As a company proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software program and automation to enhance procedures and supply results. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel Quizzes.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly looking to streamline and scale my company, it seemed like a desire come to life theoretically. Who wouldn’t want a single remedy that does it all?
Yet in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of trying (and stopping working) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business needs, with any luck you can learn from my painful mistakes and inflated assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project administration option to GoHighLevel, after that below are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation needs.
I found Keap instinctive to utilize and it handled everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist small companies keep their customers while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making certain leads and clients get the appropriate messages at the right time. Usage website and social media sites kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your development with very easy appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours each week and boost revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive consumer connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on simplifying sales processes and supporting customer partnerships with powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it specifically attractive for organizations seeking to combine their tech stack.
For the most part, it just functioned reliably with minimal hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren telephone call of “shiny item syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new tool that will transform your organization … The turf often looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might reduce rubbing factors that I ‘d found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to in the beginning, yet a few more irritations led me to believe maybe it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I understood switching over systems was going to need moving all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire tech framework from scratch making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s a review of just some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and project data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface style
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning whatever over– as well as handling shed productivity during the button.
Yet eventually, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly settle with GoHighLevel offering a far better lasting option for my company, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a large mistake. The issues began piling up quickly, up until it reached a factor I had to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap completely.
Let’s go through the nightmarish issues I experienced.
Protection Issues & Numerous Vermin
Given 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 included series for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion pointers, handling membership expirations and much more.
Every little thing seemed to be operating fine … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 entirely unnecessary emails had actually been sent to users who ought to NOT have received them. This occurred three days in a row, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I anxiously tried fixing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. But the issue persisted.
When I seriously reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely declared “web server issues” were to blame. However this description didn’t make any feeling, because the mistakes proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this huge failing was totally undesirable and just really did not help my company. I have thousands of calls relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely undependable, exactly how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and challenging.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in totally various sections. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I suggest by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage general, private, and item setups. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously annoyed me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a sleek product all set for prime-time usage. Their priorities appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature under the sun, with bad functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the small cost tag included pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Quizzes
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing factors is the economical price for accessibility to a lot of features. However I swiftly discovered this low-cost base expense was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional fees for core performance. All of a sudden my bank card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain billed whenever you send out an email via their servers. So for high quantity customers, this added up to thousands of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email fees and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel registration ended up setting you back substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, however just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open prices plunge virtually over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market interaction constantly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantly to a pathetic 9% open price.
No matter just how much I maximized my sending practices or attempted every fixing trick, I can barely push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Quizzes.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails unexpectedly had dreadful interaction. The only thing I might assume that would certainly be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden fees, broken features, and terrible interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a huge error. The disadvantages significantly surpassed any advantages.
No software application is ideal, but the sheer volume of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to take care of crucial features properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after spending significant time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the difficult call to turn around training course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive misadventure. Yet in knowledge, it taught me a couple of key lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software usually obscures bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is important.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life much easier, not extra difficult and unpleasant.
- Openness builds count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues destroys trust fund.
- Seek objective evaluations. Satisfied support evaluates mean less if too much issues imply poor total functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary option can perfectly meet every unique organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental renovations generally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
In other words, I discovered to be much more unconvinced of “as well great to be true” marketing cases and less lured by the attraction of shiny new things. The tools you use daily should make trust fund through openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.