As an agency owner for over a decade, I depend on software application and automation to streamline operations and provide results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely caught my interest GoHighLevel Unlimited Vs Pro.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one client management platform with marketing, sales, and service tools integrated together. As a business owner always wanting to simplify and scale my service, it appeared like a dream happened theoretically. Who would not want a single service that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this preferred brand-new software program. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service requirements, hopefully you can pick up from my agonizing blunders and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and project management option to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had actually been happily counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client management and automation requirements.
I found Keap user-friendly to use and it dealt with everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist small companies maintain their customers while including new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the best messages at the correct time. Use web site and social networks types to improve lead follow-up, and manage your growth with easy consultation organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and repayment processing, liberating your time. With Keap, small businesses can save 10 hours per week and increase profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive consumer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on enhancing sales processes and nurturing customer relationships with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one strategy integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it specifically appealing for services looking to combine their technology stack.
For the most part, it just worked accurately with minimal fuss or upkeep called for. My open and click-through rates were excellent (like 35% great). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that worked to try something unproven and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm telephone call of “shiny object syndrome”. You know the sensation: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new device that will certainly transform your organization … The lawn often looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may lower rubbing points that I ‘d found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I resisted initially, but a couple of even more aggravations led me to think possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending dramatically greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I knew changing systems was going to call for moving all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my whole tech infrastructure from square one using all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an overview of just a few of the effort needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email customer documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving client profiles, notes, and task information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface style
All in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning every little thing over– as well as dealing with lost productivity throughout the switch.
But inevitably, it was a calculated financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly settle with GoHighLevel offering a much better long-term remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a huge error. The concerns began accumulating swiftly, up until it got to a factor I needed to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish problems I encountered.
Security Issues & Lots of Vermin
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion suggestions, taking care of subscription expiries and much more.
Whatever appeared to be operating fine … till suddenly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to discover 171 entirely irrelevant e-mails had actually been sent out to individuals who need to NOT have gotten them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a different batch of 160 individuals daily.
I frantically attempted troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from square one. However the problem persisted.
When I seriously reached out to their assistance group, they vaguely declared “web server problems” were at fault. But this explanation really did not make any type of sense, considering that the mistakes proceeded happening each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this large failure was entirely unacceptable and simply really did not work for my business. I have hundreds of get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely unstable, just how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their innovation?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these concerns …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and challenging.
Basic tasks like modifying workflows entailed digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably scattered in entirely various sections. Relocating in between features really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of total, private, and item setups. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to gain access to each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As a person that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek product prepared for prime-time use. Their top priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon realized the small cost tag included costly concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Unlimited Vs Pro
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest selling points is the budget friendly cost for access to a lot of features. But I rapidly learned this cheap base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional costs for core functionality. Instantly my bank card declarations had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get charged each time you send out an e-mail through their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unanticipated prices.
Between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel membership ended up costing dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported e-mail open prices plunge virtually overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market engagement continually struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked instantly to a worthless 9% open rate.
No matter just how much I enhanced my sending out methods or tried every fixing method, I could barely push open prices back into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Unlimited Vs Pro.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails unexpectedly had awful engagement. The only point I could think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the crippling deliverability problems, concealed costs, broken features, and awful user interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a massive mistake. The cons considerably surpassed any kind of benefits.
No software program is ideal, yet the sheer volume of troubles was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to count on. If I can’t trust it to handle vital features effectively or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after spending significant time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard contact us to turn around course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I learned from this ordeal.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a costly accident. Yet in hindsight, it showed me a couple of crucial lessons:
- Stay with what works. Don’t upset what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings risk.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing buzz around new software commonly covers bigger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed tools must make your job life much easier, not much more complex and untidy.
- Openness builds depend on. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages depend on.
- Look for impartial evaluations. Pleased assistance reviews suggest less if too much issues suggest inadequate overall use.
- Excellence is impossible. No single solution can completely meet every one-of-a-kind company need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental renovations normally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works fine.
In short, I discovered to be much more skeptical of “as well great to be real” marketing claims and less attracted by the appeal of glossy new items. The devices you make use of daily ought to earn depend on with openness and performance, not slick advertising.