As an agency owner for over a decade, I count on software application and automation to improve procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely caught my focus GoHighLevel Order Form.
The concept was appealing– an all-in-one client management system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As an entrepreneur always aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it seemed like a desire come true theoretically. Who would not desire a single service that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own company requirements, ideally you can gain from my uncomfortable errors and blew up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, after that below are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching Over from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap instinctive to use and it handled whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist small companies maintain their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers receive the best messages at the correct time. Use site and social networks forms to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple visit 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%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides an extensive consumer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for small companies and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and supporting client partnerships with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it specifically appealing for organizations looking to settle their technology stack.
Generally, it simply functioned reliably with minimal fuss or maintenance called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly with no problems.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the alarm telephone call of “shiny things syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a new tool that will change your company … The turf commonly looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could reduce rubbing points that I would certainly found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood initially, however a few more frustrations led me to think maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I knew changing platforms was going to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire technology facilities from scratch using all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s an overview of just a few of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around again
- Learning a completely international UX and interface style
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– not to mention taking care of shed efficiency throughout the button.
But eventually, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel giving a better lasting option for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a huge blunder. The problems began piling up promptly, until it reached a point I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible troubles I experienced.
Security Issues & Many Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event suggestions, taking care of subscription expirations and much more.
Everything seemed to be functioning penalty … till unexpectedly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to locate 171 completely unnecessary emails had actually been sent to individuals who must NOT have actually gotten them. This happened three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals every day.
I anxiously attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from square one. But the trouble persisted.
When I desperately connected to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “web server concerns” were responsible. However this description didn’t make any type of feeling, because the mistakes continued taking place each morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was totally undesirable and just really did not work for my business. I have hundreds of get in touches with depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally undependable, just how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only intensified these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and challenging.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating via menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various sections. Moving between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I mean by speaking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of overall, private, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously irritated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a sleek product prepared for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the low price tag featured expensive compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Order Form
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the cost effective rate for access to many features. However I promptly learned this low-cost base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional charges for core functionality. Instantly my credit card declarations had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain charged whenever you send an email through their servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unexpected costs.
Between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back significantly MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was appealing, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured e-mail open rates plunge practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market involvement continually hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a worthless 9% open price.
Despite how much I enhanced my sending practices or attempted every repairing technique, I could barely nudge open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards GoHighLevel Order Form.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had terrible involvement. The only thing I could think that would be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden fees, broken features, and dreadful interface, I had actually lastly reached my limit …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a substantial error. The disadvantages drastically exceeded any benefits.
No software is ideal, however the large volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to count on. If I can’t trust it to take care of crucial features effectively or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after investing significant time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the challenging call to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly ill fortune. But in hindsight, it instructed me a few key lessons:
- Stay with what works. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing buzz around new software program often covers larger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed devices should make your job life less complicated, not more complicated and messy.
- Transparency constructs depend on. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems ruins count on.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Pleased assistance examines mean much less if excessive issues suggest inadequate overall functionality.
- Perfection is difficult. No single option can completely meet every special organization requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step enhancements typically outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be extra cynical of “as well good to be true” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the appeal of glossy brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily must earn depend on with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.