GoHighLevel (aka HighLevel) is an all-in-one sales, marketing, and management platform that consolidates the vast majority of business tasks under one umbrella.
Until recently, digital marketing businesses have been hemorrhaging time and money, subscribing to multiple platforms for services ranging from email marketing to appointment scheduling to sales funnel building. Just researching which platforms to select in each niche can be exhausting, let alone paying for and learning how to use each one in isolation. Now, with GoHighLevel, they're all streamlined into one groundbreaking, consistent, efficient, and affordable option.
My name is Terry Williams and I'm an SEO Expert at a major agency. We've been using Go High Level for the past 3 years and have learned a lot from that time using it. At SerpFocus, switching everything over to GoHighLevel has been a no-brainer, and we haven't looked back once. The timing was ripe for an all-inclusive platform, and GoHighLevel has swept the digital marketing world by storm—and with good reason. It’s one of those rare programs whose lofty concept truly delivers remarkable and tangible results.
In this Go High Level review we will take a comprehensive look at the platform, the truth is that, in my experience with the platform, the good far outweighs the bad. I stand firmly by my 5/5 rating. That being said, GoHighLevel will not be the right fit for everyone. Hopefully, by the end of this review, you'll have a better sense of whether or not to try it out for yourself.
Ok, let's get one thing out of the way here: a GoHighLevel subscription is not inexpensive—but it’s way cheaper than subscribing to multiple systems for all the same features. In other words, GoHighLevel gives you a lot of bang for your buck.
Depending on the size and needs of your business, GoHighLevel could be providing you many hundreds of dollars in savings every single month. Subscription plans start at $97 per month and cap out at $497 per month—and that's without add-ons or upgrades.
But trust me, it's still worth it.
We'll look at the pricing in more detail later on in this GoHighLevel review, but the main message off the bat is that the price tag on this platform is well worth it in the end.
GoHighLevel is incredibly useful. Imagine all of your digital marketing needs bundled into one solution, and that's pretty much GoHighLevel. Efficient, comprehensive, and customizable, it's a program that can revolutionize workflow and outcomes for you and your clients. The scope of the platform actually goes way beyond useful...more like integral.
That being said, I've shied away from giving GoHighLevel a perfect score for usefulness. The reason? I feel that the platform is so huge and loaded with options and features that it can be truly overwhelming. Learning to harness GoHighLevel's power and use it to its full potential is definitely a journey. There's a steep learning curve at the beginning, but even for me, there's still a lot to explore—especially since new features and updates are being added all the time. Of course, GoHighLevel's wealth of content is both a blessing and a curse. Overall, it's incredible. But it can also be a drawback if you don't invest the time needed to properly familiarize yourself with the platform.
Disclaimer: To be fair, learning to use all of the platforms that GoHighLevel encompasses is also labor-intensive, but if we were to directly compare the hours spent, GoHighLevel would surely still be the better choice.
Features, features, and more features! GoHighLevel's features are almost infinite. I can count on one hand (probably one finger) the number of times I've searched for a feature on GoHighLevel and come up empty-handed. Plus, it’s always adding more. I can honestly say that I'm pretty astonished (in a good way) by the spectrum of features GoHighLevel offers on its platform. Enough said.
If you’re in the world of digital marketing, you know how much time, expense, and effort is involved in meeting the sales needs of your clients. From CRM to reputation management and from email marketing to appointment scheduling, there are a plethora of facets to this type of work (both visible and invisible). Everything needs to sync, be nurtured, be monitored, be communicated, and produce results.
Not a simple task.
Could GoHighLevel be the solution you've been hoping for? For thousands of businesses, it has been.
But just because GoHighLevel has gained huge momentum as a digital marketing software tool doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right fit for you. Read on to learn more about GoHighLevel and decide if you're ready to give it a try.
In simple terms, customer relationship management (CRM) is any technology that’s designed to manage your business's relationships and interactions with customers and potential customers.
Encompassing marketing, sales, digital commerce, and customer service interactions, CRM solutions aim to streamline processes, improve profitability, and ultimately help you stay directly connected with the people who impact your business. This could include customers, service users, colleagues, suppliers, and more.
