As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to improve operations and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it most definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel Number of Users.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one customer management platform with marketing, sales, and service devices integrated with each other. As a business owner always aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it seemed like a dream happened on paper. That would not want a solitary solution that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch over to this prominent new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company requirements, ideally you can learn from my unpleasant errors and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been gladly depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer administration and automation requirements.
I found Keap intuitive to use and it took care of every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help small businesses maintain their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the best messages at the correct time. Usage website and social networks forms to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and increase profits by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a thorough customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on streamlining sales procedures and supporting client partnerships via effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it specifically eye-catching for companies looking to settle their tech pile.
Essentially, it just functioned accurately with marginal difficulty or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without any concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that worked to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm call of “shiny item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when every person’s discussing a brand-new device that will certainly reinvent your business … The yard often looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might decrease friction factors that I ‘d found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a couple of even more irritations led me to assume perhaps it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending substantially more than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I knew changing systems was mosting likely to need migrating all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire technology facilities from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s a summary of just some of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer accounts, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface style
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– as well as dealing with lost productivity during the button.
But ultimately, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a better lasting remedy for my business, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on use to recognize I had made a huge error. The issues began piling up quickly, until it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible issues I came across.
Security Issues & Numerous Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event reminders, taking care of subscription expiries and far more.
Everything seemed to be operating fine … up until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 completely unnecessary emails had actually been sent to customers that need to NOT have actually obtained them. This took place 3 days straight, with a different set of 160 individuals each day.
I frantically attempted repairing and reconstructing the automation from the ground up. Yet the problem lingered.
When I frantically connected to their assistance group, they vaguely asserted “web server concerns” were at fault. Yet this description really did not make any kind of feeling, since the mistakes proceeded taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was totally unacceptable and simply really did not work for my business. I have countless calls relying on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unreliable, exactly how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these concerns …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and challenging.
Basic tasks like modifying workflows involved digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely different areas. Relocating between functions felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I mean by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of overall, specific, and item configurations. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to access each of these core settings were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously irritated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a refined product ready for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly understood the affordable price tag came with pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Number of Users
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the affordable cost for accessibility to numerous features. But I quickly discovered this cheap base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core functionality. Unexpectedly my bank card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed each time you send out an e-mail via their servers. So for high quantity users, this amounted to numerous dollars in unanticipated costs.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was tempting, but just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open prices plummet practically overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience involvement continually struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a worthless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I optimized my sending out methods or tried every repairing technique, I can hardly push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Number of Users.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had dreadful engagement. The only point I can assume that would certainly be creating this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability problems, concealed charges, broken features, and awful interface, I had lastly reached my limit …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a huge blunder. The disadvantages dramatically exceeded any advantages.
No software program is ideal, yet the sheer quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes 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, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the tough phone call to reverse course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. But in hindsight, it instructed me a few essential lessons:
- Stick to what works. Don’t upset what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts thoroughly. Marketing hype around brand-new software application typically covers larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your job life simpler, not more complicated and untidy.
- Openness builds count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles damages count on.
- Look for impartial evaluations. Pleased assistance evaluates imply much less if excessive problems suggest inadequate overall usability.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary solution can flawlessly fulfill every special business need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Step-by-step renovations generally surpass dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I learned to be more skeptical of “also excellent to be real” marketing insurance claims and less tempted by the allure of glossy new things. The tools you utilize daily should earn count on with transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.