As a firm proprietor for over a years, I rely on software application and automation to streamline procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely caught my attention GoHighLevel V2 API.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated with each other. As a business owner constantly aiming to streamline and scale my business, it appeared like a dream become a reality on paper. That would not desire a single option that does it all?
Yet in this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, ideally you can learn from my uncomfortable blunders and blew up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of finest CRMs rather. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and task monitoring alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had actually been happily relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my client administration and automation needs.
I found Keap intuitive to make use of and it handled every little thing I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help local business keep their clients while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, guaranteeing leads and clients receive the ideal messages at the right time. Usage internet site and social media types to improve lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and settlement processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours per week and boost revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a comprehensive customer relationship administration (CRM) and marketing automation service tailored for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on simplifying sales procedures and nurturing client relationships through powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one method combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job monitoring, making it particularly attractive for companies looking to combine their tech stack.
Generally, it just worked accurately with minimal hassle or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently with no issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire operational structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got seduced by the siren phone call of “glossy things disorder”. You know the feeling: when every person’s discussing a brand-new device that will certainly change your company … The turf commonly looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could minimize rubbing factors that I would certainly learned to tolerate over the years with Keap.
I withstood initially, however a couple of more stress led me to believe possibly it was time for a change.
The Financial investment: Moving My Agency to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I decided to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending dramatically greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This had not been a choice I took lightly. I recognized changing platforms was mosting likely to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially restoring my entire tech framework from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s a review of simply some of the effort needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email subscriber records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and project data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning an entirely foreign UX and interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement work transitioning whatever over– as well as managing lost efficiency throughout the button.
Yet eventually, it was a calculated financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly repay with GoHighLevel supplying a far better long-lasting solution for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It just took me concerning a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a huge blunder. The issues started accumulating rapidly, until it reached a point I had to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the horrible issues I ran into.
Protection Issues & Lots of Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail customers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event pointers, managing membership expirations and a lot more.
Whatever appeared to be operating fine … till unexpectedly it had not been. One morning, I awoke to locate 171 completely unimportant emails had actually been sent out to individuals that ought to NOT have actually received them. This happened 3 days in a row, with a different batch of 160 individuals each day.
I frantically tried repairing and rebuilding the automation from scratch. However the issue persisted.
When I frantically reached out to their assistance group, they slightly declared “web server problems” were responsible. Yet this explanation didn’t make any type of sense, given that the mistakes proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this huge failure was totally inappropriate and just really did not benefit my organization. I have thousands of get in touches with depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unreliable, just how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface just compounded these problems …
Discouraging UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and difficult.
Simple tasks like editing workflows included digging with menu systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in absolutely different areas. Relocating in between functions really felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 different settings panels to manage total, specific, and product arrangements. Yet for some insane factor, the links to access each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress rather than a refined item ready for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the low cost tag featured pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel V2 API
Among GoHighLevel’s largest selling points is the budget-friendly price for accessibility to numerous features. However I swiftly discovered this low-cost base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core performance. Instantly my bank card declarations had vague $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain billed every time you send out an email via their servers. So for high volume individuals, this added up to numerous dollars in unexpected prices.
Between these per-email costs and paying additional for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel registration ended up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, yet simply not realistic in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported email open prices drop practically over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market interaction constantly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pitiful 9% open price.
Despite how much I maximized my sending methods or tried every fixing method, I could barely push open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel V2 API.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had horrible engagement. The only point I can believe that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed costs, broken features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a big mistake. The cons significantly surpassed any benefits.
No software program is ideal, however the large quantity of issues was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to deal with critical features properly or think a supplier has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the challenging call to reverse program and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this fiasco.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive misadventure. However in knowledge, it educated me a couple of key lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings risk.
- Veterinarian claims thoroughly. Marketing buzz around brand-new software application commonly covers bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is crucial.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices need to make your work life much easier, not extra difficult and untidy.
- Transparency develops trust. Opaque pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles ruins depend on.
- Seek unbiased evaluations. Delighted support examines mean less if extreme problems imply poor general usability.
- Excellence is difficult. No single remedy can flawlessly fulfill every distinct business requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Incremental enhancements generally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
In short, I learned to be a lot more hesitant of “also good to be real” marketing cases and less tempted by the allure of glossy new objects. The tools you utilize daily should earn count on via openness and efficiency, not glossy advertising.