HighLevel Review: Is It an Affordable Marketing Tool

HighLevel

$

97

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HighLevel (also known as GoHighLevel) is a full-scale sales and marketing platform.

It combines CRM, email, and SMS marketing, landing pages, funnel builders, appointment scheduling, automation, reputation management, membership/course creation tools, and more.

Put simply, it tries to solve 10 different problems simultaneously. It sounds overwhelming, and it’s something that most marketing or sales tools fear to do. Solving too many things with one tool can actually mess it up.

I was curious, and I did an in-depth HighLevel review. A core benefit I could see from many users is that you get all sales and marketing tools under a budgeted and centralized workspace. But does HighLevel really achieve it? Let’s see. 😀

Features

• Combines CRM, lead capture, marketing and sales automation, reputation management, and communication tools in a single platform
• Multichannel automation workflows (email, SMS, voicemail drops, Facebook Messenger, and more)
• Drag-and-drop builders for creating websites, landing pages, and sales funnels
• Fully white-label HighLevel and resell it under your own brand
• Built-in tools for contact management, online payments, invoicing, and calendar scheduling
• Offers a unified inbox to manage conversations from one place

Pros

• Unlimited users, contacts, landing pages, and funnels
• Allows white-label and resell platform services

Cons

• No free plan available
• The platform being feature rich adds an immediate learning curve

What is HighLevel?

HighLevel is a full-scale marketing platform. It consolidates marketing-level tools for customer relationship management, email marketing, opportunity management, funnel building, and automation, instead of having you use individual apps for everything.

If we see the broader picture, HighLevel is a nice mix of the widely available tools for digital agencies. It offers 3 core benefits.

1. You get all sales and marketing tools in one tech stack
2. You save BIG bucks
3. You can white label functions and sell them

Now, it’s not possible to review every feature—there are MANY! MANY! So I picked some top ones for this post.

Top Reasons to Use HighLevel: An All-in-One Marketing Tool

A few minutes into this marketing platform, and I found everything well-orchestrated (or at least tried). Especially for its target audience (agency owners), HighLevel allows adding sub-accounts under the main ‘Agency’ account. 

For example, if you have 5 different businesses or clients, you can actually add each business as a subaccount with its contacts, templates, and workflows. 

Now, this can be a bit confusing for new users. But it’s a MIGHTY tool for someone needing all tools in one place!

Lead Capture Tools

HighLevel offers a decent number of lead-capturing tools—for example, forms, surveys, live chat, etc.

The form and survey builders have the same drag-and-drop interface. The left menu bar lets you drag and drop elements into forms. Add conditions logic to show/hide fields, disqualify leads, or redirect users to different URLs based on input.

From the top right, you can preview or embed a form into your funnel or website. Again, you’ve the opinions to choose the layout and trigger elements.

In my assessment, the team at HighLevel has considered every feature and use case you look for in typical form builder tools. So that’s a fantastic thing to me.

Next up, you can embed a live chat widget on any website and convert visitors to leads. I had earlier used HubSpot’s live chat widget; HighLevel matches it to a great extent. However, you cannot orchestrate automated conversations. 

For example, if a visitor clicks on the widget, you can connect them to a live agent or direct them to WhatsApp, Email, or other channels.

All messages appear in the Conversations section for live chat, where an assigned agent can manage interactions alongside emails, SMS, and other communication channels.

HighLevel introduces a one-of-a-kind prospecting tool for brick-and-mortar stores, which is great. It lets you search for local businesses in your area and generate audit reports for them. Start searching for new clients.

Automated Lead Nurturing

Picture this: A prospect visits your site, browses your services, and leaves without taking any action. Typically, this is a lead, but if left unattended, it might slip through the cracks. Here’s when HighLevel’s automated lead management tools come into play.

With HighLevel, you can automate lead management. It lets you create automated, multi-step campaigns across email, SMS, voice drops, and social DMs. 

Suppose you want to send special offers on birthdays. Remembering one or two birthdates is possible, but what if you have 1000s of contacts?

I tried HighLevel automation to help me nurture leads by sending them wishes and offers when their Birthday arrives. Here’s how the automation unfolded.

Smart lists, branching, and tagging allow for dynamic segmentation, so leads can be nurtured with content and offers relevant to their interests. If you have too many automations in mind, HighLevel has 1000+ ready-made automation recipes.

Although, here’s the rub: you get charged every time you send an email through their servers for email sequences or drip campaigns. So for high-volume users, this adds up to the monthly subscription cost.

Sales and CRM Automation

Going beyond lead nurturing, HighLevel has tools to convert leads into sales and recurring business. It has 4 core CRM features.

1. Contact management

All your contacts, whether imported manually or via lead capture tools, are stored and organized using Smart Lists. They act as a contact directory but with functions to add contact-level automation, send review requests, assign tags, or perform bulk actions.

You can store unlimited contacts. Smart search and filters make it easy to manage large contact lists.

Kudos to HighLevel for being thoughtful and implementing contact cards. These are generally found on established CRMs like Freshsales and add a great deal by consolidating a contact’s basic information, activity history, documents, appointments, and payment history in a single tab.

2. Visual sales pipelines

If you have used a CRM before, this feature will be no biggie. HighLevel’s visual pipelines help you keep track of where the leads are and what stage they are in. You can customize pipeline stages. Drag and drop lead or deal cards as they progress.

