As an agency owner for over a years, I depend on software and automation to simplify procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my focus GoHighLevel Subscription.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client management system with marketing, sales, and service devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly looking to streamline and scale my organization, it seemed like a dream come true on paper. That wouldn’t want a single option that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and stopping working) to switch over to this preferred new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, ideally you can learn from my agonizing errors and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this listing of best CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project administration choice to GoHighLevel, after that here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context regarding my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been happily depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer monitoring and automation demands.
I located Keap user-friendly to utilize and it managed every little thing I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to aid local business maintain their clients while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, ensuring leads and clients obtain the right messages at the correct time. Use web site and social networks types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy appointment scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours each week and boost earnings by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides an extensive consumer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and nurturing customer relationships via powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it particularly eye-catching for organizations seeking to consolidate their tech pile.
Essentially, it simply functioned accurately with very little difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly with no issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my whole operational foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can confess I obtained attracted by the alarm phone call of “shiny object disorder”. You know the feeling: when everyone’s speaking about a brand-new tool that will reinvent your organization … The turf often looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure over the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, but a few more disappointments led me to believe maybe it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending substantially greater than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I understood changing systems was going to need migrating all my Keap information and essentially restoring my whole technology facilities from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s a review of just some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and project data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning whatever over– and also taking care of lost performance during the button.
But ultimately, it was a calculated financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a much better lasting option for my company, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a large blunder. The problems began accumulating swiftly, until it got to a point I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible issues I encountered.
Safety Issues & Numerous Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out occasion reminders, managing subscription expiries and much more.
Everything seemed to be operating fine … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 entirely unimportant emails had actually been sent out to individuals that ought to NOT have gotten them. This happened 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 individuals every day.
I desperately attempted fixing and rebuilding the automation from the ground up. Yet the problem persisted.
When I desperately reached out to their support group, they vaguely asserted “server issues” were responsible. But this description didn’t make any sense, because the errors continued occurring each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was totally inappropriate and simply didn’t benefit my organization. I have hundreds of contacts counting on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be entirely undependable, how could I leave mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just intensified these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and complex.
Straightforward tasks like editing workflows entailed digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably spread in entirely different sections. Moving in between features felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to manage general, individual, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined product prepared for prime-time usage. Their priorities seemed focused on packing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly realized the affordable price tag featured costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Subscription
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the affordable cost for access to so many features. But I promptly discovered this low-cost base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core performance. Unexpectedly my bank card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain billed each time you send an email with their web servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was appealing, however simply not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured email open prices plunge nearly overnight after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement consistently hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a worthless 9% open price.
No matter just how much I optimized my sending out practices or attempted every fixing trick, I could hardly push open rates back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Subscription.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had awful involvement. The only point I can believe that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed fees, busted features, and horrible user interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages significantly exceeded any advantages.
No software program is ideal, yet the large quantity of issues was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to take care of crucial functions competently or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after spending considerable time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. But in hindsight, it educated me a few vital lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian declares extensively. Marketing hype around new software program commonly covers bigger underlying defects. Deep due diligence is essential.
- Select simplicity over features. Well-designed devices must make your job life easier, not more complicated and unpleasant.
- Openness develops trust. Opaque pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade issues ruins count on.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Delighted support evaluates mean less if excessive issues indicate poor overall use.
- Excellence is difficult. No single option can completely meet every unique business demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental enhancements typically exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In other words, I learned to be extra skeptical of “as well great to be real” marketing insurance claims and less tempted by the appeal of glossy new items. The devices you use daily should make trust with transparency and performance, not glossy advertising.