As an company proprietor for over a decade, I depend on software program and automation to streamline operations and ship outcomes. So when GoHighLevel emerged on the scene few years again, it undoubtedly caught my consideration (truly simply referred to as “HighLevel” however discovered at “GoHighLevel.com”) .
The concept was interesting – an all-in-one shopper administration platform with advertising and marketing, gross sales, and repair instruments built-in collectively. As an entrepreneur at all times seeking to simplify and scale my enterprise, it appeared like a dream come true on paper. Who wouldn’t need a single resolution that does all of it?
However on this in-depth GoHighLevel evaluation, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and failing) to modify to this fashionable new software program. You’ll be taught:
- The backstory of why I made a decision emigrate to GoHighLevel
- How a lot money and time I invested within the transition
- The myriad points that emerged as soon as I used to be absolutely onboarded
- How poor help left considerations unresolved
- Why I in the end regretted consuming the GoHighLevel Kool-Support
For those who’re contemplating whether or not GoHighLevel is true in your personal enterprise wants, hopefully you may be taught from my painful errors and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advocate GoHighLevel. For those who want a CRM, begin with this record of greatest CRMs as a substitute. I take advantage of Keap.
- Watch out for Shiny Object Syndrome: Keep away from the temptation to modify to new, unproven software program platforms just because they appear extra thrilling. Follow what’s working except a brand new resolution gives clear, across-the-board enhancements.
- Prioritize Simplicity: Select well-designed instruments that simplify your work life relatively than complicate it. An intuitive and user-friendly interface is essential for effectivity.
- Demand Transparency: Search for transparency in pricing and phrases. Be cautious of hidden charges and unclear reseller fashions, as these can erode belief within the software program supplier.
- Search Unbiased Evaluations: Depend on unbiased, complete evaluations and testimonials when evaluating software program. Take note of the general usability and performance relatively than simply help evaluations.
Backstory: Why I Thought of Switching from Keap
To grasp what attracted me to GoHighLevel within the first place, you want context about my earlier setup. For over 5 years I had been fortunately counting on Keap (previously Infusionsoft) to fulfill all my shopper administration and automation wants.
I discovered Keap intuitive to make use of and it dealt with every thing I wanted – CRM, electronic mail advertising and marketing, gross sales funnels, membership websites, and shopper help.
Keap
Keap’s CRM and gross sales and advertising and marketing automation are designed to assist small companies hold their shoppers whereas including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, guaranteeing leads and shoppers obtain the proper messages on the proper time. Use web site and social media types to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your development with simple appointment scheduling and lead monitoring. Increase gross sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and fee processing, releasing up your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours per week and improve income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap ‣
Keap gives a complete buyer relationship administration (CRM) and advertising and marketing automation resolution tailor-made for small companies and entrepreneurs. We respect Keap’s deal with streamlining gross sales processes and nurturing buyer relationships by way of highly effective automation instruments. The platform’s all-in-one strategy combines CRM, electronic mail advertising and marketing, invoicing, and activity administration, making it significantly enticing for companies seeking to consolidate their tech stack.
Keap Execs & Cons ‣
Execs:
- Sturdy automation capabilities for advertising and marketing and gross sales processes
- Consumer-friendly interface designed for small enterprise house owners
- Built-in CRM, electronic mail advertising and marketing, and e-commerce instruments
- Sturdy buyer help and onboarding assets
- AI-powered options to boost productiveness
Cons:
- Studying curve could be steep for some customers
- Pricing is MUCH greater in comparison with its opponents
- Some superior options solely out there in higher-tier plans
- Reporting capabilities could possibly be extra complete
- Restricted customization choices for bigger or extra complicated enterprise
For essentially the most half, it simply labored reliably with minimal fuss or upkeep required. My open and click-through charges have been nice (like 35% nice). Automations ran easily with no points.
So why on earth was I tempted to uproot my total operational basis from a system that labored to strive one thing unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I obtained seduced by the siren name of “shiny object syndrome”. You recognize the sensation: when everybody’s speaking a few new software that can revolutionize your corporation… The grass usually appears greener on the opposite aspect, and I puzzled whether or not GoHighLevel would possibly cut back friction factors that I’d realized to tolerate over time with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a number of extra frustrations led me to assume perhaps it was time for a change.
The Funding: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this 12 months (2023) I made a decision to make the leap. I signed up for HighLevel’s Company plan at $300/month, investing considerably greater than the $97/month starter value.
This wasn’t a call I took calmly. I knew switching platforms was going to require migrating all my Keap knowledge and primarily rebuilding my total tech infrastructure from scratch.
Right here’s an summary of simply among the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ electronic mail subscriber information
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Shifting shopper profiles, notes, and undertaking knowledge to the brand new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Establishing touchdown pages, promos, and gross sales funnels yet again
- Studying a completely international UX and interface design
All in, I invested round 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning every thing over – to not point out coping with misplaced productiveness through the change.
However in the end, it was a calculated funding I used to be prepared to make. I figured some short-term ache would repay with GoHighLevel offering a greater long-term resolution for my enterprise, Dripify. Oh how flawed I used to be…
It solely took me a few month of hands-on use to understand I had made a giant mistake. The problems began piling up rapidly, till it reached some extent I needed to lower my losses and change again to Keap fully.
