As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to simplify procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my focus GoHighLevel OpenAI.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated together. As an entrepreneur always looking to streamline and scale my company, it appeared like a desire come to life theoretically. Who would not want a solitary service that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company demands, hopefully you can learn from my unpleasant mistakes and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of ideal CRMs instead. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project administration alternative to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client management and automation requirements.
I found Keap intuitive to utilize and it took care of everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to assist small companies maintain their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers receive the ideal messages at the right time. Usage website and social media types to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with simple consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and rise profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive client relationship monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small businesses and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales processes and nurturing customer connections with powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one strategy combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it specifically appealing for services wanting to combine their tech pile.
Essentially, it simply functioned dependably with marginal difficulty or upkeep needed. My open and click-through prices were excellent (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the siren phone call of “glossy things syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will certainly change your business … The yard frequently looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could decrease rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure for many years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a few more disappointments led me to believe maybe it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously 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 expense.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I understood switching platforms was going to call for migrating all my Keap information and essentially restoring my whole tech framework from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s an overview of just some of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface style
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning every little thing over– and also taking care of lost performance throughout the switch.
Yet inevitably, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a far better lasting option for my business, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to understand I had made a big mistake. The concerns began accumulating quickly, until it reached a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I came across.
Security Issues & Many Vermin
Provided 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 consisted of sequences for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion suggestions, handling membership expiries and far more.
Whatever appeared to be operating fine … up until suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 completely unnecessary e-mails had been sent out to individuals that must NOT have gotten them. This occurred 3 days in a row, with a various set of 160 people daily.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. However the issue continued.
When I desperately reached out to their assistance group, they slightly asserted “server concerns” were to blame. But this description really did not make any kind of feeling, since the errors continued taking place each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this large failure was totally inappropriate and simply didn’t work for my organization. I have hundreds of get in touches with depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unstable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these issues …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and complicated.
Basic tasks like modifying workflows included excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely different areas. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of total, private, and item setups. Yet for some crazy factor, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As a person who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek product ready for prime-time use. Their concerns appeared focused on cramming in every feature under the sun, with bad use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the affordable price tag came with expensive concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel OpenAI
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the budget friendly rate for accessibility to numerous features. However I promptly learned this affordable base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core capability. All of a sudden my charge card statements had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get charged whenever you send out an e-mail with their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unexpected expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel membership wound up setting you back significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was appealing, but simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully supported e-mail open prices drop practically overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantaneously to a pathetic 9% open rate.
Regardless of just how much I enhanced my sending out practices or tried every repairing method, I could barely push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel OpenAI.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails unexpectedly had awful involvement. The only point I might think that would be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden fees, broken features, and awful interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a huge blunder. The cons substantially exceeded any type of benefits.
No software program is best, yet the large quantity of issues was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to take care of essential features competently or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after spending considerable time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging call to reverse training course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive misadventure. But in hindsight, it showed me a few vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian declares completely. Marketing buzz around new software application often obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed devices must make your work life less complicated, not more complex and unpleasant.
- Openness develops trust fund. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages depend on.
- Seek objective reviews. Delighted support evaluates imply less if too much issues imply inadequate total usability.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary remedy can completely fulfill every one-of-a-kind business demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Step-by-step enhancements typically exceed high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Basically, I found out to be a lot more skeptical of “also great to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less tempted by the attraction of glossy brand-new objects. The devices you make use of daily should gain count on with transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.