As an agency proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software program and automation to enhance procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly captured my attention GoHighLevel Trigger Links.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly wanting to simplify and scale my company, it seemed like a desire become a reality theoretically. That would not desire a single remedy that does it all?
Yet in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of trying (and falling short) to change to this prominent new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own organization requirements, ideally you can learn from my agonizing errors and pumped up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and project administration alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap instinctive to utilize and it dealt with every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to assist local business maintain their clients while adding new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the best messages at the correct time. Use site and social networks types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with very easy visit organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and payment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and increase earnings by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a detailed client connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on improving sales procedures and nurturing client relationships through effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one strategy combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task administration, making it specifically appealing for services wanting to combine their tech stack.
Generally, it just worked reliably with minimal hassle or maintenance needed. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% terrific). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that functioned to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can confess I got attracted by the siren call of “glossy object syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when every person’s talking about a new tool that will certainly change your company … The yard frequently looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could reduce rubbing points that I would certainly discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I withstood at first, however a couple of more aggravations led me to believe perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Migrating My Firm to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing considerably greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I understood switching over platforms was going to require moving all my Keap data and essentially restoring my entire tech infrastructure from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Right here’s an overview of simply some of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and project data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and user interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning everything over– not to mention handling shed efficiency throughout the button.
However inevitably, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would settle with GoHighLevel giving a better lasting service for my service, Dripify. Oh how incorrect I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on use to understand I had actually made a large blunder. The problems began piling up quickly, until it got to a point I had to cut my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish problems I encountered.
Protection Issues & Numerous Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to meticulously recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event suggestions, handling subscription expirations and far more.
Whatever appeared to be functioning fine … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 completely unimportant e-mails had actually been sent out to individuals who ought to NOT have received them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 people every day.
I anxiously tried repairing and restoring the automation from the ground up. Yet the issue continued.
When I frantically connected to their assistance team, they slightly asserted “web server concerns” were to blame. But this explanation didn’t make any type of feeling, given that the errors proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unconnected to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was completely undesirable and simply didn’t help my organization. I have thousands of get in touches with depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unstable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only intensified these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was smooth and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and difficult.
Easy tasks like modifying workflows included digging via food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in completely various sections. Relocating in between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle general, specific, and product setups. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined item all set for prime-time usage. Their top priorities appeared concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the low price tag came with expensive concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Trigger Links
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the inexpensive price for access to so many features. But I rapidly discovered this cheap base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic charges for core functionality. All of a sudden my charge card declarations had vague $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get charged every time you send out an email with their servers. So for high volume users, this amounted to hundreds of bucks in unforeseen costs.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, yet just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad preference in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully supported email open prices drop practically over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market engagement regularly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantly to a pathetic 9% open rate.
No matter how much I enhanced my sending methods or tried every repairing trick, I could barely push open rates back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Trigger Links.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had terrible engagement. The only thing I can assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, concealed charges, damaged features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a significant error. The disadvantages dramatically outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software application is ideal, yet the sheer volume of issues was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to trust fund. If I can’t trust it to take care of vital features competently or think a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after investing substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard call to reverse training course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Trick Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive accident. But in hindsight, it instructed me a few vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing hype around new software usually obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is important.
- Pick simpleness over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life less complicated, not extra difficult and untidy.
- Transparency constructs trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert issues ruins trust.
- Look for impartial testimonials. Delighted assistance assesses indicate less if excessive concerns suggest bad total functionality.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary solution can flawlessly meet every special company need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step enhancements normally surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
In short, I found out to be more cynical of “as well excellent to be real” marketing cases and much less attracted by the appeal of shiny brand-new objects. The devices you use daily must earn depend on through transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.