As a company proprietor for over a decade, I rely upon software application and automation to streamline procedures and deliver results. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene couple of years back, it certainly captured my focus What Features Does GoHighLevel Have.
The concept was attractive– an all-in-one customer monitoring system with marketing, sales, and solution tools incorporated together. As a business owner constantly wanting to streamline and scale my business, it looked like a dream happened on paper. That would not want a solitary option that does it all?
But in this thorough GoHighLevel testimonial, I’ll take you inside my disastrous trip of attempting (and stopping working) to change to this popular new software application. You’ll learn:
If you’re taking into consideration whether GoHighLevel is right for your very own service demands, ideally you can gain from my painful mistakes and pumped up assumptions.
Spoiler: I do NOT recommend GoHighLevel. If you need a CRM, begin with this checklist of ideal CRMs rather. I utilize Keap.
Some GoHighLevel Alternatives
If you’re seeking a sales, marketing, and task administration alternative to GoHighLevel, then right here are a few we advise.
Backstory: Why I Took Into Consideration Changing from Keap
To comprehend what attracted me to GoHighLevel to begin with, you need context regarding my previous arrangement. For over 5 years I had been gladly depending on Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my client management and automation requirements.
I discovered Keap user-friendly to utilize and it handled every little thing I required– CRM, email marketing, sales funnels, subscription sites, and client support.
Keap’s CRM and sales and marketing automation are created to help small businesses keep their customers while adding new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and messages, guaranteeing leads and customers obtain the best messages at the right time. Use internet site and social media sites types to improve lead follow-up, and handle your development with very easy appointment scheduling and lead tracking. Boost sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and payment processing, maximizing 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 charge card called for.
Why we like Keap
Keap supplies a comprehensive consumer partnership monitoring (CRM) and marketing automation service customized for small businesses and business owners. We appreciate Keap’s focus on streamlining sales processes and nurturing customer partnerships with effective automation tools. The system’s all-in-one technique combines CRM, email marketing, invoicing, and job administration, making it specifically eye-catching for organizations aiming to combine their tech pile.
Generally, it just worked reliably with marginal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through prices were terrific (like 35% wonderful). Automations ran efficiently without any issues.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my entire operational foundation from a system that functioned to attempt something unproven and untried?
In knowledge I can admit I got attracted by the siren phone call of “glossy item syndrome”. You understand the feeling: when everyone’s talking about a brand-new tool that will transform your service … The grass frequently looks greener beyond, and I questioned whether GoHighLevel could decrease rubbing points that I would certainly found out to endure throughout the years with Keap.
I stood up to initially, however a few even more frustrations led me to think perhaps it was time for a modification.
The Financial investment: Moving My Company to GoHighLevel
Previously this year I chose to take the plunge. I registered for HighLevel’s Agency plan at $297/month, spending considerably greater than the $97/month starter cost.
This wasn’t a choice I took lightly. I recognized switching systems was mosting likely to need migrating all my Keap information and essentially reconstructing my whole tech infrastructure from square one making use of all of the GoHighLevel integrations offered.
Right here’s a summary of just some of the initiative needed:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail client records
- Recreating loads of automations and workflows
- Relocating customer accounts, notes, and project data to the new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe payment integration
- Establishing landing pages, promotions, and sales funnels all over once again
- Learning an entirely international UX and user interface design
Done in, I invested around 30-40 tiresome hours of setup job transitioning whatever over– as well as managing shed performance during the button.
Yet ultimately, it was a calculated investment I was willing to make. I figured some temporary pain would certainly pay off with GoHighLevel giving a much better lasting service for my service, Dripify. Oh exactly how incorrect I was …
It only took me regarding a month of hands-on usage to understand I had made a big blunder. The issues started piling up promptly, till it got to a factor I needed to reduce my losses and switch back to Keap entirely.
Allow’s walk through the nightmarish troubles I experienced.
Security Issues & Several Bugs
Provided GoHighLevel placed itself as an all-in-one automation system, I took care to thoroughly recreate every workflow from my old Keap account.
These consisted of sequences for onboarding new email customers, onboarding new customers, automating follow-ups for webinar enrollments, sending occasion reminders, taking care of subscription expiries and far more.
Whatever seemed to be operating fine … up until suddenly it had not been. One early morning, I awoke to find 171 totally unnecessary e-mails had actually been sent to customers who need to NOT have actually gotten them. This took place 3 days in a row, with a various batch of 160 people each day.
I hysterically attempted fixing and restoring the automation from the ground up. However the issue lingered.
