As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software program and automation to streamline procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly captured my attention GoHighLevel Summer Camp.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one customer administration system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly looking to simplify and scale my service, it looked like a desire happened theoretically. That wouldn’t desire a solitary option that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this prominent brand-new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service needs, hopefully you can gain from my excruciating mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this list of best CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and task monitoring option to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer management and automation demands.
I located Keap instinctive to make use of and it dealt with whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to aid small businesses maintain their customers while adding new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the ideal messages at the right time. Use web site and social media sites types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours each week and boost earnings by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on streamlining sales processes and supporting consumer relationships with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially attractive for companies seeking to consolidate their technology stack.
For the most part, it simply functioned accurately with very little fuss or maintenance needed. My open and click-through prices were fantastic (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without problems.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that worked to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the sensation: when every person’s discussing a brand-new tool that will transform your organization … The grass often looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could reduce friction factors that I would certainly found out to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, however a couple of more frustrations led me to believe perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I decided to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing substantially more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I knew switching platforms was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire technology facilities from the ground up making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s a summary of just a few of the effort called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and project information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning whatever over– not to mention taking care of shed efficiency throughout the switch.
Yet ultimately, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better long-term solution for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to understand I had made a big blunder. The issues started piling up swiftly, up until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible issues I ran into.
Safety Issues & Numerous Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to thoroughly recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new e-mail clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, managing subscription expiries and a lot more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning fine … up until suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to locate 171 totally unimportant emails had actually been sent to individuals who should NOT have actually received them. This happened three days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals daily.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from scratch. But the issue continued.
When I frantically reached out to their support group, they slightly asserted “web server concerns” were at fault. But this description didn’t make any kind of feeling, considering that the mistakes proceeded happening each morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this large failure was totally unacceptable and simply really did not help my organization. I have countless calls depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely unreliable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these issues …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt steep and difficult.
Simple jobs like modifying workflows involved digging via menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in completely different areas. Relocating in between features really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I indicate by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to handle overall, specific, and product arrangements. Yet for some insane reason, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As a person that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a refined product prepared for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate usability as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly realized the affordable price tag came with costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Summer Camp
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the inexpensive cost for accessibility to a lot of features. Yet I quickly discovered this inexpensive base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic fees for core performance. Suddenly my credit card statements had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you get charged each time you send an e-mail with their servers. So for high volume users, this added up to numerous bucks in unexpected prices.
In between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, but just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open prices plummet nearly overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market interaction consistently struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a useless 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I maximized my sending methods or tried every repairing trick, I could barely push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Summer Camp.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had terrible interaction. The only thing I could believe that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability problems, concealed costs, busted features, and terrible interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a big mistake. The cons significantly exceeded any kind of benefits.
No software program is ideal, however the sheer quantity of problems was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to handle critical functions properly or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the hard call to turn around course and return back to Keap totally simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. Yet in hindsight, it educated me a few essential lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims thoroughly. Marketing buzz around brand-new software application commonly obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is important.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed tools should make your work life easier, not much more difficult and untidy.
- Openness develops depend on. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles ruins depend on.
- Seek unbiased reviews. Happy assistance examines imply less if extreme problems suggest inadequate overall functionality.
- Perfection is impossible. No single service can perfectly satisfy every unique company demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over transformation. Incremental enhancements typically exceed risky wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I learned to be extra cynical of “as well good to be true” marketing insurance claims and less attracted by the allure of shiny new things. The tools you utilize daily need to gain trust fund via transparency and performance, not slick advertising.