As a company owner for over a years, I rely on software program and automation to improve operations and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel Refresh Snapshot.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one customer administration system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner always seeking to streamline and scale my business, it seemed like a desire become a reality on paper. That wouldn’t want a solitary solution that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and falling short) to switch over to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll discover:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own organization requirements, with any luck you can pick up from my excruciating mistakes and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of ideal CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and job management alternative to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching Over from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation needs.
I located Keap intuitive to make use of and it handled every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist small businesses maintain their clients while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers get the best messages at the correct time. Usage site and social networks kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple visit organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours weekly and rise revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a detailed consumer partnership administration (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on streamlining sales processes and nurturing consumer partnerships with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it particularly eye-catching for organizations seeking to consolidate their technology pile.
For the most part, it just functioned accurately with marginal difficulty or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% excellent). Automations ran efficiently without concerns.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I obtained seduced by the alarm phone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s discussing a brand-new device that will certainly transform your service … The turf typically looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might reduce rubbing factors that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, yet a few more aggravations led me to think perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending substantially more than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I knew switching over platforms was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my entire tech framework from the ground up making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s an introduction of just some of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels throughout once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface style
All in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration job transitioning everything over– as well as taking care of shed productivity throughout the switch.
But ultimately, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly settle with GoHighLevel providing a better long-term solution for my company, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to recognize I had actually made a huge blunder. The problems began piling up quickly, until it reached a point I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible issues I experienced.
Protection Issues & Several Vermin
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new email clients, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out occasion tips, managing membership expiries and far more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning penalty … till unexpectedly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally irrelevant emails had been sent out to users that must NOT have actually obtained them. This occurred three days in a row, with a different set of 160 people every day.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from square one. But the trouble persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely declared “web server problems” were to blame. Yet this explanation really did not make any type of sense, considering that the mistakes proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was completely unacceptable and just really did not help my service. I have thousands of calls counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely unstable, how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these concerns …
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and complex.
Simple tasks like editing workflows entailed digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in entirely different sections. Moving in between features felt disjointed or confusing.
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, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress as opposed to a sleek item all set for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad use as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon realized the low price tag featured pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Refresh Snapshot
One of GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the affordable rate for accessibility to numerous features. But I rapidly learned this inexpensive base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic charges for core functionality. Suddenly my charge card statements had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain charged each time you send an email via their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to numerous dollars in unforeseen prices.
In between these per-email charges and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, but just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported e-mail open rates plunge practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market involvement regularly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a worthless 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I optimized my sending out methods or attempted every repairing method, I could hardly push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Refresh Snapshot.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails all of a sudden had terrible interaction. The only thing I might assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed fees, busted features, and terrible interface, I had actually lastly reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a big blunder. The disadvantages drastically surpassed any kind of benefits.
No software program is ideal, but the sheer quantity of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to take care of critical features properly or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending considerable time, cash, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging call to reverse course and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this ordeal.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. But in knowledge, it taught me a couple of key lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Veterinarian asserts completely. Marketing hype around new software program frequently covers bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is essential.
- Pick simplicity over features. Properly designed devices need to make your work life much easier, not extra complicated and untidy.
- Transparency develops trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems destroys trust fund.
- Seek honest testimonials. Happy support reviews mean less if too much concerns imply bad overall functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No single option can flawlessly meet every distinct company requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Incremental enhancements typically surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
In short, I discovered to be much more unconvinced of “as well great to be real” marketing cases and less attracted by the allure of shiny new objects. The tools you utilize daily ought to earn trust fund through transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.