As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely on software and automation to simplify operations and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it most definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Rocket.net.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client monitoring platform with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As a business owner always wanting to simplify and scale my service, it felt like a desire become a reality on paper. Who wouldn’t want a solitary remedy that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and failing) to change to this prominent new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service needs, ideally you can learn from my agonizing mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and task administration option to GoHighLevel, after that here are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been happily relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation demands.
I located Keap instinctive to utilize and it took care of whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist small companies maintain their customers while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the best messages at the correct time. Usage website and social networks forms to improve lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours per week and increase income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a thorough consumer partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and supporting consumer partnerships via effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially eye-catching for businesses wanting to consolidate their technology stack.
Generally, it just worked dependably with marginal hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without any concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can admit I got attracted by the alarm phone call of “shiny item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will transform your organization … The turf typically looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel might reduce friction factors that I ‘d discovered to endure over the years with Keap.
I resisted at first, yet a few more aggravations led me to assume possibly it was time for a change.
The Investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing dramatically more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I recognized switching systems was going to require migrating all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my entire technology facilities from the ground up making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s an overview of just a few of the initiative called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and project data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once more
- Learning a completely foreign UX and user interface design
All in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– as well as dealing with shed performance throughout the switch.
However ultimately, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-term remedy for my company, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a huge blunder. The issues began piling up rapidly, up until it got to a point I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the horrible troubles I experienced.
Safety Issues & Numerous Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to carefully recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion pointers, handling subscription expiries and a lot more.
Whatever seemed to be working fine … up until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally unimportant emails had been sent to users that ought to NOT have actually gotten them. This happened 3 days in a row, with a different set of 160 individuals daily.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from scratch. But the trouble persisted.
When I desperately connected to their support team, they slightly declared “web server problems” were to blame. But this description really did not make any type of sense, since the mistakes proceeded happening each morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was totally inappropriate and just really did not help my business. I have hundreds of contacts relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unstable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just worsened these concerns …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and challenging.
Straightforward tasks like modifying workflows entailed excavating through menu systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably spread in absolutely various areas. Moving in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to manage general, individual, and product configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously irritated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a polished item ready for prime-time usage. Their concerns appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate usability as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly realized the low cost tag came with costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Rocket.net
Among GoHighLevel’s largest marketing factors is the cost effective rate for access to so many features. Yet I quickly discovered this cheap base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with erratic charges for core performance. Unexpectedly my credit card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed each time you send an e-mail through their servers. So for high volume users, this amounted to numerous bucks in unanticipated prices.
In between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was appealing, however just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported e-mail open rates drop nearly overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement constantly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open rate.
No matter how much I optimized my sending methods or attempted every troubleshooting technique, I could hardly nudge open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Rocket.net.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails all of a sudden had horrible involvement. The only point I might think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed costs, busted features, and dreadful interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a huge error. The disadvantages dramatically surpassed any advantages.
No software program is excellent, but the sheer quantity of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to handle vital features effectively or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing considerable time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough contact us to turn around training course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s discover what I picked up from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey misadventure. But in knowledge, it instructed me a couple of key lessons:
- Stay with what works. Do not disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software typically obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed tools need to make your work life less complicated, not much more difficult and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs depend on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade problems damages trust fund.
- Seek objective reviews. Delighted assistance examines suggest less if extreme problems indicate poor general functionality.
- Perfection is difficult. No single remedy can perfectly meet every one-of-a-kind business need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Incremental improvements typically outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I discovered to be extra hesitant of “too good to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less attracted by the appeal of glossy new things. The tools you utilize daily need to earn trust fund through openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.