Valid Payment Method Found.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it felt like a dream happened theoretically. Who would not desire a single option that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred brand-new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service requirements, hopefully you can learn from my excruciating blunders and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of best CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring choice to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer monitoring and automation demands.
I located Keap user-friendly to utilize and it took care of whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to help small companies keep their clients while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, ensuring leads and clients obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Use internet site and social networks forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours weekly and rise income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive consumer relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution customized for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales processes and supporting customer relationships through powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it especially appealing for businesses aiming to settle their tech pile.
For the most part, it simply worked dependably with very little difficulty or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% great). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the alarm phone call of “shiny things disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a new tool that will certainly change your organization … The grass typically looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could lower rubbing factors that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I stood up to in the beginning, yet a few more disappointments led me to believe maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing considerably greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I recognized changing platforms was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap data and essentially restoring my whole tech framework from the ground up utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an overview of just some of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface style
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– and also handling shed efficiency throughout the switch.
However eventually, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off 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 use to understand I had made a huge mistake. The problems began piling up rapidly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I experienced.
Safety Issues & Lots of Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event pointers, taking care of membership expirations and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning penalty … until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally irrelevant e-mails had actually been sent to customers who need to NOT have received them. This happened 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 individuals each day.
I hysterically attempted fixing and reconstructing the automation from square one. But the problem lingered.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they slightly declared “web server problems” were at fault. However this description really did not make any kind of sense, considering that the errors proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely undesirable and simply didn’t benefit my organization. I have thousands of calls depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unstable, how could I leave mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and complicated.
Easy tasks like editing and enhancing workflows included digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in entirely various areas. Moving between features really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to handle general, individual, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously irritated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a polished item ready for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with bad use as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly realized the affordable price tag included costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel No Valid Payment Method Found
One of GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the cost effective rate for accessibility to many features. Yet I swiftly discovered this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic fees for core functionality. Suddenly my bank card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain charged each time you send an e-mail with their servers. So for high volume customers, this added up to numerous dollars in unforeseen prices.
In between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, but simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured e-mail open rates drop virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I maximized my sending out methods or tried every repairing trick, I can barely push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel No Valid Payment Method Found.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails all of a sudden had terrible interaction. The only point I could think that would certainly be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability concerns, concealed costs, damaged features, and dreadful user interface, I had ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a huge error. The cons dramatically outweighed any type of advantages.
No software application is best, however the sheer quantity of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to handle crucial features competently or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the tough call to turn around program and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly ill fortune. Yet in hindsight, it showed me a couple of essential lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing hype around new software application often obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your work life simpler, not much more complex and unpleasant.
- Transparency builds count on. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems ruins trust.
- Look for impartial evaluations. Happy support evaluates suggest less if too much issues indicate poor total use.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary option can flawlessly fulfill every unique business requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step improvements normally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Simply put, I learned to be much more doubtful of “too excellent to be real” marketing cases and less lured by the appeal of shiny brand-new objects. The tools you use daily should gain depend on via transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.