At the heart of GoHighLevel is a powerful CRM solution known as Smart Lists, and I'll take an in-depth peek at it later on in this review. But HighLevel is much more than just a CRM solution. What truly sets it apart from the competition? Let's take a look.
GoHighLevel is a comprehensive digital marketing platform that aims to encompass all the tools required for agencies to manage their clients' leads, websites, funnels, calendars, and much more.
Founded by Shaun Clark in 2018, HighLevel (known now as GoHighLevel because the highlevel.com domain was already owned by another company) emerged as a solution to his own frustrations in seeking an all-in-one digital sales and marketing platform. In the end, he created his own...and it has really exploded!
Designed by marketers and currently used by thousands of marketing agencies around the world, GoHighLevel has quickly become a force to be reckoned with and a marketing industry standard.
GoHighLevel's Software as a Service (SAAS) mode is a whole other facet of the platform and another way to generate revenue for your marketing agency and/or access GoHighLevel's features tailored more specifically to your company's exact needs. We'll look at this in more detail later on in this review.
While positioning itself for digital marketing agencies in particular, GoHighLevel aims to offer value to diverse customer segments:
Marketing Agencies
All-in-one capabilities like websites, automation, and client portals simplify managing the entire client lifecycle within one platform.
Marketing & Sales Teams
Consolidating previously disjointed tools for email, SMS, CRM, and analytics provides efficiency and transparency between departments.
Small Business Owners
The DIY website builder, templates, and automation features empower solopreneurs to execute sophisticated campaigns themselves.
Consultants & Freelancers
Features like white labeling, lead flows, and appointment scheduling assist consultants in managing client initiatives in a scalable way.
Ecommerce Companies
Built-in sales funnels, email nurturing, and membership site options help ecommerce brands convert customers.
For any business overwhelmed by an array of fragmented point solutions, GoHighLevel offers the possibility of an integrated one-stop-shop. This saves both money and headaches for marketers dealing with tool overload.
However, feedback indicates the platform's complexity remains a hurdle for non-technical users. But hands-on customer support helps ease transitions from existing tools into consolidated GoHighLevel workflows.
GoHighLevel is loaded with features, and there's no way I'll be able to cover all of them right here right now. In this section of the review, I'll try to give you a helpful overview of the main categories of features that GoHighLevel offers, plus highlight a few of my top favorites. Here goes.
To begin with, let's look at a snapshot of the "tech stack" or "value-stack" that GoHighLevel provides. If you were to individually source all the features you get with GoHighLevel, you'd be subscribing to a whole lot of different services (perhaps this sums up your situation at the moment, and that’s why you’re reading this review in the first place).
Some of the big players that GoHighLevel replaces include ClickFunnels, HubSpot, Salesforce, Leadpages, ActiveCampaign, plus many more. It also massively reduces reliance on Zapier to automate your work across different platforms (though I wouldn't necessarily cancel your Zapier subscription just yet; there may be a few instances where you’ll still find it indispensable).
So what exactly is all the hype about? Here’s a rundown of the major things that GoHighLevel can do for your business. Though not an exhaustive list by any means, here are the biggies (in my opinion) in no particular order:
Quite a bit there to explore and unpack, that's for sure. So let's dive in!
GoHighLevel's CRM is a good starting point because these tools are truly at the core of everything else that the platform offers. As I mentioned earlier, GoHighLevel's Smart List technology is really the glue that holds everything together.
A Smart List is a saved segment of contacts who meet specific filter conditions. As soon as you create a smart list, any new or updated contact that matches its specific filter conditions will automatically be added to it. No sweat, no fuss. Just a few clicks to manage a highly complex yet easy-to-access organization system for all of your contacts.
The Smart List tool is invaluable for effective and efficient customer relationship management and can become the foundation of customized pipelines for your business. You can create unlimited pipelines in GoHighLevel, and many businesses use them to track everything from sales to individual services to onboarding to communication with new or potential customers.
Used creatively, GoHighLevel's powerful CRM tools will provide you with everything you need to grow your customer base by reaching, engaging, tracking, and retaining the right segments of contacts at all the right times.
In addition to Smart Lists, GoHighLevel's CRM tools include some other strategic and helpful sales and marketing features. For one thing, you can add unlimited employee accounts for each business account. This is a game changer as it allows you to automate the onboarding process and effectively organize teams with just a few clicks.
