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 thought was interesting – an all-in-one shopper administration platform with advertising, gross sales, and repair instruments built-in collectively. As an entrepreneur all the time seeking to simplify and scale my enterprise, it appeared like a dream come true on paper. Who wouldn’t desire a single resolution that does all of it?
However on this in-depth GoHighLevel assessment, I’ll take you inside my disastrous journey of attempting (and failing) to modify to this fashionable new software program. You’ll study:
- 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 finally regretted consuming the GoHighLevel Kool-Help
When you’re contemplating whether or not GoHighLevel is true in your personal enterprise wants, hopefully you may study from my painful errors and inflated expectations.
Spoiler: I do NOT advocate GoHighLevel. When you want a CRM, begin with this record of greatest CRMs as a substitute. I exploit 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. Keep on with what’s working until a brand new resolution affords clear, across-the-board enhancements.
- Prioritize Simplicity: Select well-designed instruments that simplify your work life slightly 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 critiques and testimonials when evaluating software program. Take note of the general usability and performance slightly than simply help critiques.
Backstory: Why I Thought-about Switching from Keap
To know 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 the whole lot I wanted – CRM, e-mail advertising, gross sales funnels, membership websites, and shopper help.
Keap
Keap’s CRM and gross sales and advertising automation are designed to assist small companies preserve their shoppers whereas including new ones effortlessly. Automate follow-ups with emails and texts, making certain leads and shoppers obtain the precise messages on the proper time. Use web site and social media kinds to streamline lead follow-up, and handle your progress with simple appointment scheduling and lead monitoring. Enhance gross sales with automated quoting, invoicing, and cost processing, releasing up your time. With Keap, small companies can save 10 hours per week and enhance income by 39%. Begin with a 14-day free trial, no bank card required.
Why we like Keap ‣
Keap affords a complete buyer relationship administration (CRM) and advertising automation resolution tailor-made for small companies and entrepreneurs. We respect Keap’s deal with streamlining gross sales processes and nurturing buyer relationships via highly effective automation instruments. The platform’s all-in-one strategy combines CRM, e-mail advertising, invoicing, and job administration, making it notably enticing for companies seeking to consolidate their tech stack.
Keap Execs & Cons ‣
Execs:
- Strong automation capabilities for advertising and gross sales processes
- Person-friendly interface designed for small enterprise house owners
- Built-in CRM, e-mail advertising, and e-commerce instruments
- Sturdy buyer help and onboarding assets
- AI-powered options to boost productiveness
Cons:
- Studying curve may be steep for some customers
- Pricing is MUCH larger in comparison with its opponents
- Some superior options solely out there in higher-tier plans
- Reporting capabilities might be extra complete
- Restricted customization choices for bigger or extra complicated enterprise
For probably 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 whole operational basis from a system that labored to attempt one thing unproven and untested?
In hindsight I can admit I bought seduced by the siren name of “shiny object syndrome”. You realize the sensation: when everybody’s speaking a few new software that may revolutionize your corporation… The grass typically appears to be like greener on the opposite aspect, and I questioned whether or not GoHighLevel would possibly scale back friction factors that I’d realized to tolerate over time with Keap.
I resisted at first, however a couple of extra frustrations led me to suppose perhaps it was time for a change.
The Funding: Migrating My Company to GoHighLevel
Earlier this yr (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 evenly. I knew switching platforms was going to require migrating all my Keap information and basically rebuilding my whole tech infrastructure from scratch.
Right here’s an outline of simply a few of the effort required:
- Manually exporting 20,000+ e-mail subscriber information
- Recreating dozens of automations and workflows
- Transferring shopper profiles, notes, and venture information to the brand new CRM
- Reconfiguring my Stripe billing integration
- Organising touchdown pages, promos, and gross sales funnels once more
- Studying a completely overseas UX and interface design
All in, I invested round 30-40 tedious hours of setup work transitioning the whole lot over – to not point out coping with misplaced productiveness in the course of the swap.
However finally, it was a calculated funding I used to be keen to make. I figured some short-term ache would repay with GoHighLevel offering a greater long-term resolution for my enterprise, Dripify. Oh how fallacious I used to be…
It solely took me a few month of hands-on use to appreciate I had made an enormous mistake. The problems began piling up shortly, till it reached a degree I needed to reduce my losses and swap again to Keap solely.
