As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to improve operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my attention GoHighLevel Vs Odoo.
The idea was attractive– an all-in-one customer administration system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated with each other. As an entrepreneur always seeking to streamline and scale my business, it seemed like a desire come true theoretically. That would not desire a single option that does it all?
But in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of trying (and stopping working) to change to this prominent new software. You’ll find out:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own business needs, hopefully you can gain from my unpleasant mistakes and blew up expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this list of finest CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task management alternative to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my client monitoring and automation demands.
I found Keap user-friendly to use and it took care of whatever I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are designed to help small companies maintain their customers while adding brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, ensuring leads and customers obtain the right messages at the correct time. Use web site and social media sites kinds to improve lead follow-up, and handle your development with easy visit scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated estimating, invoicing, and settlement handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours per week and boost earnings by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no bank card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on simplifying sales procedures and nurturing consumer relationships via powerful automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it especially appealing for companies looking to combine their technology stack.
Essentially, it simply functioned reliably with minimal fuss or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were fantastic (like 35% great). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why in the world was I attracted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that worked to try something unverified and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm telephone call of “shiny item disorder”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s discussing a new tool that will revolutionize your organization … The yard often looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could reduce rubbing points that I would certainly found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to at first, however a couple of more disappointments led me to think maybe it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I decided to take the plunge. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, spending considerably more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a decision I took lightly. I knew changing systems was mosting likely to require moving all my Keap data and essentially reconstructing my whole tech facilities from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations readily available.
Below’s an overview of just several of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and project information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing landing pages, coupons, and sales funnels all over once more
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface layout
All in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning everything over– not to mention taking care of shed efficiency throughout the switch.
Yet ultimately, it was a calculated financial investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would settle with GoHighLevel providing a much better long-lasting solution for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had actually made a large error. The problems started accumulating rapidly, up until it got to a factor I had to cut my losses and change back to Keap completely.
Let’s walk through the nightmarish problems I experienced.
Safety And Security Issues & Lots of Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion tips, taking care of membership expiries and much more.
Everything seemed to be functioning fine … up until instantly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally unimportant emails had actually been sent to users that need to NOT have obtained them. This occurred three days in a row, with a different set of 160 people every day.
I desperately attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from square one. But the issue lingered.
When I seriously connected to their assistance team, they vaguely asserted “web server problems” were responsible. However this explanation didn’t make any kind of feeling, because the mistakes continued occurring each morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was completely inappropriate and just didn’t work for my service. I have countless calls relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be entirely undependable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate client information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these problems …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt steep and difficult.
Basic jobs like editing and enhancing workflows involved excavating via menu systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably scattered in absolutely various sections. Moving between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll inform you what I imply by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of total, private, and item setups. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It enhanced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a refined item ready for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed concentrated on cramming in every feature imaginable, with inadequate functionality as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the low cost tag came with pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Vs Odoo
One of GoHighLevel’s largest marketing points is the budget-friendly cost for accessibility to many features. But I promptly learned this economical base expense was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with erratic charges for core performance. Suddenly my bank card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you get billed whenever you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to hundreds of bucks in unexpected costs.
In between these per-email charges and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel registration ended up costing substantially greater than my Keap plan.
The low price tag was appealing, but just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously nurtured email open prices plummet nearly overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience involvement consistently struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a useless 9% open price.
No matter just how much I enhanced my sending out practices or tried every fixing method, I can hardly push open prices back into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Vs Odoo.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had awful engagement. The only thing I could assume that would certainly be causing this was whatever was happening behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability concerns, concealed costs, broken features, and terrible interface, I had actually finally reached my restriction …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my company to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had made a big blunder. The disadvantages substantially surpassed any type of benefits.
No software program is excellent, however the sheer volume of problems was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to handle important features capably or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– also after spending substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse course and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I picked up from this fiasco.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive ill fortune. But in knowledge, it showed me a few crucial lessons:
- Adhere to what jobs. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively much better across the board. Adjustment brings threat.
- Veterinarian declares extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software often obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is important.
- Choose simpleness over features. Well-designed devices ought to make your work life easier, not a lot more complex and messy.
- Openness constructs depend on. Opaque pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to evade troubles damages count on.
- Seek objective testimonials. Delighted assistance assesses suggest much less if excessive issues suggest bad total use.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary remedy can completely fulfill every distinct organization need. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over revolution. Step-by-step improvements normally surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently works penalty.
Basically, I found out to be more cynical of “also excellent to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less tempted by the attraction of shiny brand-new items. The tools you use daily need to make depend on with transparency and efficiency, not slick advertising.