As an agency owner for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to enhance operations and provide outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it absolutely caught my interest GoHighLevel Vs REI Reply.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one client administration system with marketing, sales, and solution tools integrated together. As a business owner constantly looking to simplify and scale my service, it seemed like a dream happened theoretically. Who wouldn’t desire a single solution that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my devastating journey of attempting (and failing) to switch over to this preferred new software program. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service requirements, with any luck you can learn from my painful mistakes and pumped up expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of ideal CRMs instead. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and job management choice to GoHighLevel, after that below are a couple of we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been happily counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my customer administration and automation demands.
I discovered Keap instinctive to utilize and it dealt with whatever I required– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid local business maintain their clients while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, ensuring leads and customers obtain the best messages at the right time. Usage web site and social media sites forms to enhance lead follow-up, and handle your growth with simple consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment processing, freeing up your time. With Keap, small businesses can conserve 10 hours each week and rise revenue by 39%. Start with a 14-day free trial, no bank card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a comprehensive customer relationship management (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on simplifying sales procedures and nurturing customer partnerships through effective automation devices. The system’s all-in-one approach incorporates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it specifically eye-catching for services wanting to consolidate their technology stack.
For the most part, it just functioned accurately with very little fuss or maintenance required. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly with no problems.
So why in the world was I tempted to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that worked to try something unproven and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got seduced by the alarm call of “shiny item disorder”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s talking about a brand-new tool that will change your company … The lawn frequently looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might decrease friction points that I ‘d found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, but a few more aggravations led me to think possibly it was time for a modification.
The Investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I enrolled in HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter price.
This wasn’t a decision I ignored. I knew changing systems was going to require moving all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my whole technology facilities from scratch using all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Below’s a review of just a few of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail customer records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving client accounts, notes, and task information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels around once again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement work transitioning whatever over– as well as managing shed performance during the switch.
However eventually, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary discomfort would certainly settle with GoHighLevel offering a much better long-lasting solution for my company, Dripify. Oh how wrong I was …
It just took me about a month of hands-on use to realize I had made a large error. The problems began accumulating quickly, up until it reached a point I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible issues I encountered.
Security Issues & Many Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of series for onboarding brand-new email clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending event reminders, handling membership expirations and much more.
Everything appeared to be operating fine … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I woke up to discover 171 entirely pointless emails had actually been sent out to individuals who need to NOT have actually gotten them. This occurred three days straight, with a different set of 160 people each day.
I desperately tried fixing and rebuilding the automation from square one. But the trouble continued.
When I desperately reached out to their support group, they vaguely claimed “web server issues” were responsible. But this description really did not make any kind of sense, given that the errors proceeded happening each morning like clockwork unconnected to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failure was entirely inappropriate and just really did not benefit my business. I have thousands of get in touches with depending on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally undependable, just how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface only worsened these problems …
Aggravating UX
Coming from Keap where whatever was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning contour felt high and complex.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating via food selection systems that were all over the place. Key settings were unexplainably spread in absolutely different areas. Relocating between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle total, specific, and item arrangements. Yet for some crazy factor, the web links to access each of these core settings were expanded on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously irritated me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a polished item all set for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with bad use as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I quickly realized the affordable price tag came with pricey compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Vs REI Reply
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling points is the budget-friendly cost for access to many features. However I promptly learned this economical base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional fees for core functionality. All of a sudden my credit card statements had vague $10 charges from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it ended up, you obtain charged each time you send out an e-mail via their web servers. So for high volume customers, this amounted to numerous bucks in unforeseen prices.
In between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “budget-friendly” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing significantly greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was appealing, but simply not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a poor taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully supported e-mail open rates drop virtually overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement continually struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked immediately to a pathetic 9% open price.
No matter how much I maximized my sending out techniques or attempted every repairing technique, I could barely nudge open prices back right into the teenagers– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous standards GoHighLevel Vs REI Reply.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had terrible involvement. The only thing I can think that would be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so depending on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden fees, damaged features, and dreadful interface, I had ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made a significant mistake. The cons substantially outweighed any type of advantages.
No software program is best, yet the sheer volume of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software application boils down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to handle crucial features properly or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing significant time, money, and initiative migrating.
So I made the challenging phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. However in hindsight, it taught me a few key lessons:
- Stay with what jobs. Do not upset what’s working unless something is definitively far better across the board. Change brings risk.
- Veterinarian asserts thoroughly. Marketing buzz around brand-new software often obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Select simpleness over features. Properly designed devices ought to make your work life simpler, not extra difficult and messy.
- Transparency builds trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles ruins depend on.
- Look for honest testimonials. Delighted support examines indicate much less if too much concerns indicate inadequate general use.
- Perfection is impossible. No single option can completely fulfill every one-of-a-kind service need. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental improvements normally outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
Basically, I learned to be a lot more cynical of “also great to be real” marketing claims and much less lured by the attraction of glossy brand-new objects. The devices you make use of daily need to earn count on through openness and efficiency, not slick advertising.