Let’s stroll via the nightmarish issues I encountered.
Safety Points & A number of 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 e-mail subscribers, onboarding new shoppers, automating follow-ups for webinar registrations, sending occasion reminders, managing membership expirations, and far more.
Every little thing appeared to be functioning wonderful…till immediately it wasn’t. One morning, I awoke to search out 171 fully irrelevant emails had been despatched to customers who ought to NOT have obtained them. This occurred three days in a row, with a special batch of 171 folks every day.
I frantically tried troubleshooting and rebuilding the automation from scratch. However the issue continued.
After I desperately reached out to their help crew, they vaguely claimed “server points” have been guilty. However this clarification didn’t make any sense, for the reason that errors continued occurring 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 working easily.
So if GoHighLevel was going to be completely unreliable, how may I entrust mission-critical workflows and delicate shopper information to their expertise?
The unintuitive interface solely compounded these points…
Irritating UX
Coming from Keap the place the whole lot was seamless and intuitive, GoHighLevel’s studying curve felt steep and complex.
Easy duties like modifying workflows concerned digging via menu techniques that have been in all places. Key settings have been unexplainably scattered in completely completely different sections. Transferring between features felt disjointed or complicated.
I’ll let you know what I imply by speaking about their funnel builder for instance. 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 critically aggravated me.
It bolstered that GoHighLevel nonetheless felt like a work-in-progress slightly than a refined product prepared for prime-time use. Their priorities appeared targeted on cramming in each characteristic beneath the solar, with poor usability as an afterthought.
And talking of options, I quickly realized the low price ticket got here with pricey compromises…
Deceptive Pricing
Certainly one of GoHighLevel’s largest promoting factors is the inexpensive worth for entry to so many options. However I shortly realized this low-cost base value was misleading.
They nickle-and-dimed customers with sporadic charges for core performance. Instantly my bank card statements had obscure $10 costs from GoHighLevel right here and there.
Because it turned out, you get charged each time you ship an e-mail via their servers. So for prime quantity customers, this added as much as lots of of {dollars} in sudden prices.
Between these per-email charges and paying further for deliverability add-ons like Mailgun, my “inexpensive” GoHighLevel subscription ended up costing considerably MORE than my Keap plan.
The low sticker worth was tempting, however simply not life like in apply. This bait-and-switch left a foul style in my mouth.
E-mail Charges Suffered
The ultimate dealbreaker was seeing my fastidiously nurtured e-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 may 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 immediately had terrible engagement. The one factor I may suppose that will be inflicting this was no matter was occurring behind the scenes at GoHighLevel. For an company so depending on e-mail advertising, this was an enormous deal.
Between the crippling deliverability points, hidden charges, damaged options, and horrible interface, I had lastly reached my restrict…
Why I Give up 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 features competently or consider a vendor has my greatest pursuits in thoughts, then it’s time to stroll away – even after investing important time, cash, and energy migrating.
So I made the powerful name to reverse course and return again to Keap solely simply weeks after going all in on GoHighLevel. Let’s discover what I realized from this debacle.
Some GoHighLevel Alternate options
When you’re in search of a gross sales, advertising, and venture administration various to GoHighLevel, then listed here are a couple of we advocate:
Key Takeaways: What I Discovered From My GoHighLevel Mistake
My time with HighLevel may be summed up as an costly misadventure. However in hindsight, it taught me a couple of key classes:
1. Persist with what works. Don’t upset what’s working until one thing is definitively higher throughout the board. Change brings threat.
2. Vet claims totally. Advertising and marketing hype round new software program typically obscures larger underlying flaws. Deep due diligence is crucial.
3. Select simplicity over options. Properly-designed instruments ought to make your work life simpler, no more sophisticated and messy.
4. Transparency builds belief. Opaque pricing, shady reseller phrases, and finger-pointing to evade issues destroys belief.
5. Search unbiased critiques. Comfortable help critiques imply much less if extreme points suggest poor general usability.
6. Perfection is not possible. 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 wonderful.
In brief, I realized to be extra skeptical of “too good to be true” advertising claims and fewer tempted by the attract of shiny new objects. The instruments you employ every day ought to earn belief via transparency and efficiency, not slick promoting.
Lesson realized.
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