As an agency proprietor for over a years, I rely upon software application and automation to simplify procedures and supply outcomes. So when GoHighLevel arised on the scene couple of years back, it definitely captured my focus How Much Is GoHighLevel Worth.
The idea was appealing– an all-in-one client monitoring system with marketing, sales, and service tools incorporated together. As an entrepreneur constantly looking to simplify and scale my service, it looked like a desire happened theoretically. That would not want a single service that does it all?
Yet in this comprehensive GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my tragic journey of attempting (and falling short) to switch to this prominent brand-new software application. You’ll find out:
If you’re considering whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own company needs, hopefully you can gain from my uncomfortable mistakes and inflated assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT suggest GoHighLevel. If you require a CRM, start with this list of best CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task administration alternative to GoHighLevel, after that right here are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Considered Switching Over from Keap
To recognize what attracted me to GoHighLevel in the first place, you require context concerning my previous setup. For over 5 years I had actually been gladly counting on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to meet all my customer monitoring and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it managed every little thing I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to aid small companies keep their customers while including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and messages, making sure leads and clients receive the ideal messages at the right time. Use web site and social media sites types to improve lead follow-up, and handle your growth with simple appointment organizing and lead monitoring. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and settlement handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can conserve 10 hours weekly and rise profits by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no charge card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough client partnership management (CRM) and marketing automation option tailored for small businesses and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s focus on enhancing sales processes and supporting customer partnerships through powerful automation devices. The platform’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it particularly attractive for organizations seeking to settle their tech stack.
Essentially, it just functioned accurately with very little difficulty or maintenance called for. My open and click-through rates were wonderful (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why on earth was I lured to uproot my entire functional structure from a system that worked to attempt something unverified and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren call of “glossy object syndrome”. You know the feeling: when everybody’s discussing a new device that will certainly change your business … The lawn often looks greener beyond, and I wondered whether GoHighLevel could minimize friction factors that I would certainly found out to tolerate throughout the years with Keap.
I withstood initially, but a few more stress led me to think perhaps it was time for an adjustment.
The Financial investment: Migrating My Agency to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I determined to start. I registered for HighLevel’s Company plan at $297/month, investing substantially greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This had not been a choice I ignored. I recognized switching platforms was mosting likely to call for migrating all my Keap data and basically reconstructing my whole tech facilities from square one making use of every one of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Here’s a summary of just some of the effort needed:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ e-mail client documents
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Relocating client accounts, notes, and job information to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Setting up landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels throughout once more
- Learning a totally foreign UX and user interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 tiresome hours of arrangement work transitioning everything over– as well as managing shed performance throughout the switch.
Yet eventually, it was a computed investment I agreed to make. I figured some short-term pain would settle with GoHighLevel providing a far better lasting option for my company, Dripify. Oh exactly how wrong I was …
It only took me concerning a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had made a large blunder. The concerns started accumulating quickly, up until it reached a factor I needed to reduce my losses and change back to Keap totally.
Allow’s go through the horrible troubles I experienced.
Safety Issues & Several Vermin
Offered GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation system, I made sure to carefully recreate every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding new e-mail customers, onboarding new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out event suggestions, taking care of subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever seemed to be functioning penalty … until instantly it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to discover 171 completely unimportant emails had been sent out to individuals who need to NOT have gotten them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a different set of 160 individuals daily.
I hysterically attempted troubleshooting and restoring the automation from the ground up. But the trouble lingered.
When I desperately connected to their support team, they vaguely declared “web server issues” were responsible. Yet this description really did not make any kind of feeling, because the mistakes proceeded occurring each morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this massive failing was completely undesirable and simply really did not work for my service. I have hundreds of contacts relying upon my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be absolutely unreliable, exactly how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their innovation?
The unintuitive user interface just compounded these issues …
Irritating UX
Originating from Keap where whatever was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and complex.
Straightforward tasks like modifying workflows entailed digging through menu systems that were all over the place. Trick settings were unexplainably scattered in completely various areas. Relocating in between features felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I imply by discussing their funnel builder as an instance. There were 3 separate setups panels to handle total, specific, and product configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to accessibility each of these core settings were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As a person who values tidy, thoughtful design, this seriously upset me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress rather than a polished product prepared for prime-time usage. Their top priorities seemed focused on cramming in every feature imaginable, with bad use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon understood the low price tag featured pricey compromises …
Deceptive Pricing How Much Is GoHighLevel Worth
One of GoHighLevel’s greatest selling factors is the cost effective cost for access to a lot of features. However I rapidly learned this affordable base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed individuals with occasional fees for core capability. Instantly my charge card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel occasionally.
As it turned out, you obtain billed each time you send out an email with their web servers. So for high volume customers, this added up to thousands of dollars in unanticipated prices.
Between these per-email costs and paying added for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “economical” GoHighLevel registration wound up setting you back dramatically greater than my Keap plan.
The reduced price tag was alluring, but just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a bad taste in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my carefully nurtured email open rates plunge nearly over night after switching over to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement consistently hit 35-40% open prices in Keap month after month. But once I moved their records over to GoHighLevel, performance tanked quickly to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Despite how much I optimized my sending out practices or tried every repairing method, I might barely nudge open rates back right into the teens– still a 50%+ decrease from my previous criteria How Much Is GoHighLevel Worth.
Let me repeat: my exact same audience and e-mails instantly had horrible involvement. The only thing I can think that would certainly be causing this was whatever was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a firm so based on e-mail marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability concerns, concealed charges, damaged features, and dreadful user interface, I had actually lastly reached my restriction …
Why I Give up GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I knew I had actually made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages dramatically exceeded any benefits.
No software is best, yet the sheer quantity of issues was beyond appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to deal with vital functions properly or believe a vendor has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to leave– even after investing substantial time, money, and initiative moving.
So I made the hard contact us to turn around program and return back to Keap entirely simply weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Allow’s explore what I gained from this ordeal.
Key Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey accident. However in knowledge, it showed me a few essential lessons:
- Stick to what jobs. Do not disturb what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Change brings danger.
- Vet claims thoroughly. Marketing buzz around new software program often obscures larger underlying problems. Deep due diligence is vital.
- Choose simplicity over features. Well-designed devices should make your job life less complicated, not much more complex and unpleasant.
- Openness constructs count on. Nontransparent pricing, unethical reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert problems ruins trust fund.
- Look for objective reviews. Pleased assistance assesses mean less if extreme issues imply bad general usability.
- Perfection is impossible. No solitary service can perfectly satisfy every unique company requirement. Locate the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over change. Incremental improvements typically surpass high-risk wholesale reinvention of what already works penalty.
In other words, I discovered to be extra unconvinced of “also excellent to be real” marketing insurance claims and much less attracted by the allure of glossy brand-new things. The devices you utilize daily must earn count on via transparency and efficiency, not glossy advertising.