Welcome to my GoHighLevel Review 2021. My name is Antony George and I’m a digital marketing agency owner. I’ve been using the GoHighLevel software since 2019 for my agency and all my client accounts.
This review is based on my day to day hands-on experience using the platform. I’ll talk about the benefits and how it can help you make more sales, save you money, save you time and help you retain clients for longer. But I’ll also give you my opinion on what the software isn’t.
The team at HighLevel are constantly adding extra features. So I’ll do my best to keep this review as up to date as possible throughout the year (Last update Jan 2021).
Read on for my GoHighLevel Review 2021…
Table of Contents
What Is GoHighLevel?
GoHighLevel is the all in one sales and marketing platform taking the marketing world by storm. It’s designed by marketers and used by thousands of marketing agencies around the world.
The platform is marketed as “The #1 Automation and Text Messaging Platform for Marketing Agencies” but it is so much more than that!
The software offers landing pages, sales funnels, CRM, email marketing, SMS marketing, reputation management, and more on a single platform. That’s right, you get all the functionality of those individual platforms consolidated into one.
The GoHighLevel platform will save you money, save you time, and enable you to make more sales without the stress of using multiple systems bolted together with zaps.
Let’s clear something up… The software is really called HighLevel but is often referred to as GoHighLevel or GHL. Why? The highlevel.com domain was already owned by another company so they placed “go” at the beginning of the URL and the term GoHighLevel was born.
GoHighLevel Benefits
You'll save money
HighLevel consolidates the functionality of multiple platforms into one and charges you less for it whilst doing a better job.
You'll save time
The automation capabilities will be an absolute game-changer for you and your business. If you do something more than once you should create an SOP and then automate it as much as possible. The automations we’ve set up are saving us hours of work each week. This enables us to spend more time on revenue-generating activities. We’ve automated our:
- lead nurture sequence (text, SMS, voicemail drops) – to increase the number of appointments made
- appointment reminder sequence (text, SMS, voicemail drops) – to dramatically reduce the no-show rate
- sales proposal process – automatically generating proposals for signing and then paying with daily reminders to the prospective client to do so. As soon as they do, they are automatically placed into our onboarding process
- onboarding process – save us hours of back and forth manual communication with a simple step by step automated process
- testimonial & review generation process
Duplicate client campaigns with snapshots – If you have lots of clients in the same niche you can save hours by duplicating entire client campaigns from one sub-account to another. I’m talking everything you need: landing pages, sales pipelines, calendars, soap opera sequences (nurture sequence), calendars, appointment reminder sequences. Our build out time for a client campaign has dropped from taking a whole day to just a couple of hours.
You'll make more sales
How Much Does GoHighLevel Cost?
Since January 2021, GoHighLevel has four base plans available:
1. The Starter Account (previously called the Agency Starter Account) is $97 per month. This is ideal if you want to use GoHighLevel for your business only and do not have a requirement for any of the premium upgrades/subscriptions such as HIPAA compliance or the White-Label App.
2. The Freelancer Account (previously called the Agency Unlimited Account) is $297 per month. This is ideal if you will be using GoHighLevel for your agency and also for your clients. The Freelancer Account offers all the features of the Starter Account but also comes with unlimited sub-accounts (unlimited location accounts) and the ability to white-label the desktop app. Any premium upgrades require you to have this account subscription.
3. The Agency Pro Account is $497 per month.
4. The Enterprise Account: custom pricing
There are several subscription upgrades available. The two most common asked for ones are HIPAA compliance and the White-Label Mobile App. Both require you to have at minimum The Freelancer Account. The HIPAA compliance upgrade is an extra $297 per month. The White-Label App is an extra $497 per month.
GoHighLevel Features
Campaign Builder
2 Way SMS
2 Way Email
Pipeline Management
Landing Page Builder
Website Builder
Calendar
Email Builder
Power Dialer
Call Tracking
Membership Sites
Survey Builder
Form Builder
Call Recording
CRM
Reputation Management
API Access
Reporting
& more…
How Do We Use GoHighLevel For Our Marketing Agency?
