GoHighLevel has broad review coverage, but each one I’ve seen is just a cheap rehash of their landing page copy (as well as being poorly written).
None of those reviewers actually took the time to try GoHighLevel and see if it’s actually a decent marketing platform.
Lucky for you, I did.
In this guide, you’ll find an in-depth review of GoHighLevel. I made an account, tested all their features, and got all their lead-chasing emails so you don’t have to.
Disclaimer: After a lengthy demo, I found GHL to be a valuable product I can recommend to my audience in good faith. As such, I’ve joined their affiliate program and will be inserting my links here. If you click one and make a purchase, I’ll earn a small commission at no cost to you.
Who Is GoHighLevel Meant For?
Before going further, let’s make sure you’re an actual eligible user of GoHighLevel. And to give you a direct answer, you probably are.
GoHighLevel serves both businesses and agencies. If you’re a business, you’ll get access to its portfolio of lead-generation tools.
And if you’re an agency, you get those lead-gen tools plus multi-profile control for however many businesses you manage (shown below).
You also get access to its white labeling and educational features. I’ll be testing the agency plan, since it gives me access to literally everything.
Product Overview
GoHighLevel (can we call it “GHL?”) is a comprehensive lead-generation platform for marketers (of all kinds) and agencies. According to their stats, they’ve helped over 500k businesses generate 600M+ leads.
Truth be told, it’s hard to sum up GoHighLevel. They offer such a huge number of functions no single marketing buzzword or phrase can sum up.
But if I had to try, I’d say “full-stack marketing machine.” It not only makes it easier to sell products but also offers white-labeled services to add to your offerings.
If you’re an agency, you get the best of everything. You get full access to its lead generation solutions, plus a plethora of white-labeled SaaS services to resell.
It’s so comprehensive that I struggled to find a place to start. I ultimately decided on lead generation—something every business needs, agency or no.
Lead Generation
GHL helps you create leads with their “agency engine,” a system that nurtures leads in each stage of the funnel.
You don’t have to jerry-rig different funnel tools together to create leads—that’s the appeal.
As someone with an ecommerce background, I can’t deny the appeal of that. Stitching together MailChimp, GoogleAds, Google Analytics, and however many tools is a real hassle (Zapier automations only go so far).
But what does the “agency engine” actually look like in action? It’s a combination of several different features, targeting three main stages of the sales funnel.
Capture
GHL has a huge assortment of led-gen features. To name a few:
- Landing pages
- Website creation
- Forms
- Surveys
- Google My Business integration
- Facebook Messenger integration
- Webchat
- Appointment scheduling
“Everything you need” is such a salesly phrase, but it’s genuinely true here. To give an example, here’s a sales funnel for a free consultation call:
The process is simple:
- The prospect submits their email
- They receive an email with a confirmation page to book the call
- Once they’ve booked the call, they get a “thank you” page with a confirmation email
Creating funnels like this isn’t special, but that’s not the beauty of it. The beauty is that it’s all in one place—you can place the form on your website, design the booking page, and creative the confirmation page all in one place.
So when I say GoHighLevel is a full-stack marketing platform, you can see I’m not kidding.
Nurture
Once you’re lead’s fully in your pipeline, GHL has tools ready to move them lower.
Their extensive automation features for email, SMS, calls, and FB Messenger makes it simple to move prospects forward without thinking about it.
For example, here I’ve created an appointment reminder automation:
It automatically:
- Sends an SMS and email confirmation message
- Waits a few days
- Sends SMS and email reminders
- Sends an SMS reminder the day of
With all those reminders, the odds of a prospect forgetting their booking (and thus wasting my time) are slim.
Close
When it’s time to turn leads into customers, I can confirm GHL’s got everything you need:
- Payment collection (integrates with Stripe)
- Appointment scheduling
- Analytics
Connecting Stripe with GHL gives you a full view of your revenue. Here’s the agency view:
And here’s the business view (I have the law preset enabled):
Agency Whitelabeling
I’m weary of whitelabeling services—outsourcing to the wrong organization can put your agency in hot water with your client.
Thankfully, GHL’s whitelabeled products seem to be of respectable quality. They offer an assortment of whitelabled services to help agencies scale without onboarding new talent.
They sell whitelabled professional services…
…setup services…
…whitelabel mobile apps…
…and an Eliza Agent Platform and HIPAA Compliance.
Full disclosure, I couldn’t try their whitelabel services personally (that’s out of the scope of a trial review).
That said, from the reviews I read about it, they seem to hold up well. I wish I had more details, but I didn’t see any complaints.
GoHighLevel Pros & Cons
Congrats: you now understand what GHL’s all about and who it serves. It’s now time to highlight the best and worst parts of the platform.
Weighing the pros and cons together, you’ll have a clear idea of whether or not GoHighLevel serves your needs effectively—all without having to try it yourself.
Hold your applause, there’s no need to thank me! Let’s jump right into it.
Pros
Comprehensive Agency Tool
GHL makes it easy for agencies to manage a huge range of features for an infinite number of business. You can add as many accounts as you want and track upsells for each one.
Whitelabel Marketplace
As covered above, GHL sells a wide range of whitelabel services for agencies to sell to their customers without any additional effort.
Centralized Software Silo
GoHighLevel is effectively many different software tools combined into a single ecosystem.
Cons
Stuck Loading Screens
I would occasionally get stuck in infinite loading screens while using the GoHighLevel app, like this:
It was frustrating, as I essentially had no way to get out of it. All I could do was return when it was working.
While this occurred a few times, it stopped by the second week of my trial. I’ll chock it up to a temporary issue, but worth noting nonetheless for transparency.
Slow(ish) Phone Support
When I had to call in for support, I was put in a queue behind 8 other people.
The wait may have been because of a widespread outage, but this could’ve been an issue if I were running an actual business/agency from GHL.
Thankfully I was able to schedule a callback, which took about two hours (not the fastest). To their credit, the support was friendly, quick, and helpful.
2FA Sign-In Every Time
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is great for security but not for user experience when you have to enter a code upon every sign-in.
GHL doesn’t seem to stay logged in and requires a 2FA log-in each time you return to the app—even hours apart. But this isn’t necessarily a negative—it comes down to your security preferences.
GHL does track finances, so this might be a security measure.
Verdict: Impressive Features Worth Trying
While some minor issues annoyed me, GoHighLevel has a solid feature set for both agencies and businesses. The tremendous value the pricing provides also reinforces the notion that the minor issues aren’t a big deal in the long run.
So yes: GoHighLevel has my endorsement. It doesn’t lock you into monthly plans, so even if you don’t like it, it’s not a huge loss or commitment.
That’s all I’ve got—I’ll see you around.