In practice, this centralizes communication within an organization and means that individuals from different teams can all login and access vital business information. By allowing you to automate each individual employee's level of access and visibility, GoHighLevel's software still ensures that you maintain control over access to information and the flow of communication within an organization.
The same principle can be used if you White Label GoHighLevel and sell further access to the software as businesses pay more. We'll explore this option in more detail later.
Released in April 2021, Workflow Builder is GoHighLevel's answer to automating your marketing campaigns. By bringing together campaigns and triggers in one spot, it enables you to create and build powerful marketing automation for both your own agency and your clients. Super awesome!
Workflow Builder's unique functionalities and actions include, but are not limited to, conditions and workflow actions (if/else, go to, wait, webhooks, etc.), external communications (emails, SMS, phone, direct social media messaging, etc.), CRM actions (add, update, charges, review requests, etc.), and membership actions (grant offer, revoke offer, etc.).
Inbound/outbound outreach through GoHighLevel includes text, email, voicemail, messenger, and forced calling. These five channels are all integrated and can be used in combination with trigger settings and CRM tools to customize marketing strategies for targeted contacts. The software is extremely versatile, and the automated marketing options are only capped by your own imagination.
As I mentioned earlier, intelligent business automation is one of (if not the) biggest keys to growing your company. When you can leave day-to-day tasks and communications to smart software solutions, you free up time to truly move your business forward in bold and creative ways. If this sounds like what you want to be doing, but you’re currently struggling to find the time, GoHighLevel's automation software could be the solution you've been waiting for.
GoHighLevel's funnel builder is similar to ClickFunnels but integrated within the GoHighLevel ecosystem. If you’ve been a dedicated ClickFunnels user up until now, you'll be glad to know that, with the click of a button, you can migrate your ClickFunnels projects directly to GoHighLevel's funnel builder with no glitches.
Though the two programs are similar, I feel that GoHighLevel's funnel builder is superior in several ways. Let me elaborate:
First of all, the features that GoHighLevel offers at its $97 per month level are comparable to the features offered at ClickFunnels' $300 level. (And that's just for funnel building, not even including all of the other tools that GoHighLevel encompasses). Beyond that, GoHighLevel's funnel builder offers more in-house integrations, better customer support, and a superior affiliate program (in terms of both ease of use and payout—40% from GoHighLevel vs. 25% from ClickFunnels).
I, too, was a dedicated ClickFunnels user before switching over to GoHighLevel, but I haven't looked back once or regretted putting it behind me.
Every business wants to improve its reputation on search engines and social media, and GoHighLevel's suite of reputation management tools is designed to help you do just that. Among its go-to functions are features that help you track, monitor, and generate reviews. Response management is a key element in tending to both positive and negative reviews, and there are tools to support you in that area as well.
One feature I particularly appreciate is that GoHighLevel solicits reviews from customers upon checking into a business. Once they're checked in, they'll be plugged into an automatic review request messaging sequence that will automatically send them a review request after their visit (you can determine the amount of time you'd like to go by before the request is sent—e.g., 1 hour, 1 day, etc.).
This feature highlights exactly the type of automated work reduction that I think GoHighLevel really excels at. By using the feature to its full potential, you can drastically increase reviews of your business without lifting a finger.
Another cool reputation management feature is GoHighLevel's Review Widget, which automatically adds three-star ratings (and above) to your website. Once again, voila. Leave the work to the robots.
You might think there's not much new under the sun when it comes to calendars...but you'd be wrong. GoHighLevel takes booking calendars to the next level.
With GoHighLevel’s calendar system, you can have an unlimited number of calendars for as many services as you offer. You can also assign appointments to different team members based on availability and/or a weighting factor, connect your Stripe account and set up payments for each individual calendar, and 2-way synchronize with Google calendar (or Outlook calendar at higher subscription levels).
If you like to track appointments and run a super tight ship, even with a lot going on in your business, GoHighLevel has got you covered.
A key differentiator for GoHighLevel is its robust mobile app, providing on-the-go access to important CRM features:
For sales teams constantly on the move, having these capabilities in their pocket is a huge productivity booster compared to alternatives lacking mobile apps.
