As a firm owner for over a years, I depend on software program and automation to enhance operations and provide results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it certainly captured my attention GoHighLevel OAuth.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated together. As a business owner constantly looking to simplify and scale my company, it appeared like a desire come to life on paper. That wouldn’t want a solitary option that does it all?
However in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and failing) to switch over to this prominent new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, ideally you can pick up from my painful blunders and pumped up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context regarding my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been happily counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client administration and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to use and it dealt with everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help small businesses keep their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making sure leads and clients obtain the appropriate messages at the correct time. Usage site and social media sites kinds to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours weekly and boost revenue by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough consumer connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and nurturing client relationships with effective automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it particularly attractive for services seeking to consolidate their technology stack.
Essentially, it just worked reliably with marginal hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without any issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the siren phone call of “shiny things syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a new device that will certainly transform your service … The yard often looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might decrease friction points that I ‘d learned to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, however a couple of more frustrations led me to think perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending dramatically greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I understood switching platforms was going to require moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole technology facilities from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an introduction of just some of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels around again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and user interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration work transitioning every little thing over– in addition to taking care of shed efficiency during the button.
However inevitably, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel offering a better long-lasting service for my business, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on usage to understand I had actually made a large mistake. The concerns started accumulating quickly, until it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Allow’s go through the horrible troubles I experienced.
Safety Issues & Numerous Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate every 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 out event suggestions, managing membership expiries and much more.
Every little thing seemed to be operating penalty … till all of a sudden it had not been. One morning, I awoke to find 171 entirely irrelevant emails had been sent to users who need to NOT have actually gotten them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a various set of 160 people each day.
I desperately attempted repairing and restoring the automation from scratch. But the problem continued.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “server issues” were at fault. Yet this explanation didn’t make any type of sense, since the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this massive failure was entirely inappropriate and just really did not work for my organization. I have countless calls relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely unstable, just how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface just intensified these concerns …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and difficult.
Simple tasks like editing workflows included excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in totally various sections. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different settings panels to manage total, individual, and product arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the 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 frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a polished product prepared for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with poor usability as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the affordable price tag featured costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel OAuth
Among GoHighLevel’s largest selling factors is the budget friendly price for accessibility to many features. However I promptly learned this cheap base cost was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic costs for core functionality. All of a sudden my bank card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain billed whenever you send an email via their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to hundreds of dollars in unforeseen prices.
In between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel membership ended up setting you back considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was appealing, however simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported email open rates plunge nearly over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open price.
No matter how much I optimized my sending practices or tried every troubleshooting technique, I could hardly nudge open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel OAuth.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails suddenly had terrible interaction. The only point I can think that would be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed charges, busted features, and awful interface, I had lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a huge mistake. The cons significantly outweighed any type of benefits.
No software application is best, however the large quantity of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to handle crucial features capably or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after investing significant time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the difficult phone call to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey misadventure. Yet in knowledge, it taught me a few vital lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings threat.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing buzz around new software application frequently covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Pick simplicity over features. Properly designed devices must make your job life easier, not a lot more challenging and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs depend on. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles ruins trust.
- Seek objective evaluations. Satisfied support assesses indicate much less if too much issues suggest inadequate overall usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No single solution can flawlessly fulfill every one-of-a-kind company demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Incremental enhancements normally exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I found out to be much more skeptical of “too good to be true” marketing cases and less attracted by the allure of shiny brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily ought to gain trust fund through transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.