Hello, I’m currently considering adopting GoHighLevel as the CRM and marketing platform for my business and to offer as (potentially white labeled) platform for clients. Anyone have experience, good or bad, with GoHighLevel? Any alternatives you recommend/prefer?
I always loved to go high level. It’s pretty basic, but I always felt it worked. Not to mention the customer service is always really good!
Thanks Evan S. good to hear the customer service is good. Its one thing (if the only) thing I always liked about Hubspot - great customer service if you’re willing to pay for it.
Do you use it for outbound email? I understand you technically use another service (mail gun) and have to pay extra for that
I’m not in it anymore, but yes, I used mailgun. If I recall correctly, we also used Google ads, Facebook ads, LinkedIn ads, and had them automated through zapier
Kristofer L. What're you selling/marketing? Do you already have a stable base of customers?
If you’re considering white labeling it for clients, it’s worth thinking about whether you want to own billing and support versus starting with an affiliate partnership first. White labeling means you need to know the tool very well and be comfortable supporting clients on it, otherwise you may end up taking on extra ops and maintenance.
Lana C. that’s a great point and I DO NOT want to be spending time as IT!
Dominic R. I’m a fractional CMO and have lurched into offering integrated marketing services for my clients. So I’d like to have a good core platform for myself and my clients. Most are on the small side and don’t have proper CRMs and have a mismash of outbound email tools, social posting tools, and other stuff. I’d love a single platform for myself and to set up my clients instead of bouncing between their CRMs and other tools.
Kristofer L. you may DM me and will explain how i can help you with that
Kristofer L., That makes a ton of sense. Thanks for clarifying. I've used GHL quite a bit, and this seems like a solid use case for it. That said, I'd caution against bifurcating your focus unless you're ready to start selling and maintaining software in addition to the traditional service business grind. If you're dead set on integrating GHL into your service, I recommend avoiding it as a line item when negotiating your annual retainer. Avoid bringing it up unless it's a pain point for that client that you find during discovery. Introducing a software decision into an agency retainer discussion could quicksand those deals unless they are also on the hunt for software. Instead of committing to your services, they will start thinking about the hidden costs of software and how to get the most value from it. It's tempting to show off the new shiny thing here, but it's a great upsell when they realize they need it while you're doing work for them. One last note: There is nothing stopping you from spinning up an instance for them to work out of. Bake in an extra 100/mo. in the retainer to cover your costs, and then when they want/need a platform, you will conveniently have it with all their stuff in it, and for an extra 50 or 100/mo., they can have access to a pre-built, amazing platform.
Right on Dominic R. thanks for the insight. After digging deeper I’m seeing some not-so-great reviews of GHL’s built-in outbound email capabilities, which is a primary revenue driver for most clients. So I’m shifting my focus to ActiveCampaigns due to combo of lite-CRM and email capabilities. And since most clients are B2B and ABM-focused, we can keep costs down pretty easily with low contact #s. I won’t have the (presumed) upside of the up-sold white label MRR, but as you note, that can be a big headache as well. Thanks again for the help! (and if you or anyone else has a better email>CRM tool than ActiveCampaign, I’m all ears!)
Kristofer L., ActiveCampaign is actually my favorite tool and was going to be my recommendation instead of GHL, but it does not have as broad a feature set, so I decided against bringing it up. You can actually white-label their platform in a similar fashion to GHL. It lets you resell accounts, but it has limitations. You can check that out here: https://www.activecampaign.com/learn/guides/white-labeling-in-activecampaign A third option that MIGHT be a fit for this situation could be Constant Contact. They have a strong resell/whitelabel program. Keep me posted on what you decide. Happy to lean in if you have further questions or need help.
