As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software program and automation to enhance operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it absolutely captured my interest GoHighLevel Release Radar.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and service devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly seeking to streamline and scale my company, it seemed like a desire come to life theoretically. That would not desire a single remedy that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of trying (and stopping working) to change to this preferred brand-new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, ideally you can pick up from my agonizing errors and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and job monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer monitoring and automation demands.
I located Keap user-friendly to make use of and it took care of everything I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help local business keep their clients while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and clients get the appropriate messages at the right time. Usage web site and social media forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours per week and rise profits by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a thorough customer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and nurturing client partnerships through effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it especially appealing for organizations aiming to consolidate their tech stack.
For the most part, it simply functioned dependably with minimal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% great). Automations ran smoothly with no issues.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional structure from a system that worked to try something unverified and untested?
In knowledge I can confess I got attracted by the alarm telephone call of “shiny item disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new device that will transform your business … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may minimize friction points that I would certainly discovered to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a couple of more stress led me to think possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably greater than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I recognized switching systems was mosting likely to require migrating all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my entire tech facilities from scratch making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an introduction of just some of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and task data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, promos, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface layout
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning everything over– in addition to handling shed efficiency during the switch.
Yet inevitably, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-lasting remedy for my company, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on use to recognize I had actually made a big mistake. The issues started piling up swiftly, until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Let’s go through the horrible issues I encountered.
Safety And Security Issues & Numerous Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to meticulously recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event tips, managing subscription expiries and a lot more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning penalty … until instantly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 totally unimportant e-mails had been sent out to individuals who ought to NOT have received them. This happened three days straight, with a different batch of 160 people daily.
I anxiously attempted fixing and restoring the automation from square one. But the issue lingered.
When I frantically connected to their support team, they slightly declared “server issues” were at fault. But this explanation really did not make any type of sense, given that the mistakes continued happening each morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this huge failure was completely inappropriate and just didn’t work for my company. I have hundreds of get in touches with relying upon 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 customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and difficult.
Simple tasks like editing workflows included digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in entirely various areas. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle overall, individual, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek item ready for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature under the sun, with inadequate use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon understood the low price tag featured costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Release Radar
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest marketing factors is the budget-friendly rate for accessibility to so many features. However I quickly learned this affordable base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic fees for core capability. Suddenly my charge card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get billed every time you send an e-mail through their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to numerous dollars in unanticipated prices.
Between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was appealing, however simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open prices drop practically over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience interaction continually struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a useless 9% open rate.
No matter how much I optimized my sending out practices or attempted every repairing method, I can hardly push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Release Radar.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails all of a sudden had horrible involvement. The only point I can assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed costs, busted features, and terrible user interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a massive mistake. The cons dramatically exceeded any benefits.
No software application is excellent, however the sheer volume of problems was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to trust. If I can’t trust it to deal with crucial functions capably or think a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after spending significant time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the hard call to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey accident. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a few essential lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software program frequently obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices should make your job life less complicated, not extra challenging and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs depend on. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues ruins count on.
- Look for objective evaluations. Delighted assistance examines mean much less if extreme concerns suggest inadequate total usability.
- Excellence is impossible. No single remedy can perfectly fulfill every unique organization requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step improvements commonly outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Simply put, I learned to be much more unconvinced of “also good to be real” marketing insurance claims and much less attracted by the allure of shiny brand-new things. The devices you use daily ought to make count on through transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.