The "Snapshots" feature enables effortlessly duplicating and importing entire GoHighLevel accounts into new accounts with one click.
This is invaluable for easily copying over campaigns, automations, funnels, and more when managing multiple teams or client accounts. Snapshots save enormous time recreating things from scratch.
GoHighLevel offers abundant integration options to connect your favorite business tools:
Strong integrations ensure you don't lose functionality when consolidating systems under GoHighLevel. And their training resources help you fully leverage connected apps.
With robust mobile access, account duplication, and deep integrations, GoHighLevel aims to provide an all-in-one experience without sacrificing capabilities. This empowers users to unify fragmented systems into coordinated workflows.
Website Builder: Create full websites using the same builder as the funnel builder or from a template within the template library.
Membership Sites: Host courses or training sessions for your own agency or your clients. Customize and fully brand your membership site with the built-in drag-and-drop editor.
Social Media Scheduling Tool: Schedule appointments directly from social media platforms. How cool is that?
Power Dialer: Make calls from within GoHighLevel (including the mobile app). This feature includes call transfer and 3-way calling.
Chat Widget: Set up a responsive "chat" popup on your web pages. Receive direct notifications when someone wants to communicate with you.
Reporting: GoHighLevel provides a number of built-in reports and analytics, including Facebook and Google ads reporting, appointment reporting, call reporting, attribution reporting, and agent reporting.
Alright, if you've made it this far, you're probably getting the idea that I'm a pretty big proponent of the GoHighLevel software solution.
It's true. I am.
So, before we move on, let me distill a few more benefits for you. Features aside, why should you commit to GoHighLevel?
The answer: You'll make more sales by investing less time and money.
We've already talked about the time-saving revolution that GoHighLevel's automated capabilities provide. Automate everything from the lead nurturing process to appointment reminders to sales proposals, testimonial/review generation, and the onboarding process...and free up time for the vision that truly matters to you and your business.
When it comes to all the tools GoHighLevel bundles into one package, you’re getting so much more for so much less. Consolidate all your subscriptions into one and say hello to real and tangible savings every single month.
More sales? Yes! With smart use of the wealth of GoHighLevel features, you’ll be well on your way to increasing your revenue. Not to mention that if you resell GoHighLevel as your own rebranded white-labeled product (SAAS mode), you can charge different price points for different levels of features. And that's without even factoring in GoHighLevel's generous affiliate program.
GoHighLevel offers several tiers to match the size and needs of your business. Let's break down what's included at each level:
14-Day Free Trial
Get started with a 14-day free trial of either the Starter or Unlimited plan to experience GoHighLevel first-hand. You'll have full access to test the features before deciding.
Starter Plan - $97/month
The Starter plan provides core capabilities for one user. It includes tools like Twilio for SMS and Mailgun for email, along with API access. Ideal for solopreneurs.
Unlimited Plan - $297/month
This tier adds subaccounts for team members and clients along with white label desktop apps. Great for agencies managing multiple clients.
White Label Add-On - Additional $497/month
White labeling on mobile plus customized Zaps enables complete brand personalization. Perfect for agencies providing customized experiences.
Pro SaaS Plan - $497/month
This new plan allows reselling access to your own clients. Create a fully customized SaaS business under your brand powered by GoHighLevel.
Annual Billing Discount
Paying annually provides a discount equal to 2 months free. For example, Unlimited drops from $3564 to $2970 per year.
The pricing matches the extensive capabilities. While not cheap, consolidating your entire marketing stack into GoHighLevel can yield substantial cost savings over individual tools. Their 14-day free trial lets you experience the all-in-one approach first-hand.
At SerpFocus, we use GoHighLevel every single day to streamline our workflow, improve communications, and increase our revenue in myriad ways. Though I can't cover them all in this review, I'll provide a quick overview of what I consider to be the top six touchstones that have really helped our business evolve since we switched over to GoHighLevel.
One great thing about GoHighLevel is that it caters to a multi-channel outreach approach. Besides seamlessly integrating with (or replacing) your already existing acquisition tools (e.g., Mailchimp, Woodpecker, etc.), it also enables you to expand your email campaigns to include texts and voicemails. By combining multiple outreach channels, we've significantly increased response rates.