Lead generation => landing pages, forms & surveys
CRM & Sales pipeline
Lead nurture => Automate our follow up marketing campaigns and nurture sequence – email, text, voicemails, forced calls
Call recording and auditing
Appointment scheduling & calendar sync => sync with google calendar. Appointment reminder sequences to reduce no-shows
Automate our onboarding
Hosts our online courses
Hosts our client portal – training videos, how-to videos, sales scripts, faq’s
Video Testimonial Campaign => specific campaign to generate video testimonials for us from our clients
Host the website of our second boutique marketing agency Body Contouring Clients Now!
What we don’t use HighLevel for => cold outreach, hosting our main website
How Do We Use GoHighLevel For Our Clients?
We focus heavily on delivering prepaid appointments and delivering a 3 to 1 return for our clients. How we use GoHighLevel for our clients is pretty much exactly how we use it for our agency.
The main differences are:
Prepaid appointments – we integrate Stripe with the calendars and take payment when appointments are scheduled.
Reactivation campaigns – We’ve developed a specific campaign that uses SMS & email to target the client’s email list with the purpose of bringing past customers back as new customers. It’s not unknown for us to hit our monthly appointment and sales target just with the reactivation campaign.
Reputation management – What business doesn’t want lots of 5-star reviews? We give this away as a bonus to our clients and they love it. The inbuilt reputation management is easy to set up and use. The reputation management tool allows you to request reviews from your customers, quickly respond to all Google & Facebook reviews, and easily display reviews on your website or funnels.
Website chat widget – This is another bonus we give away to our clients. It takes less than 5 minutes to get set up on their website and it’s a great way to make our clients log into their accounts to view and respond to the messages.
The GoHighLevel App
There is a GoHighLevel app available for iOS & Android. Download and log in with the same details you use for the desktop version. The sub-accounts (locations) that you can access are the same as those you access via desktop. The free version of the app is HighLevel branded. There is talk of rebranding the free version to Lead Connector so that your clients don’t know that you’re using HighLevel. You can have a custom-branded app for use by you and your clients but it will cost you an additional $497 per month.
The app is split into 5 tabs:
- Dashboard – A at a glance summary of your pipelines, tasks, and reviews.
- Conversations – View past email and text messages conversations with contacts.
- Opportunities – View your pipelines. Add & delete opportunities from your pipelines. Manually move opportunities between your pipeline stages.
- Appointments – View, add, edit, and delete appointments
- Contacts – View, add, edit, and delete contacts.
The app features I use the most are:
- Making outgoing calls to clients & prospects – the caller display number is the number assigned to my account and not my cell phone number. I also have my account set up to record all calls.
- Quickly checking & responding to text messages from clients & prospects.
GoHighLevel Help & Support
The HighLevel help & support is the best I’ve experienced from a SAAS company. The help documentation is easy to navigate. The support team is very responsive and easy to contact.
Let’s dive into the support channels on offer:
The help center is where you’re going to find the easily searchable HighLevel knowledgebase that contains help documentation & videos. There are a lot of “how to…” videos to get you up and running or to answer any questions you may have.
If you’ve got a problem that isn’t covered by the knowledge base, you can start a live chat with the team. They’re very responsive and will point you in the correct direction, answer your question if they can, or ask you to raise a support ticket in order to escalate the problem.
You can also raise a 1-on-1 support call. This is a 30-minute zoom video call but can’t be scheduled for the same working day.
If you’re looking for a direct & quick support option, and don’t mind paying for it on a monthly basis, then priority support may be the best option for you. Priority support gives you a dedicated HighLevel Account Manager with a 24hr SLA for support issues. It also comes with early access to Beta Programs. But it does come at a price. It’s $300 per month with a minimum commitment of 3 months.
On top of this, there is also the HighLevel Facebook group. I’ll talk more about this in the next section.
The HighLevel Facebook Group & Wider Community
For me, the HighLevel Facebook group is one of the best communities on social media. The group is full of helpful individuals who will answer questions or point you in the direction of a good resource. You’ll often find the owners & development team answering individual questions and announcing updates. It’s important to remember that the more helpful and engaged you are within the group, the more help you will receive when you need it.
The group is moderated well by the admins. Although as it grows in popularity I’m starting to notice an increase in engagement posts, self-congratulatory promotional posts, and various attempts to slide into other members DM’s that plague other Facebook groups.
There’s also a growing number of people providing helpful resources and services both free & paid. You’ll find HighLevel blog posts, youtube channels, training courses, consultation services, etc.