When I desperately connected to their support team, they vaguely claimed “server concerns” were to blame. But this description didn’t make any sense, because the mistakes continued occurring each early morning like clockwork unrelated to any type of downtime.
In my mind, this enormous failing was entirely unacceptable and just really did not benefit my service. I have countless calls relying on my automated campaigns running smoothly.
So if GoHighLevel was mosting likely to be completely undependable, how could I turn over mission-critical workflows and sensitive customer information to their modern technology?
The unintuitive interface only worsened these issues …
Aggravating UX
Originating from Keap where every little thing was seamless and instinctive, GoHighLevel’s learning curve felt high and complex.
Basic jobs like editing workflows involved digging through food selection systems that were all over the place. Secret settings were unexplainably spread in totally various areas. Moving in between functions really felt disjointed or complex.
I’ll tell you what I mean by talking about their funnel builder as an example. There were 3 different setups panels to take care of general, individual, and item configurations. Yet for some insane reason, the web links to access each of these core setups were spread out on contrary sides of the screen. What!?
As someone who values tidy, thoughtful layout, this seriously upset me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel still seemed like a work-in-progress instead of a polished product prepared for prime-time usage. Their concerns seemed focused on stuffing in every feature imaginable, with poor functionality as an afterthought.
And speaking of features, I soon realized the low cost tag included costly concessions …
Misleading Pricing What Features Does GoHighLevel Have
Among GoHighLevel’s biggest marketing points is the budget friendly rate for accessibility to many features. Yet I rapidly discovered this inexpensive base price was deceitful.
They nickle-and-dimed users with occasional fees for core functionality. All of a sudden my bank card declarations had obscure $10 fees 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 quantity users, this added up to numerous bucks in unanticipated costs.
In between these per-email costs and paying extra for deliverability attachments like Mailgun, my “budget friendly” GoHighLevel subscription ended up setting you back substantially MORE than my Keap plan.
The reduced sticker price was alluring, but just not sensible in practice. This bait-and-switch left a negative preference in my mouth.
Email Rates Suffered
The last dealbreaker was seeing my meticulously supported email open prices drop virtually over night after switching to GoHighLevel.
Previously, my audience engagement consistently struck 35-40% open rates in Keap month after month. Once I migrated their records over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked instantaneously to a pitiful 9% open rate.
Regardless of how much I optimized my sending out practices or attempted every repairing method, I can barely nudge open rates back into the teens– still a 50%+ decline from my previous standards What Features Does GoHighLevel Have.
Let me repeat: my exact same target market and e-mails suddenly had dreadful engagement. The only point I might believe that would be triggering this was whatever was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For a company so dependent on email marketing, this was a big deal.
Between the debilitating deliverability issues, concealed costs, damaged features, and horrible user interface, I had finally reached my limit …
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 37 Days
Just 45 days after migrating my firm to GoHighLevel, I understood I had actually made a substantial blunder. The disadvantages substantially outweighed any kind of advantages.
No software is best, but the large volume of troubles was past appropriate.
At the end of the day, software comes down to depend on. If I can’t trust it to deal with critical features effectively or think a supplier has my best interests in mind, after that it’s time to walk away– even after spending considerable time, cash, and effort moving.
So I made the tough call to reverse program and return back to Keap totally just weeks after going done in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I picked up from this debacle.
Secret Takeaways: What I Learned From My GoHighLevel Error
My time with HighLevel can be summarized as a pricey ill fortune. But in knowledge, it educated me a couple of essential lessons:
- Stick to what works. Do not disturb what’s working unless something is definitively better across the board. Adjustment brings threat.
- Veterinarian declares thoroughly. Marketing buzz around new software program commonly covers larger underlying imperfections. Deep due diligence is necessary.
- Select simplicity over features. Properly designed devices should make your job life less complicated, not more difficult and messy.
- Openness builds trust fund. Nontransparent pricing, dubious reseller terms, and finger-pointing to avert troubles ruins trust fund.
- Look for unbiased evaluations. Pleased assistance assesses indicate less if too much concerns imply inadequate overall use.
- Perfection is difficult. No solitary remedy can perfectly fulfill every unique organization requirement. Discover the least-bad fit.
- Advancement over transformation. Step-by-step renovations commonly outweigh high-risk wholesale reinvention of what currently functions penalty.
Basically, I found out to be much more hesitant of “too good to be true” marketing cases and much less lured by the attraction of glossy brand-new items. The devices you utilize daily should make trust through transparency and performance, not slick advertising.