I've already talked about GoHighLevel's next-level calendar features—and they have truly been a game changer at SerpFocus. While we do automate appointment settings via the calendar tool, we also maintain full control of our calendar and decide exactly when our clients can schedule appointments.
GoHighLevel's unlimited calendars, advanced appointment assignment system, and 2-way synchronization with other popular platforms such as Google Calendars make a huge difference in the day-to-day organization of our company's operations—both internal and client-facing.
In addition, the ability for clients to book appointments directly from social media platforms as well as pay for appointments from within the appointment booking system using Stripe, has proven its worth many times over in terms of both conversion rates and client retention.
Converting potential clients into paying customers is one of the biggest goals of marketing—period. Digital marketing is no exception. And at SerpFocus, we've found that GoHighLevel offers a couple of concrete tools that can really help.
On-the-spot appointment booking is an awesome way to get clients to commit to your business—and with social media calendar bookings, you're reaching potential clients right where they're at. Follow up with an automated appointment reminder sequence, and you're well on your way to increasing your lead conversion rates.
Force calling (instantly phoning leads when they fill out a lead form) is another effective tool in the GoHighLevel toolbox. Once you've spoken to a potential client directly on the phone, you've nurtured a relationship as well as a reputation for promptness and going the extra mile. The SerpFocus team is a real fan of this particular feature and has witnessed the genuine impact it can have on optimizing conversion rates.
Retaining customers is a major goal for every business, but often easier said than done. With GoHighLevel, you can both communicate effectively with clients and also demonstrate the benefits of your services to them. Combining these two strategies is a double-pronged approach that has set SerpFocus on a productive path toward higher client retention levels.
Following up with clients and staying in touch is simple with all of GoHighLevel's communication channels and automated systems. You can track leads, texts, and inbound calls using GoHighLevel and organize them into tangible statistics to show your customers the concrete value your business is providing to them.
When customers feel that you’ve built a relationship with them and are providing valuable services, they’re much more likely to continue giving you their business.
I've already extolled the virtues of smart business automation for maximizing your productivity output. With GoHighLevel, automation doesn’t have to be complex and can be a huge time saver. At SerpFocus, we automate everything from emails and voicemails to reporting and nurturing sequences. I'd strongly advocate that most businesses could benefit from doing the same!
Providing GoHighLevel to clients not only helps them to track their own business statistics (leads, sales, revenue, etc.), but allows our agency to access these statistics as well. At SerpFocus, this transparency is probably the number one benefit we’ve found to using GoHighLevel with clients.
Without needing to access client books or records, GoHighLevel collects and maintains accurate information about the day-to-day details of client business operations. Being able to tap into this overarching snapshot of a business at any moment in time is critical for helping clients to see their trajectory from a new perspective. From there, it is easier to plan next steps and accurately measure progress.
GoHighLevel makes it easier for both clients and agencies to increase their accountability based on accurate and easily accessible information.
I've got virtually no criticism when it comes to GoHighLevel's help and support—and that's pretty unusual! It offers multiple support channels, including its searchable help center (a knowledge base filled with documentation and videos), support tickets, live chat, and one-on-one support calls on Zoom.
For a monthly fee ($300 per month for a minimum of three months), you can also access Priority Support, which provides you with a dedicated GoHighLevel Account Manager available to you 24/7.
In all my experiences with GoHighLevel's customer support, I've always found it to be quick, responsive, friendly, and solution-oriented.
In addition to GoHighLevel's built-in support options, there are also currently three Facebook groups operated by the GoHighLevel team: HighLevel—Official Community, HighLevel—Pro Agency Group, and HighLevel Job Network.
Personally, I’ve found the Official Community group to be a wonderful virtual network with many friendly individuals willing to offer help, support, and ideas. The more engaged and active you are in the group, the more likely you are to receive support when you request it. I would recommend joining it if you're the type of person who appreciates an open and communal approach to platform support.
The Pro Agency Facebook group is exclusively for subscribers to the Agency Pro account plan and includes training on launching an SAAS agency.
The Job Network matches up those who are looking for help with their GoHighLevel account and service development with providers who can offer such options for a fee.
GoHighLevel offers daily and weekly training events as well as a larger in-person conference. The conference is known as the Official HighLevel Summit and will take place for the very first time, October 25-27, 2022, in Dallas, TX.