Frequently Asked Questions
Here you’re going to find the answers to the questions I’m often asked about GHL. Let me know in the comments if you have a question about HighLevel that hasn’t been answered in this review.
What are the tools GoHighLevel can replace?
GoHighlevel allows you to replace the tools and platforms you use for the following:
- CRM & pipeline management
- Funnel builder
- Email marketing *
- SMS marketing *
- Voicemail marketing *
- Call tracking
- Surveys & Forms
- Bookings & appointments
- Website builder
- Membership sites
- Reputation management
- and more…
* requires connectivity through 3rd party service provider.
Are emails, SMS, and voice call charges included in the price?
No, they are not included. For voice & SMS calls you need to set up and connect to a Twilio account. For emails, you need to set up and connect to an SMTP service such as MailGun, Sendinblue, Gmail, etc…
Will There Be White Labeling for GoHighLevel?
There already is a white label version. The minimum subscription level you need to be on is the Freelancer Account at $297 per month. The Freelancer Account allows you to white label the desktop version of the platform.
There is also the option of upgrading to include a custom-branded mobile app. This is available for both Android and iOS. The upgrade cost is an additional $497 per month.
Does GoHighLevel Offer A White-Label App?
Yes, GoHighLevel does offer a white-label app for your agency. HighLevel can build you a custom-branded mobile app. This will be available for your clients to download from the relevant app stores for iOS and Android. Also included is a white-label Zapier account so that your clients don’t know that GoHighLevel is the platform you are using.
The white-label app is an add-on premium upgrade and costs an extra $497 per month.
A requirement of the white-label app is that you must have a Freelancer Account ($297 per month).
Is there a limit on the number of funnels?
No, you can build an unlimited number of funnels per client account (sub-account).
Will I be able to Clone Funnels with GoHighLevel?
Yes, you can clone funnels with GoHighLevel.
Within HighLevel you can clone funnels within the same sub-account and between different sub-accounts within your Agency account.
You can also import your funnels from Clickfunnels. With a simple copy and paste you can import from Clickfunnels into HighLevel. Then use the drag and drop editor to update and tweak your funnel.
This import feature does allow you to copy other people’s successful funnels from Clickfunnels. It is tempting but please model and do not copy other people’s work.
Will I be able to share funnels in GoHighLevel?
Yes, you can share funnels in GoHighLevel. You can share an individual funnel with another GoHighLevel account.
Will GoHighlevel have a blogging platform?
GoHighlevel is not designed to be a blogging platform. I recommend that you use a platform that is specifically designed for blogging and one that is great for SEO. I use WordPress for blogging and direct traffic across to my marketing funnels that are on HighLevel.
What Does HighLevel integrate with?
- HighLevel seamlessly integrates with:
- Google account so that you can synchronize calendars
- Google My Business and Google Analytics to view reports within the HighLevel Dashboard
- Facebook Lead Ads to import leads directly into your account without relying on other software like Zapier
- Facebook Business Page to allow 2-way facebook messenger communication from within HighLevel
- Facebook Ad Account to view reports
- Stripe to allow payments to be easily taken
- Twilio for 2-way texting, voicemail drops, call recording, outbound calls, inbound call routing
- Mailgun so you can send and receive emails (other SMTP services are easy to set up as well)
- And then to take it to the next level:
- You can use webhooks to send data to external platforms
- Every agency account has an API and every sub-account has its own API. The API allows connectivity via services such as Zapier to hundreds (thousands?) of other platforms. On top of this, the API also allows you to code custom integrations for your business.
How many Custom Domains can I use with GoHighLevel?
There is no limit. You can use as many custom domains or sub-domains as you wish. Your pages, funnels, membership sites can all use the same one or they can each have a different one.
All client sub-accounts can also be set up with the client’s domain or sub-domain. This will allow consistent branding across the assets for that client.
Does GoHighLevel have FREE SSL?
Yes, GoHighLevel has free SSL. SSL is automatically added when you set up your domain or sub-domain on the platform.
Does GoHighLevel Have A Reputation Manager?
Yes, GoHighLevel does have a reputation manager.
For me, there are 3 parts to reputation management within HighLevel…
First, the ability to request reviews from your customers. There’s a “Client Check-In” button that sends a custom Google review request to that client by SMS or Email. You can set this up so that the review request is sent after a set amount of time (eg 1 hour).
