As a company owner for over a years, I depend on software program and automation to improve procedures and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my focus GoHighLevel Updates.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client management system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As a business owner constantly wanting to simplify and scale my service, it looked like a desire become a reality theoretically. That would not want a single remedy that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful trip of trying (and falling short) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business needs, ideally you can learn from my excruciating mistakes and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and job monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer management and automation needs.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to make use of and it handled whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are made to assist small companies maintain their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and clients obtain the ideal messages at the correct time. Usage website and social media sites types to improve lead follow-up, and manage your development with easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment handling, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours weekly and boost income by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses a comprehensive client partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation option customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and supporting customer connections through powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one method integrates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it especially attractive for organizations aiming to combine their tech pile.
For the most part, it just functioned accurately with marginal difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through rates were terrific (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly with no issues.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my whole operational structure from a system that functioned to try something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm call of “shiny item syndrome”. You know the feeling: when every person’s speaking about a new tool that will certainly transform your organization … The turf often looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel may minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d learned to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, however a few even more stress led me to think perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a decision I ignored. I understood changing systems was going to call for moving all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my whole tech framework from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s an overview of simply a few of the effort required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer records
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around once more
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration job transitioning whatever over– as well as dealing with lost performance during the button.
However ultimately, it was a calculated investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better long-lasting service for my organization, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on use to understand I had actually made a huge blunder. The concerns started piling up quickly, until it reached a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I came across.
Security Issues & Several Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to diligently recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion tips, taking care of membership expiries and a lot more.
Every little thing seemed to be working penalty … until suddenly it had not been. One morning, I woke up to discover 171 totally irrelevant e-mails had been sent out to users who must NOT have actually gotten them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 individuals each day.
I desperately tried troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. However the problem continued.
When I seriously reached out to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “server issues” were at fault. Yet this description really did not make any type of feeling, considering that the errors continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was entirely inappropriate and simply really did not help my organization. I have countless calls depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely undependable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their technology?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these issues …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where everything was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and complex.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating via food selection systems that were all over the place. Key setups were unexplainably spread in completely various areas. Relocating between functions felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll tell you what I imply by talking about their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to manage general, private, and item configurations. Yet for some insane factor, the links to access each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values clean, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a sleek product all set for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the affordable price tag included pricey concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Updates
One of GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the cost effective cost for accessibility to so many features. Yet I promptly learned this economical base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic costs for core performance. Instantly my charge card declarations had obscure $10 charges from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you get billed each time you send an email through their web servers. So for high volume users, this amounted to hundreds of bucks in unforeseen expenses.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel subscription wound up setting you back considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was alluring, yet just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open prices drop almost over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement continually struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked quickly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Regardless of how much I maximized my sending techniques or attempted every repairing method, I could barely push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Updates.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails unexpectedly had awful interaction. The only thing I can think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, hidden fees, busted features, and awful interface, I had finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had made a huge mistake. The cons substantially exceeded any kind of advantages.
No software application is excellent, but the sheer quantity of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to depend on. If I can not trust it to deal with critical features competently or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after investing considerable time, money, and effort migrating.
So I made the challenging contact us to turn around course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I learned from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive ill fortune. But in knowledge, it instructed me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Change brings risk.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing buzz around brand-new software application typically obscures bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools should make your job life easier, not a lot more complicated and untidy.
- Openness constructs count on. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape problems damages depend on.
- Look for objective reviews. Delighted support examines suggest much less if too much problems suggest bad general usability.
- Excellence is impossible. No solitary remedy can completely fulfill every special organization need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step enhancements typically outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I discovered to be much more doubtful of “also great to be real” marketing claims and much less tempted by the attraction of glossy new items. The devices you use daily need to make trust with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.