As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software application and automation to simplify operations and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely captured my attention GoHighLevel TikTok Lead Ads.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one customer monitoring system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As a business owner constantly aiming to simplify and scale my organization, it appeared like a desire come true on paper. Who wouldn’t desire a solitary service that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of trying (and failing) to switch to this popular brand-new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own organization needs, hopefully you can learn from my unpleasant mistakes and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this listing of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context about my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation demands.
I located Keap intuitive to use and it managed whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help small companies keep their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making sure leads and customers get the ideal messages at the correct time. Usage internet site and social media sites types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple consultation scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours each week and boost revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a comprehensive consumer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation remedy tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on streamlining sales processes and nurturing consumer partnerships through effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially eye-catching for services looking to combine their technology pile.
Generally, it just functioned accurately with minimal fuss or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were wonderful (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly with no problems.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got seduced by the alarm telephone call of “glossy things syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new device that will change your service … The lawn frequently looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel might lower rubbing points that I ‘d discovered to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a few more irritations led me to think perhaps it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I understood switching over systems was mosting likely to need moving all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my whole tech infrastructure from the ground up utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s a summary of simply several of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and task data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning an entirely international UX and interface design
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of arrangement work transitioning every little thing over– not to mention managing shed performance during the button.
Yet inevitably, it was a computed financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly settle with GoHighLevel providing a much better long-term remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a big mistake. The issues started piling up swiftly, till it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish issues I experienced.
Security Issues & Lots of Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to meticulously recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion tips, handling subscription expiries and much more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning fine … up until suddenly it wasn’t. One morning, I woke up to find 171 entirely pointless e-mails had actually been sent to customers who should NOT have gotten them. This took place three days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals daily.
I hysterically tried troubleshooting and restoring the automation from scratch. However the trouble persisted.
When I frantically connected to their assistance group, they slightly claimed “server concerns” were to blame. However this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, given that the errors proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this huge failure was totally undesirable and simply didn’t work for my company. I have thousands of calls counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely unstable, exactly how could I leave mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their technology?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these problems …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt steep and challenging.
Easy jobs like editing and enhancing workflows included excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably scattered in entirely various sections. Relocating between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I mean by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to take care of general, specific, and product setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As a person who values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously frustrated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item prepared for prime-time use. Their top priorities seemed focused on packing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate usability as an afterthought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the low price tag included costly compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel TikTok Lead Ads
Among GoHighLevel’s largest selling factors is the economical price for accessibility to so many features. Yet I promptly discovered this affordable base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with sporadic costs for core functionality. Suddenly my charge card declarations had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get charged each time you send an email with their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to hundreds of bucks in unexpected prices.
Between these per-email fees and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel registration wound up costing considerably greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, but just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly supported email open prices plummet almost over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement constantly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a useless 9% open price.
Despite just how much I maximized my sending out techniques or attempted every troubleshooting method, I can hardly push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel TikTok Lead Ads.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had horrible engagement. The only point I can think 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 crippling deliverability issues, hidden charges, broken features, and horrible user interface, I had ultimately reached my limit …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a significant error. The disadvantages significantly outweighed any type of benefits.
No software is perfect, but the large volume of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to count on. If I can’t trust it to manage crucial features effectively or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– also after spending substantial 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. Allow’s discover what I learned from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly ill fortune. Yet in knowledge, it instructed me a few crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares extensively. Marketing buzz around new software program often covers larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Pick simpleness over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your job life easier, not a lot more challenging and untidy.
- Transparency develops count on. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles destroys trust.
- Seek unbiased evaluations. Delighted support reviews mean much less if excessive issues suggest bad general usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary remedy can perfectly satisfy every distinct business need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental renovations generally exceed dangerous wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
Basically, I discovered to be much more unconvinced of “as well good to be true” marketing cases and less tempted by the attraction of glossy brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily need to make depend on through transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.