As a firm owner for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to improve operations and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel Vs Notion.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client administration platform with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As a business owner constantly wanting to streamline and scale my service, it appeared like a dream come true theoretically. Who wouldn’t want a solitary remedy that does it all?
Yet in this comprehensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and failing) to switch over to this prominent brand-new software. You’ll learn:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company demands, hopefully you can pick up from my uncomfortable blunders and blew up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this checklist of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job administration option to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been happily relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer monitoring and automation needs.
I located Keap intuitive to use and it took care of whatever I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help local business maintain their customers while including brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers receive the ideal messages at the right time. Usage site and social media forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your growth with easy visit organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small companies can conserve 10 hours each week and boost income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap uses an extensive client partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on enhancing sales processes and supporting consumer partnerships with effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one method combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task management, making it especially eye-catching for services seeking to consolidate their tech stack.
Generally, it just functioned accurately with minimal hassle or upkeep needed. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran efficiently with no concerns.
So why in the world was I lured to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren phone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You understand the sensation: when every person’s speaking about a new device that will revolutionize your business … The turf often looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may minimize rubbing factors that I ‘d found out to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood initially, but a few even more disappointments led me to think perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I determined to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I recognized switching systems was going to require moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole tech framework from scratch utilizing every one of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Right here’s an introduction of just a few of the initiative needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning an entirely international UX and user interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of configuration job transitioning every little thing over– not to mention handling lost performance throughout the button.
However eventually, it was a computed financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-lasting service for my service, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It only took me about a month of hands-on use to understand I had made a large error. The problems began accumulating quickly, up until it reached a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the horrible issues I came across.
Safety Issues & Many Vermin
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new email subscribers, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending out occasion pointers, managing subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever seemed to be operating penalty … up until unexpectedly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally irrelevant emails had been sent out to users that must NOT have actually obtained them. This took place 3 days straight, with a various set of 160 people each day.
I desperately attempted fixing and restoring the automation from the ground up. Yet the trouble continued.
When I desperately reached out to their support team, they vaguely asserted “server problems” were responsible. However this description really did not make any type of feeling, considering that the errors proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my mind, this large failing was entirely unacceptable and just didn’t benefit my organization. I have thousands of contacts counting on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely undependable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface only intensified these concerns …
Discouraging UX
Coming from Keap where every little thing was smooth and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and complicated.
Straightforward jobs like editing and enhancing workflows entailed digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in totally different sections. Moving in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I suggest by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to manage overall, individual, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy reason, the links to accessibility each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As somebody that values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek product all set for prime-time usage. Their concerns appeared focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I quickly recognized the low cost tag came with pricey concessions …
Deceptive Pricing GoHighLevel Vs Notion
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing points is the affordable rate for access to many features. But I rapidly learned this economical base cost was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic costs for core functionality. Instantly my bank card declarations had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you get charged each time you send out an email with their web servers. So for high volume users, this amounted to thousands of bucks in unexpected costs.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel registration ended up setting you back considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was tempting, however just not practical in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported e-mail open rates drop practically overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience involvement continually struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I moved their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a worthless 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I enhanced my sending techniques or attempted every repairing technique, I can hardly push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Vs Notion.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails unexpectedly had awful involvement. The only thing 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 crippling deliverability issues, concealed costs, damaged features, and awful user interface, I had actually finally reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my firm to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a big blunder. The cons drastically exceeded any advantages.
No software is perfect, yet the sheer volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software boils down to depend on. If I can not trust it to manage essential functions effectively or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, money, and effort moving.
So I made the difficult call to turn around course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I gained from this fiasco.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as an expensive ill fortune. However in hindsight, it instructed me a few key lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Veterinarian claims completely. Marketing buzz around new software program commonly obscures larger underlying defects. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed tools must make your job life less complicated, not much more complicated and messy.
- Transparency develops depend on. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems damages count on.
- Look for objective reviews. Happy assistance reviews suggest less if too much issues indicate bad total functionality.
- Excellence is impossible. No single remedy can flawlessly meet every special company need. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over change. Step-by-step renovations usually surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
Basically, I learned to be extra cynical of “also excellent to be real” marketing cases and less tempted by the allure of shiny new items. The devices you use daily ought to make trust fund via transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.