Second, the ability to quickly and easily respond to all Google & Facebook reviews. GoHighLevel integrates with your Google My Business location profile and your Facebook business page. All reviews are pulled into and displayed with the Reputation Management section allowing you to respond to all Google & Facebook reviews from one place.
Third, the GHL Review Widget allows you to display reviews on your website or funnels. The widget will only display reviews with a rating of 4.5 stars and above.
As an extra bonus, you can easily set up a more in-depth marketing campaign asking past clients to leave you a review.
Does HighLevel Have A Built-In Calendar Booking?
Yes, it does have calendar booking and it’s a fantastic feature of the software. Calendar booking can be set up to work how you and your business work. It can be as simple or as complicated as you want it to be. If you have a sales team, each individual member of the team can have their own calendar. If you offer different services, each service can have its own calendar and the calendars can be synchronized so that you do not get overlapping appointments. You can take credit card payments when an appointment is scheduled. You can synchronize with your personal Google calendar meaning if you schedule a personal appointment this blocks out the time on your synchronized HighLevel calendars.
Being able to synchronize HighLevel calendars with Google calendar allows you to synchronize with any other booking system that allows google calendar synchronization.
As soon as an appointment is made you can send out notifications to yourself or team members. You can send out personalized appointment confirmations via email, SMS, or voicemail drop. You can send out personalized appointment reminders to the customer to avoid no-shows.
Does GoHighLevel Have A Membership Site?
Yes, GoHighLevel has a membership site. The membership platform is completely free and allows you to build courses for your clients or your own agency.
You can make an unlimited number of courses with an unlimited number of users. The platform allows you to offer free or paid courses.
The membership area can be customized and fully branded using the built-in drag and drop editor.
The platform has the benefit of allowing you to drip content to members. You are fully in control of your membership area.
You get unlimited video hosting on the platform so you don’t need to host your videos on other platforms such as Vimeo, Wistia, or YouTube. No more having YouTubes related videos showing after your training videos.
Is GoHighLevel HIPAA Compliant?
GoHighLevel does offer HIPAA Compliance but it is a paid upgrade. When purchased and enabled, all user data within all location accounts (all sub-accounts) will be protected and HIPAA compliant. The HIPAA upgrade is $297 per month. Once applied to your account, it cannot be removed.
What Is The GoHighLevel Marketplace?
The marketplace is the white-label fulfillment arm of GoHighLevel.
In the marketplace, you will find the various white-label services including:
- Website Build
- Funnel Build
- SEO
- Social Media Management
- Facebook & Instagram Ads
- Google & Bing Ads
You will also find options to add premium features to your subscription. These include:
- HIPAA Compliance
- White Label App
- Priority Support
What's The Difference Between The Starter Agency Account And The Agency Unlimited Account?
There are 2 main differences between the Agency Starter Account ($97pcm & now referred to just as the Starter Account) and the Agency Unlimited Account($297pcm & now called the Freelancer Account).
Firstly, the Starter Account only has one sub-account (one location account). It is designed to be used by your business for your business. Whereas the Freelancer Account has unlimited sub-accounts (unlimited location accounts). One sub-account is used for your business and you set up sub-accounts for each of your clients.
Secondly, the Freelancer Account allows you to brand the desktop app. This allows you to use your own domain and customize the look and feel of the platform. This means your clients will view it as your platform and not as the GoHighLevel platform.
What Is The GoHighLevel Pricing?
GoHighLevel has two base account options:
1. The Starter Account is $97 per month. This is ideal if you want to use GoHighLevel for your business only and do not have a requirement for any of the premium upgrades/subscriptions such as HIPAA compliance or the White-Label App.
2. The Freelancer Account is $297 per month. This is ideal if you will be using GoHighLevel for your agency and also be using GoHighLevel for your clients. The Freelancer Account offers all the features of the Starter Account but also comes with unlimited sub-accounts (unlimited location accounts) and the ability to white-label the desktop app. Any premium upgrades require you to have this account subscription.
There are several subscription upgrades available. The two most common asked for ones are HIPAA compliance and the White-Label Mobile App. Both require you to have at minimum the Freelancer Account. The HIPAA compliance upgrade is an extra $297 per month. The White-Label App is an extra $497 per month.