I don't think there are any platforms currently on the market that directly compete with GoHighLevel. This, of course, is because GoHighLevel is an all-in-one solution that was specifically designed to consolidate the features of other programs under one umbrella. GoHighLevel is still a groundbreaker, and not a lot of direct competition has yet emerged.
That being said, the three platforms below all have a lot going for them. They’re all better established (i.e., older) than GoHighLevel and have all proven themselves in the digital marketing space. If you're interested in a more specialized solution for your business, one of these platforms might just fit the bill.
While GoHighLevel is targeted toward agencies looking for powerful all-in-one marketing and CRM solutions, ClickFunnels is geared toward marketers and online businesses who want a more comprehensive funnel and landing page builder.
Not surprisingly, ClickFunnels' major selling point is its funnels. And, yes, they are good, particularly for beginners seeking templates to help get them started.
That being said, the GoHighLevel funnel builder is every bit as sophisticated as ClickFunnels and less expensive to boot (not to mention all the other features included with a GoHighLevel subscription). If you’re looking to build funnels for multiple clients plus streamline your agency's functionality in other ways, GoHighLevel is definitely the better choice.
While ActiveCampaign was once a true pioneer in the email marketing and marketing automation space, GoHighLevel has taken most of its services and features to the next level, plus added more.
ActiveCampaign's price point may make it an enticing option for small to medium businesses, but if you’re an agency that’s looking to expand and scale your company, GoHighLevel will be the better option. Its two-way SMS capabilities and white-label options alone set it apart in value. I say stick with GoHighLevel.
HubSpot is probably more similar to GoHighLevel than the previous two platforms because it encompasses a lot of sophisticated features and is a powerful CRM that truly records the whole customer life cycle.
Unlike GoHighLevel, HubSpot does offer its CRM version for free—so that’s a huge bonus if you're looking for inexpensive software. That being said, if you're hoping for more than just a CRM, GoHighLevel still gives you much more bang for your buck. At $50 per user per month, the HubSpot add-on packages for marketing, sales, and service add up quickly if you require accounts for multiple users—and that's just for its basic packages. Worth checking out is HubSpot's startup program, which offers qualifying startup enterprises up to a 90% discount.
GoHighLevel is an all-in-one platform for sales and marketing, so it’s great for internet marketers, freelancers, marketing agencies, affiliate businesses, and anyone else in the digital marketing niche.
GoHighLevel can also benefit entrepreneurs trying to grow and scale brick-and-mortar or service-based businesses.
Who is it not as great for?
GoHighLevel is not a great fit for businesses that rely heavily on blogging. It's also not right for e-commerce stores with a lot of inventory, though it may be a great match for dropshippers or small e-commerce shops with just one or two products.
GoHighLevel is unique because it’s an all-in-one platform. There are other platforms out there that may match (or occasionally exceed) what GoHighLevel can do in specific sectors, but overall, it’s just remarkable to be able to rely on software that’s all under one cohesive umbrella. Truly a game-changer!
Exporting contacts is a pretty straightforward process in GoHighLevel. Filtering for specific tags, you can export a segment of your contact list to a spreadsheet (CSV file).
Importing contacts is also quite simple. Once contacts are organized in a CSV spreadsheet, you can import them and tag them appropriately before adding them to your GoHighLevel contact database.
Yes. GoHighLevel is mobile-friendly, and the app allows you to organize your contacts, check your calendar and appointment schedules, view and reply to requests, and manage your dashboard and chats...plus more!
GoHighLevel also offers a white-label mobile app. You must have a minimum Freelancer account ($297 per month), and the app is an add-on premium upgrade that will cost you an extra $497. For that price, you'll get a custom-branded mobile app that will be available for your clients to download.
Well, we've arrived at the end of this lengthy review, and—surprise, surprise—GoHighLevel has come out looking like a pretty solid investment!
From the get-go, I made no secret of the fact that I'm a big fan of GoHighLevel, but hopefully, this comprehensive review has helped you understand why and to decide whether or not you (or your business) will be subscribing to the platform in the near future.
At SerpFocus, we highly recommend GoHighLevel and would love to help you on your digital marketing journey. Reach out to us today for support with GoHighLevel or any other digital marketing questions.
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