As a firm owner for over a decade, I rely upon software application and automation to simplify operations and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it most definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel URL Shortener.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one customer administration system with marketing, sales, and solution devices integrated together. As a business owner constantly aiming to simplify and scale my business, it appeared like a desire happened theoretically. Who would not want a single solution that does it all?
However in this extensive GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of trying (and falling short) to switch to this preferred new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own organization needs, with any luck you can learn from my excruciating blunders and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this listing of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task administration choice to GoHighLevel, then right here are a couple of we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To understand what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation requirements.
I located Keap intuitive to utilize and it handled everything I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist local business maintain their clients while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, ensuring leads and clients get the right messages at the correct time. Use site and social media sites kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment handling, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours per week and increase earnings by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap provides a thorough consumer partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on simplifying sales procedures and nurturing customer relationships via effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one strategy incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it particularly attractive for companies seeking to consolidate their technology stack.
For the most part, it simply functioned dependably with marginal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were wonderful (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without issues.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unverified and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the siren call of “glossy item syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new device that will change your service … The grass commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might reduce rubbing points that I ‘d found out to endure for many years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, but a couple of even more disappointments led me to think maybe it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I made a decision to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing substantially more than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I recognized switching over systems was going to call for moving all my Keap information and essentially rebuilding my entire technology framework from the ground up making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s a summary of simply some of the initiative called for:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client profiles, notes, and task data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration work transitioning whatever over– as well as managing lost efficiency during the switch.
However inevitably, it was a calculated investment I wanted to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would repay with GoHighLevel giving a far better long-lasting service for my organization, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on use to realize I had made a big error. The concerns began accumulating promptly, till it got to a point I needed to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap totally.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish issues I experienced.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Given GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email customers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion pointers, taking care of membership expiries and much more.
Everything appeared to be operating fine … until suddenly it had not been. One early morning, I woke up to locate 171 totally unimportant e-mails had actually been sent out to individuals who ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This took place 3 days straight, with a different set of 160 people every day.
I desperately tried repairing and reconstructing the automation from the ground up. Yet the trouble continued.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they slightly asserted “server concerns” were to blame. Yet this description really did not make any type of sense, since the mistakes proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failing was entirely undesirable and just really did not help my service. I have thousands of calls depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unreliable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface just worsened these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and difficult.
Simple jobs like modifying workflows included excavating via food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably scattered in absolutely different sections. Relocating in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I mean by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate settings panels to handle total, individual, and product arrangements. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to access each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a polished item prepared for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I quickly recognized the low cost tag came with pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel URL Shortener
Among GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the cost effective cost for accessibility to so many features. However I rapidly learned this inexpensive base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional charges for core capability. All of a sudden my credit card declarations had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain billed every time you send an email via their servers. So for high quantity users, this amounted to numerous bucks in unanticipated prices.
Between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “cost effective” GoHighLevel membership wound up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker price was alluring, yet just not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured e-mail open prices plummet virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my target market involvement regularly struck 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pathetic 9% open rate.
Regardless of how much I optimized my sending techniques or attempted every repairing technique, I can barely nudge open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria GoHighLevel URL Shortener.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails suddenly had terrible engagement. The only point I can think that would certainly be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, concealed fees, busted features, and awful user interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a massive blunder. The disadvantages considerably exceeded any type of advantages.
No software application is best, but the sheer quantity of problems was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to handle essential functions competently or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after spending considerable time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap entirely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I learned from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive ill fortune. Yet in hindsight, it educated me a couple of vital lessons:
- Adhere to what works. Don’t disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings threat.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing buzz around new software often covers larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Pick simpleness over features. Properly designed tools need to make your work life easier, not a lot more difficult and untidy.
- Transparency develops trust. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape troubles destroys trust fund.
- Look for unbiased reviews. Satisfied support evaluates imply much less if excessive concerns indicate inadequate overall functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No single remedy can flawlessly fulfill every one-of-a-kind organization requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Incremental renovations usually outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already functions fine.
Basically, I found out to be more doubtful of “as well great to be real” marketing cases and much less attracted by the appeal of shiny brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily should gain trust fund with openness and performance, not glossy advertising.