As a company proprietor for over a years, I count on software application and automation to streamline procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it certainly caught my interest GoHighLevel Security Response.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one client management system with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner constantly looking to streamline and scale my service, it seemed like a desire become a reality theoretically. That wouldn’t desire a single service that does it all?
Yet in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of trying (and falling short) to switch to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business requirements, with any luck you can gain from my agonizing errors and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this listing of best CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and project administration choice to GoHighLevel, then here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client monitoring and automation needs.
I located Keap instinctive to use and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to assist local business keep their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and customers receive the right messages at the right time. Usage web site and social media sites types to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and settlement processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours each week and rise profits by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small companies and business owners. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and supporting client partnerships via powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one strategy incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it especially appealing for businesses looking to combine their tech stack.
For the most part, it simply functioned dependably with marginal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly without issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the siren telephone call of “shiny item syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when everyone’s speaking about a brand-new device that will certainly change your business … The lawn usually looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could lower rubbing factors that I would certainly discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood at first, but a few more stress led me to believe perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending substantially greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I knew switching platforms was going to need moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole technology infrastructure from square one utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s a review of simply some of the initiative required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and project data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of setup job transitioning every little thing over– not to mention taking care of lost performance throughout the switch.
However ultimately, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel supplying a better lasting remedy for my business, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a big mistake. The problems started piling up promptly, till it reached a point I needed to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the horrible troubles I ran into.
Security Issues & Many Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out event suggestions, managing membership expirations and much more.
Whatever seemed to be operating penalty … till unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally unimportant emails had actually been sent out to users who should NOT have actually obtained them. This took place three days in a row, with a various batch of 160 individuals each day.
I frantically tried fixing and rebuilding the automation from scratch. However the problem continued.
When I desperately reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely asserted “web server problems” were at fault. But this description didn’t make any type of sense, given that the mistakes continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was entirely inappropriate and just really did not benefit my business. I have thousands of contacts relying on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely undependable, just how could I hand over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Coming from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and complex.
Straightforward jobs like editing and enhancing workflows included digging with food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely different sections. Relocating between features really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to manage total, individual, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane factor, the links to accessibility each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a refined item ready for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly recognized the low cost tag included costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Security Response
One of GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the economical cost for accessibility to so many features. Yet I swiftly learned this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic fees for core performance. Unexpectedly my charge card statements had obscure $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain charged whenever you send out an e-mail via their servers. So for high quantity users, this amounted to hundreds of bucks in unexpected costs.
Between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel registration ended up costing substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was appealing, yet just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open rates drop practically overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement continually hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a useless 9% open price.
Despite how much I enhanced my sending techniques or attempted every fixing method, I can barely push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Security Response.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails all of a sudden had terrible involvement. The only point I could think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden charges, busted features, and terrible interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a big error. The disadvantages dramatically exceeded any advantages.
No software application is ideal, however the sheer volume of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to take care of essential features properly or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending substantial time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey misadventure. Yet in knowledge, it showed me a few essential lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet asserts completely. Marketing buzz around brand-new software commonly obscures larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is important.
- Select simpleness over features. Properly designed devices must make your job life simpler, not a lot more complicated and messy.
- Openness constructs depend on. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems ruins trust fund.
- Seek objective reviews. Pleased support reviews suggest less if excessive problems indicate inadequate general use.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary remedy can completely fulfill every distinct service demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Step-by-step improvements commonly surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Simply put, I found out to be more hesitant of “also great to be true” marketing cases and much less attracted by the attraction of shiny brand-new items. The tools you use daily should earn trust fund through openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.