Let’s stroll by way of the nightmarish issues I encountered.
Safety Points & Numerous Bugs
Given GoHighLevel positioned itself as an all-in-one automation platform, I took care to meticulously recreate each single workflow from my outdated Keap account.
These included sequences for onboarding new electronic mail subscribers, onboarding new shoppers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion reminders, managing membership expirations, and far more.
All the things appeared to be functioning high-quality…till all of the sudden it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to search out 171 fully irrelevant emails had been despatched to customers who ought to NOT have acquired them. This occurred three days in a row, with a special batch of 171 individuals every day.
I frantically tried troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. However the issue persevered.
Once I desperately reached out to their help staff, they vaguely claimed “server points” have been accountable. However this clarification didn’t make any sense, for the reason that errors continued taking place every morning like clockwork unrelated to any downtime.
In my thoughts, this large failure was fully unacceptable and simply didn’t work for my enterprise. I’ve 1000’s of contacts counting on my automated campaigns operating easily.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely unreliable, how might I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate shopper knowledge to their know-how?
The unintuitive interface solely compounded these points…
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap the place every thing was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s studying curve felt steep and complex.
Easy duties like modifying workflows concerned digging by way of menu programs that have been in all places. Key settings have been unexplainably scattered in completely completely different sections. Shifting between capabilities felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll inform you what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder for example. There have been 3 separate settings panels to handle general, particular person, and product configurations. But for some loopy motive, the hyperlinks to entry every of those core settings have been unfold out on reverse sides of the display screen. What!?
As somebody who values clear, considerate design, this significantly aggravated me.
It strengthened that GoHighLevel nonetheless felt like a work-in-progress relatively than a sophisticated product prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared targeted on cramming in each function below the solar, with poor usability as an afterthought.
And talking of options, I quickly realized the low price ticket got here with expensive compromises…
Deceptive Pricing
One in all GoHighLevel’s largest promoting factors is the reasonably priced value for entry to so many options. However I rapidly realized this low-cost base value was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core performance. Out of the blue my bank card statements had obscure $10 prices from GoHighLevel right here and there.
Because it turned out, you get charged each time you ship an electronic mail by way of their servers. So for top quantity customers, this added as much as a whole lot of {dollars} in sudden prices.
Between these per-email charges and paying further for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “reasonably priced” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker value was tempting, however simply not reasonable in follow. This bait-and-switch left a nasty style in my mouth.
E-mail Charges Suffered
The ultimate dealbreaker was seeing my rigorously nurtured electronic mail open charges plummet nearly in a single day after switching to GoHighLevel.
Beforehand, my viewers engagement persistently hit 35-40% open charges in Keap month after month. However as soon as I migrated their information over to GoHighLevel, efficiency tanked immediately to a pathetic 9% open fee.
Regardless of how a lot I optimized my sending practices or tried each troubleshooting trick, I might barely nudge open charges again into the kids – nonetheless a 50%+ decline from my earlier benchmarks.
Let me repeat: my EXACT SAME AUDIENCE AND EMAILS all of the sudden had terrible engagement. The one factor I might assume that may be inflicting this was no matter was taking place behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an company so depending on electronic mail advertising and marketing, this was a giant deal.
Between the crippling deliverability points, hidden charges, damaged options, and horrible interface, I had lastly reached my restrict…
Why I Stop GoHighLevel after 45 Days
Simply 45 days after migrating my company to GoHighLevel, I knew I had made an enormous mistake. The cons dramatically outweighed any advantages.
No software program is ideal, however the sheer quantity of issues was past acceptable.
On the finish of the day, software program comes all the way down to belief. If I can’t belief it to deal with vital capabilities competently or consider a vendor has my greatest pursuits in thoughts, then it’s time to stroll away – even after investing vital time, cash, and energy migrating.
So I made the powerful name to reverse course and return again to Keap fully simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I realized from this debacle.
Some GoHighLevel Options
For those who’re in search of a gross sales, advertising and marketing, and undertaking administration various to GoHighLevel, then listed here are a number of we advocate:
Key Takeaways: What I Realized From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel could be summed up as an costly misadventure. However in hindsight, it taught me a number of key classes:
1. Stick with what works. Don’t upset what’s working except one thing is definitively higher throughout the board. Change brings danger.
2. Vet claims completely. Advertising hype round new software program usually obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is crucial.
3. Select simplicity over options. Nicely-designed instruments ought to make your work life simpler, no more difficult and messy.
4. Transparency builds belief. Opaque pricing, shady reseller phrases, and finger-pointing to evade issues destroys belief.
5. Search unbiased evaluations. Completely satisfied help evaluations imply much less if extreme points suggest poor general usability.
6. Perfection is unimaginable. No single resolution can completely meet each distinctive enterprise want. Discover the least-bad match.
7. Evolution over revolution. Incremental enhancements sometimes outweigh dangerous wholesale reinvention of what already works high-quality.
Briefly, I realized to be extra skeptical of “too good to be true” advertising and marketing claims and fewer tempted by the attract of shiny new objects. The instruments you employ every day ought to earn belief by way of transparency and efficiency, not slick promoting.
Lesson realized.
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