As an agency proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to simplify procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it certainly caught my focus How To Get GoHighLevel For Free.
The concept was enticing– an all-in-one customer management system with marketing, sales, and service devices integrated with each other. As an entrepreneur constantly aiming to simplify and scale my service, it seemed like a dream become a reality on paper. Who would not want a single solution that does it all?
But in this extensive GoHighLevel review, I’ll take you inside my tragic trip of trying (and failing) to switch over to this popular brand-new software. You’ll discover:
If you’re thinking about whether GoHighLevel is right for your own business requirements, with any luck you can learn from my unpleasant mistakes and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, start with this checklist of best CRMs instead. I use Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re trying to find a sales, marketing, and task management alternative to GoHighLevel, then below are a few we recommend.
Backstory: Why I Thought About Switching from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous configuration. For over 5 years I had been gladly relying on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client management and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to make use of and it managed everything I needed– CRM, e-mail marketing, sales funnels, subscription websites, and customer assistance.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are developed to help small businesses maintain their clients while adding brand-new ones easily. Automate follow-ups with e-mails and texts, making certain leads and customers obtain the appropriate messages at the right time. Usage internet site and social media sites types to enhance lead follow-up, and manage your development with simple appointment organizing and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated pricing estimate, invoicing, and repayment handling, freeing up your time. With Keap, local business can save 10 hours per week and rise income by 39%. Beginning with a 14-day free trial, no credit card required.
Why we like Keap
Keap offers a thorough client connection administration (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for local business and entrepreneurs. We value Keap’s concentrate on enhancing sales procedures and supporting consumer connections with effective automation tools. The platform’s all-in-one method incorporates CRM, e-mail marketing, invoicing, and task monitoring, making it specifically appealing for businesses seeking to combine their tech stack.
For the most part, it just functioned accurately with very little difficulty or maintenance required. My open and click-through prices were great (like 35% fantastic). Automations ran smoothly without any problems.
So why on earth was I attracted to uproot my whole functional foundation from a system that worked to try something unverified and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained attracted by the alarm telephone call of “shiny object disorder”. You understand the sensation: when every person’s speaking about a brand-new device that will transform your service … The lawn frequently looks greener on the other side, and I asked yourself whether GoHighLevel could decrease friction points that I would certainly discovered to endure for many years with Keap.
I withstood at first, however a few even more frustrations led me to believe possibly it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Firm to GoHighLevel
Earlier this year I chose to start. I signed up for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, investing considerably more than the $97/month starter price.
This had not been a decision I took lightly. I understood changing platforms was going to require migrating all my Keap data and basically rebuilding my whole tech framework from square one utilizing all of the GoHighLevel integrations available.
Here’s an introduction of simply some of the initiative required:
- By hand exporting 20,000+ email subscriber documents
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Moving customer profiles, notes, and job information to the brand-new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe invoicing integration
- Establishing landing pages, discounts, and sales funnels all over again
- Learning a completely international UX and user interface layout
Done in, I spent around 30-40 laborious hours of configuration work transitioning every little thing over– not to mention handling shed efficiency throughout the button.
But eventually, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some short-term discomfort would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel supplying a much better long-term solution for my company, Dripify. Oh just how wrong I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to recognize I had actually made a big blunder. The problems began accumulating rapidly, until it got to a factor I needed to cut my losses and switch back to Keap totally.
Let’s walk through the horrible problems I ran into.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I made sure to carefully recreate each and every single workflow from my old Keap account.
These included series for onboarding brand-new email clients, onboarding brand-new clients, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending out occasion pointers, taking care of membership expiries and much more.
Every little thing appeared to be working penalty … until all of a sudden it wasn’t. One early morning, I awoke to locate 171 completely unimportant e-mails had actually been sent out to users that ought to NOT have actually obtained them. This took place three days straight, with a various batch of 160 people daily.
I hysterically attempted repairing and rebuilding the automation from square one. However the problem lingered.
When I desperately connected to their assistance group, they vaguely asserted “web server issues” were responsible. However this explanation really did not make any kind of feeling, given that the mistakes proceeded occurring each early morning like clockwork unassociated to any downtime.
In my mind, this huge failure was entirely inappropriate and just really did not benefit my service. I have hundreds of contacts depending on my automated campaigns running efficiently.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely unreliable, how could I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive user interface just intensified these issues …
Frustrating UX
Coming from Keap where everything was seamless and user-friendly, GoHighLevel’s learning contour really felt high and complicated.
Basic tasks like modifying workflows involved excavating through food selection systems that were all over the place. Trick setups were unexplainably spread in absolutely different areas. Moving between features felt disjointed or confusing.
I’ll inform you what I suggest by discussing their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 separate setups panels to manage total, private, and item arrangements. Yet for some insane factor, the web links to gain access to each of these core settings were expanded on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As someone that values clean, thoughtful style, this seriously annoyed me.
It reinforced that GoHighLevel still felt like a work-in-progress as opposed to a polished product ready for prime-time use. Their concerns seemed focused on packing in every feature under the sun, with poor use as a second thought.
And speaking of features, I soon recognized the low price tag featured expensive concessions …
Misleading Pricing How To Get GoHighLevel For Free
Among GoHighLevel’s greatest marketing factors is the affordable rate for accessibility to so many features. However I quickly discovered this affordable base price was deceptive.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core functionality. Instantly my credit card statements had unclear $10 costs from GoHighLevel here and there.
As it turned out, you get charged each time you send an email through their web servers. So for high quantity users, this added up to hundreds of dollars in unforeseen costs.
In between these per-email fees and paying extra for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel registration ended up costing dramatically MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was appealing, however just not reasonable in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative taste in my mouth.
Email Fees Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open rates plunge nearly over night after changing to GoHighLevel.
Formerly, my audience involvement regularly struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their documents over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pitiful 9% open price.
Despite how much I enhanced my sending practices or tried every troubleshooting trick, I can hardly push open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous criteria How To Get GoHighLevel For Free.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and emails suddenly had awful engagement. The only thing I can assume that would be creating this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so based on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability concerns, concealed costs, damaged features, and dreadful interface, I had actually ultimately reached my limitation …
Why I Quit GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after moving my agency to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a significant blunder. The disadvantages significantly outweighed any benefits.
No software is perfect, but the sheer quantity of issues was beyond acceptable.
At the end of the day, software comes down to trust fund. If I can not trust it to deal with essential functions capably or believe a supplier has my best interests in mind, then it’s time to walk away– even after investing substantial time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough phone call to turn around training course and return back to Keap completely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I gained from this ordeal.
Trick Takeaways: What I Gained from My GoHighLevel Blunder
My time with HighLevel can be summed up as a pricey ill fortune. Yet in hindsight, it showed me a few crucial lessons:
- Stick to what works. Don’t distress what’s functioning unless something is definitively much better across the board. Modification brings threat.
- Vet asserts completely. Marketing buzz around new software application usually obscures bigger underlying problems. Deep due persistance is crucial.
- Choose simpleness over features. Properly designed tools need to make your job life much easier, not a lot more complex and messy.
- Openness builds trust. Nontransparent pricing, questionable reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert issues damages trust fund.
- Look for honest reviews. Delighted support examines mean much less if excessive concerns imply inadequate general use.
- Excellence is difficult. No solitary service can completely fulfill every special business demand. Find the least-bad fit.
- Development over revolution. Step-by-step enhancements generally outweigh risky wholesale reinvention of what already functions penalty.
Basically, I found out to be much more hesitant of “too great to be true” marketing insurance claims and much less lured by the allure of glossy new items. The tools you make use of daily should earn depend on through openness and performance, not glossy advertising.