As a company owner for over a years, I rely on software program and automation to improve procedures and deliver outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene few years back, it certainly captured my interest GoHighLevel Zapier Integration.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one customer administration system with marketing, sales, and service devices incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to streamline and scale my business, it appeared like a dream come to life on paper. Who wouldn’t desire a solitary service that does it all?
Yet in this in-depth GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of attempting (and falling short) to switch over to this preferred new software program. You’ll find out:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company needs, with any luck you can learn from my painful errors and inflated expectations.
Looter: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, begin with this checklist of finest CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re looking for a sales, marketing, and project administration alternative to GoHighLevel, then here are a few we suggest.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context concerning my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying upon Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to satisfy all my client management and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap intuitive to utilize and it dealt with everything I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, membership sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to aid small businesses maintain their clients while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making sure leads and customers receive the ideal messages at the correct time. Usage internet site and social media sites kinds to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your growth with easy consultation organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement handling, liberating your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours each week and rise revenue by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies an extensive customer connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation solution tailored for small companies and entrepreneurs. We appreciate Keap’s focus on streamlining sales processes and supporting customer partnerships through effective automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one approach combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it especially eye-catching for services looking to consolidate their technology pile.
For the most part, it simply worked accurately with very little difficulty or upkeep required. My open and click-through rates were great (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire functional foundation from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untested?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm telephone call of “shiny things syndrome”. You know the sensation: when everyone’s discussing a new tool that will reinvent your service … The yard typically looks greener on the other side, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel may decrease friction factors that I ‘d learned to tolerate for many years with Keap.
I withstood in the beginning, however a couple of more stress led me to think possibly it was time for an adjustment.
The Investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to take the plunge. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending significantly more than the $97/month starter expense.
This wasn’t a choice I ignored. I recognized changing systems was mosting likely to need migrating all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my entire tech infrastructure from square one making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Below’s an introduction of simply a few of the initiative called for:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email client records
- Recreating lots of automations and workflows
- Moving customer accounts, notes, and job data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels around again
- Learning a completely foreign UX and interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 laborious hours of arrangement job transitioning whatever over– as well as managing shed performance during the button.
However inevitably, it was a calculated financial investment I agreed to make. I figured some temporary pain would repay with GoHighLevel giving a better lasting solution for my organization, Dripify. Oh just how incorrect I was …
It just took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to understand I had actually made a big error. The problems started accumulating rapidly, until it reached a factor I needed to reduce my losses and change back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s go through the nightmarish troubles I encountered.
Security Issues & Numerous Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding brand-new e-mail clients, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending event tips, managing subscription expiries and much more.
Everything appeared to be functioning fine … till suddenly it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 completely unimportant emails had actually been sent out to individuals that should NOT have actually gotten them. This occurred 3 days straight, with a various batch of 160 people daily.
I desperately tried fixing and reconstructing the automation from the ground up. Yet the trouble continued.
When I seriously connected to their support team, they slightly claimed “web server problems” were responsible. Yet this explanation really did not make any type of feeling, because the mistakes proceeded taking place each early morning like clockwork unconnected to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this substantial failing was entirely unacceptable and simply really did not help my service. I have thousands of get in touches with relying upon my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be totally unreliable, how could I delegate mission-critical workflows and sensitive client data to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only compounded these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was smooth and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve really felt high and complicated.
Simple jobs like modifying workflows entailed excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in completely different sections. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll tell you what I indicate by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to manage total, individual, and item configurations. Yet for some crazy factor, the links to access each of these core setups were spread out on opposite sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful style, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress instead of a sleek item prepared for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed focused on packing in every feature imaginable, with inadequate use as an afterthought.
And talking features, I soon recognized the low price tag came with expensive concessions …
Misleading Pricing GoHighLevel Zapier Integration
Among GoHighLevel’s most significant selling factors is the affordable rate for accessibility to so many features. But I quickly learned this inexpensive base cost was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed users with erratic costs for core functionality. Instantly my charge card declarations had unclear $10 fees from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you obtain charged every single time you send out an e-mail with their servers. So for high quantity individuals, this amounted to numerous bucks in unexpected costs.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “affordable” GoHighLevel subscription wound up costing substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, but just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The final dealbreaker was seeing my thoroughly nurtured e-mail open rates plunge nearly overnight after switching to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my target market involvement constantly hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked promptly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite just how much I maximized my sending out techniques or tried every troubleshooting technique, I could barely nudge open prices back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous benchmarks GoHighLevel Zapier Integration.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and emails unexpectedly had dreadful interaction. The only thing I might assume that would be triggering this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so depending on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the crippling deliverability issues, hidden costs, damaged features, and horrible interface, I had actually finally 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 huge mistake. The cons dramatically exceeded any benefits.
No software is best, yet the sheer volume of problems was past acceptable.
At the end of the day, software application comes down to trust. If I can’t trust it to manage crucial functions competently or believe a vendor has my benefits in mind, after that it’s time to leave– also after investing substantial time, cash, and effort migrating.
So I made the challenging phone call to turn around course and return back to Keap completely just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this debacle.
Key Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a costly accident. However in hindsight, it instructed me a few crucial lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively far better across the board. Adjustment brings threat.
- Vet claims extensively. Marketing buzz around brand-new software program frequently covers bigger underlying flaws. Deep due persistance is necessary.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed devices should make your job life much easier, not more complicated and unpleasant.
- Openness builds depend on. Opaque pricing, shady reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles destroys trust.
- Look for objective testimonials. Pleased assistance examines mean much less if too much issues suggest inadequate general functionality.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary solution can completely satisfy every distinct organization requirement. Find the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step enhancements commonly outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions fine.
In other words, I found out to be extra skeptical of “too excellent to be real” marketing claims and much less attracted by the appeal of glossy brand-new objects. The devices you utilize daily should earn trust fund via openness and performance, not glossy advertising.