As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I rely upon software and automation to improve operations and provide results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel Verified Caller ID.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one customer administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to streamline and scale my organization, it looked like a desire come to life on paper. That wouldn’t desire a solitary remedy that does it all?
Yet in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of trying (and stopping working) to switch to this popular new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business needs, hopefully you can learn from my unpleasant mistakes and blew up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this listing of finest CRMs rather. I make use of Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and job administration alternative to GoHighLevel, after that here are a couple of we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you require context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my customer monitoring and automation demands.
I found Keap user-friendly to utilize and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to assist local business maintain their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers get the ideal messages at the right time. Use website and social networks types to improve lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement processing, maximizing your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours weekly and boost income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a comprehensive client partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales processes and supporting client connections with powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one technique integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially appealing for businesses wanting to settle their tech pile.
Generally, it simply functioned dependably with very little hassle or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were fantastic (like 35% excellent). Automations ran smoothly without concerns.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that worked to try something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can confess I got attracted by the siren call of “shiny object disorder”. You recognize the feeling: when everyone’s discussing a brand-new tool that will change your company … The turf commonly looks greener on the other side, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could lower friction points that I would certainly discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, but a couple of more disappointments led me to assume perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Firm plan at $297/month, spending significantly greater than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I understood changing systems was going to call for moving all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my entire tech framework from the ground up using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s an overview of just a few of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and task data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, promos, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning an entirely international UX and user interface design
All in, I spent around 30-40 tedious hours of arrangement job transitioning every little thing over– as well as dealing with lost efficiency throughout the button.
However inevitably, it was a calculated financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would certainly repay with GoHighLevel offering a better lasting option for my company, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to understand I had actually made a large mistake. The concerns started piling up swiftly, up until it got to a factor I had to reduce my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish problems I encountered.
Protection Issues & Many Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to meticulously recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion tips, managing subscription expirations and far more.
Whatever appeared to be functioning penalty … until suddenly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally unnecessary e-mails had actually been sent to users that must NOT have actually gotten them. This happened three days in a row, with a various set of 160 individuals each day.
I anxiously attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from scratch. But the issue lingered.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they slightly claimed “server issues” were to blame. However this explanation didn’t make any sense, because the mistakes continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was completely undesirable and just didn’t benefit my business. I have countless get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be absolutely unstable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only compounded these issues …
Discouraging UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and challenging.
Simple tasks like editing workflows entailed excavating with food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably scattered in totally different areas. Moving in between features really felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to take care of total, private, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were expanded on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values clean, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined item ready for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with bad usability as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the affordable price tag featured pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Verified Caller ID
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing factors is the affordable cost for access to so many features. However I swiftly learned this low-cost base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with occasional charges for core capability. Suddenly my charge card declarations had vague $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get charged every time you send out an email with their web servers. So for high volume individuals, this amounted to hundreds of dollars in unexpected prices.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was tempting, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully supported email open prices plummet practically overnight after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience engagement consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantly to a worthless 9% open price.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending practices or attempted every fixing trick, I might hardly push open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Verified Caller ID.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails instantly had terrible involvement. The only point I might think that would certainly be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
In between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed costs, busted features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a significant error. The cons considerably surpassed any benefits.
No software application is ideal, yet the sheer quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to handle essential features capably or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing considerable time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough phone call to reverse course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey misadventure. However in hindsight, it educated me a few key lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not distress what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Vet claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software program typically obscures bigger underlying imperfections. Deep due persistance is vital.
- Pick simplicity over features. Well-designed tools should make your work life much easier, not a lot more complex and untidy.
- Openness constructs count on. Nontransparent pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues destroys trust.
- Look for honest testimonials. Happy assistance evaluates imply less if excessive concerns indicate inadequate overall usability.
- Excellence is impossible. No single remedy can flawlessly satisfy every one-of-a-kind service demand. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Evolution over change. Step-by-step enhancements usually surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
Simply put, I found out to be extra unconvinced of “also great to be real” marketing insurance claims and less lured by the allure of shiny new objects. The devices you make use of daily need to gain trust through transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.