As a firm proprietor for over a decade, I count on software program and automation to simplify operations and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years back, it definitely caught my interest GoHighLevel Website Examples.
The idea was enticing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated with each other. As a business owner always wanting to simplify and scale my business, it appeared like a desire happened theoretically. Who would not want a single solution that does it all?
However in this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my dreadful journey of attempting (and falling short) to change to this popular new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business demands, hopefully you can learn from my excruciating errors and pumped up assumptions.
Looter: I do NOT advise GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this list of ideal CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re searching for a sales, marketing, and job management alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you need context about my previous setup. For over 5 years I had been gladly depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap intuitive to make use of and it managed everything I needed– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership websites, and customer support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small businesses maintain their customers while including brand-new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, making certain leads and clients receive the right messages at the correct time. Use site and social media sites forms to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy visit scheduling and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing quote, invoicing, and payment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours per week and increase income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no credit card needed.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough customer connection monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation remedy customized for local business and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s concentrate on improving sales procedures and supporting client connections with powerful automation tools. The system’s all-in-one technique integrates CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job management, making it specifically attractive for companies aiming to combine their technology pile.
Essentially, it simply worked dependably with marginal difficulty or upkeep called for. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any concerns.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that worked to try something unverified and untried?
In hindsight I can confess I got attracted by the siren call of “glossy item syndrome”. You know the sensation: when every person’s talking about a new device that will certainly revolutionize your business … The turf commonly looks greener beyond, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel might lower rubbing factors that I ‘d discovered to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, yet a few more disappointments led me to assume possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing significantly greater than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I understood switching platforms was going to call for moving all my Keap data and essentially rebuilding my entire tech infrastructure from scratch using every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s an introduction of simply several of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ email customer documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and job data to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout again
- Learning a totally foreign UX and interface design
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement job transitioning whatever over– in addition to taking care of shed productivity during the switch.
However eventually, it was a computed financial investment I wanted to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would pay off with GoHighLevel providing a far better long-term remedy for my organization, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on use to realize I had made a big mistake. The problems started piling up quickly, until it reached a point I had to reduce my losses and switch over back to Keap entirely.
Let’s walk through the horrible troubles I experienced.
Safety Issues & Several Bugs
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to diligently recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new e-mail subscribers, onboarding brand-new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion tips, managing membership expirations and far more.
Every little thing seemed to be operating fine … until unexpectedly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to discover 171 entirely pointless emails had been sent out to users that should NOT have received them. This took place three days straight, with a various batch of 160 individuals every day.
I frantically tried fixing and reconstructing the automation from scratch. Yet the problem persisted.
When I frantically connected to their assistance group, they vaguely claimed “web server issues” were responsible. But this description didn’t make any type of feeling, considering that the errors continued taking place each morning like clockwork unrelated to any kind of downtime.
In my mind, this massive failure was entirely unacceptable and simply didn’t benefit my service. I have thousands of contacts relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be totally undependable, exactly how could I leave mission-critical workflows and delicate client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just intensified these problems …
Frustrating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt steep and complex.
Straightforward tasks like editing and enhancing workflows entailed excavating with menu systems that were all over the place. Secret setups were unexplainably scattered in entirely various sections. Relocating between functions felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I mean by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage general, private, and product setups. Yet for some insane reason, the links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on opposite sides of the display. What!?
As somebody who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously annoyed me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a refined product all set for prime-time use. Their priorities seemed concentrated on packing in every feature under the sun, with inadequate use as a second thought.
And talking features, I soon understood the affordable price tag came with costly compromises …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Website Examples
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing factors is the cost effective price for accessibility to so many features. However I swiftly discovered this cheap base expense was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed users with sporadic costs for core performance. All of a sudden my credit card declarations had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it ended up, you obtain billed each time you send out an e-mail via their web servers. So for high quantity customers, this amounted to hundreds of bucks in unanticipated expenses.
Between these per-email costs 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 sticker price was appealing, yet simply not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my very carefully nurtured email open prices plummet nearly over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market interaction constantly hit 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked promptly to a pathetic 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I optimized my sending out techniques or tried every repairing trick, I could hardly push open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria GoHighLevel Website Examples.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails instantly had awful interaction. The only point I can believe that would certainly be causing this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an agency so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability problems, hidden costs, broken features, and dreadful interface, I had actually lastly reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I recognized I had actually made a massive mistake. The disadvantages considerably surpassed any kind of advantages.
No software is best, but the sheer volume of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software program comes down to count on. If I can not trust it to manage essential functions competently or believe a supplier has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, cash, and initiative moving.
So I made the difficult contact us to reverse training course and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s explore what I picked up from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Picked up from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as an expensive accident. Yet in knowledge, it educated me a couple of vital lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Don’t disturb what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Modification brings risk.
- Veterinarian declares completely. Marketing buzz around brand-new software program often obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Select simplicity over features. Well-designed devices must make your job life simpler, not much more complicated and unpleasant.
- Openness develops count on. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to escape issues destroys trust.
- Seek impartial testimonials. Pleased assistance reviews imply much less if too much issues suggest bad overall usability.
- Excellence is impossible. No single option can flawlessly satisfy every special company requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Development over transformation. Incremental renovations commonly surpass risky wholesale reinvention of what already works fine.
Basically, I found out to be a lot more hesitant of “also great to be real” marketing claims and much less lured by the appeal of shiny brand-new things. The tools you use daily ought to make depend on with transparency and performance, not slick advertising.