As a firm proprietor for over a years, I depend on software program and automation to streamline operations and supply results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it certainly caught my focus GoHighLevel Texting & SMS.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated together. As a business owner constantly seeking to simplify and scale my company, it felt like a dream come to life theoretically. That would not want a single remedy that does it all?
However in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this preferred brand-new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own service requirements, with any luck you can gain from my agonizing blunders and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job administration choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been happily depending on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation requirements.
I found Keap intuitive to utilize and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to help local business maintain their clients while adding new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making certain leads and clients get the best messages at the correct time. Usage web site and social networks kinds to simplify lead follow-up, and manage your growth with very easy appointment scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and repayment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours each week and rise earnings by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive client connection management (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and nurturing client connections via powerful automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially attractive for businesses wanting to combine their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply functioned accurately with very little hassle or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were fantastic (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without concerns.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the alarm call of “glossy things syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new tool that will certainly transform your service … The grass commonly looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may minimize rubbing points that I would certainly found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I resisted in the beginning, but a few more irritations led me to think maybe it was time for a change.
The Investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I knew switching systems was going to require moving all my Keap information and basically restoring my whole technology framework from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s a review of simply a few of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer profiles, notes, and project information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning a totally international UX and user interface design
All in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– as well as handling shed productivity throughout the button.
However inevitably, it was a computed financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel providing a better lasting solution for my business, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on use to understand I had actually made a large error. The problems started accumulating rapidly, until it got to a point I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible issues I encountered.
Safety Issues & Numerous Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion suggestions, handling membership expiries and much more.
Whatever appeared to be operating penalty … until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally pointless emails had been sent to users that need to NOT have actually obtained them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 individuals each day.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and reconstructing the automation from square one. Yet the issue lingered.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance group, they slightly claimed “server concerns” were responsible. Yet this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, considering that the errors proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failing was totally unacceptable and simply really did not help my business. I have hundreds of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unreliable, exactly how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only compounded these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and difficult.
Basic tasks like editing and enhancing workflows involved digging with menu systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely various sections. Moving between functions felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage general, individual, and item setups. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously frustrated me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared concentrated on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with bad use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly realized the affordable price tag came with pricey concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Texting & SMS
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant marketing points is the economical cost for accessibility to many features. However I rapidly discovered this economical base price was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core capability. Suddenly my bank card declarations had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get charged every time you send an e-mail via their servers. So for high volume users, this added up to numerous bucks in unforeseen expenses.
Between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, however just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open rates plunge nearly overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience interaction regularly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open price.
Regardless of just how much I enhanced my sending out practices or attempted every fixing trick, I might hardly push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Texting & SMS.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had dreadful engagement. The only point I could believe that would certainly be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability concerns, hidden costs, busted features, and horrible user interface, I had actually finally reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a substantial mistake. The disadvantages substantially outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software application is ideal, however the large quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust. If I can not trust it to take care of important features properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after spending considerable time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging call to reverse program and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey misadventure. But in hindsight, it educated me a few crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Do not disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings danger.
- Veterinarian asserts completely. Marketing buzz around new software program frequently covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is important.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed tools need to make your job life simpler, not a lot more complex and untidy.
- Openness constructs trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles damages depend on.
- Seek objective testimonials. Satisfied assistance reviews imply less if extreme problems suggest poor general functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary solution can flawlessly satisfy every distinct company need. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step renovations commonly surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
In short, I learned to be extra hesitant of “as well great to be true” marketing cases and much less lured by the appeal of glossy brand-new objects. The tools you make use of daily must make count on via transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.