However, HighLevel currently offers limited–List and Kanban Views—to visualize pipelines. On the CRM side, agent reporting is only available with the $497 plan.

3. Unified inbox

HighLevel supports communication across various channels, including email, SMS, phone calls, social media, and live chat. Any type of client conversation can be sorted from one inbox.

4. Analytics

With HighLevel’s comprehensive reporting tools, you can easily track your campaigns, sales performance, and customer behavior to optimize your strategies continuously.

HighLevel offers ready-to-go reports for Google and Facebook Ads campaigns, attribution report, call and appointment report, and more.

Appointment Scheduling

Calendly, Google, and Apple calendars, you can have all synced within ONE HighLevel calendar. 

The Calendar View is pretty basic. Clicking New on the top right lets you book appointments with your contacts. From Appointment List View in the top toolbar, you can see an overview of all appointments.

What really impressed me is the extent to which HighLevel takes appointment scheduling. For example, it offers 4 types of calendar scheduling. 

1. Personal booking: Schedule one-on-one meetings with team members. E.g., client meetings, consultation calls, etc.
2. Service booking: Allows booking services. E.g., book appointments for a hair service or troubleshooting
3. Round robin scheduling: Auto-distribute appointments among team members in a rotating order. E.g., Client onboarding, sales call, etc.
4. Class/Collective booking: Schedule meetings with multiple hosts and participants. E.g., Webinar, seminar, etc.

Moreover, you’ve got groups, service menu, rooms, equipment, etc. I understand this might be a lot for small business owners, but this is what makes HighLevel amazing. They have thought of every single use case.  

Website & Funnel Builder

HighLevel also houses a drag-and-drop builder for creating client portals, websites, and sales funnels. 

Funnels are basically multiple landing pages put in sequence to navigate the customer journey and convert them into leads. You can either create from scratch, use AI, or choose from 1000+ ready-made funnel templates.

The funnel builder has everything to customize the funnel brick-by-brick. You can test different variations of every step in your funnel—compelled to say, it can give any individual funnel builder available in the market a run for its money.

Next, we have HighLevel’s website builder. Similar to building funnels, you can decide to create your website from scratch or choose from 1000+ website templates. The builder is identical to the funnel builder.

Reputation Management

If you’re worried about managing online reputation, you’d thank HighLevel for this feature. Reputation management in HighLevel is a system where you can monitor reviews and sentiments towards your business online.

Put simply—How does the internet feel about your business?

You can pull reviews from Google Business, Facebook, and any platform. Or, collect new reviews directly via SMS, email, or by placing a widget on your website. You can customize review request messages for all channels individually. So requests stay personalized to that channel.

What’s more, you can also automate recurring review requests via email. For example, you can set up a condition where if the review request email is left unclicked, resend the email after 1 or 2 days. This way, your chances of getting a review spike up.

HighLevel has a lot of options for you. For example, you can generate a review link, enable spam detection, etc. A special feature is Reviews AI. It’s a recommendation bot that suggests replies for reviews.

Membership Sites & Online Courses

If you want to host a course or community forum, you can do that with HighLevel. 

From the membership section, you can create digital courses and membership communities without leaving HighLevel. Even issue digital certificates that you can share with course finishers.

The newly introduced GoKollab Marketplace is a gem for creating digital products—especially courses and communities. 

White-Label Custom App Branding

Agencies can rebrand HighLevel and resell to their clients. The white-label feature is available with the Agency Plan ($497/month).

This means, agencies can ditch the time-consuming and expensive process of software development while still offering robust, high-quality solutions to their clients.

For example, a white-label CRM like HighLevel or a reputation management tool can be resold by agencies as if they built the tool themselves. They can customize the user interface with their logo, colors, and branding, providing a seamless experience for clients. 

The same goes for mobile apps. Users can download the app from the Android or iOS stores with their own branding and name on it.

By offering a fully branded product, agencies can differentiate themselves in a crowded market, improve client loyalty, and increase recurring revenue.

Is HighLevel Easy to Use?

Not really, HighLevel packs up too many features, adding an immediate learning curve to the platform. However, the learning curve may vary depending on your requirements and familiarity with using marketing and sales tools.

HighLevel Integrations

HighLevel integrates with your favorite tools, such as 

• Social apps: Facebook, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, Instagram
• E-commerce apps: WooCommerce, Shopify, etc.
• Accounting and payment apps: Stripe, QuickBooks, etc.
• Communication tools: Slack, MS Teams, etc.
• Others: Shippo, Google Business, Wave, Clio, etc.

When HighLevel May Not Be Your Ideal Choice

While HighLevel offers a rich feature set, it may not be the best choice in the below circumstances.

• If you run a business with simple needs, like basic CRM and marketing automations, HighLevel may be overkill. A free plan of HubSpot, Zoho, or Asana will do just fine. 
• If your business requires advanced, niche features that entail deep customizations, HighLevel may limit you to a surface-level version of niche tools.
• If your core service is automating marketing campaigns for clients, HighLevel can suffocate you with broken and unreliable automation.

HighLevel Pricing: Is It Really Affordable?

Yes, starting at $97/month, HighLevel offers a nice mix of features from 15+ tools. So what would have cost you $698 per month is available at $97 per month, saving $601~monthly. 

However, there’s a catch: HighLevel is affordable for average usage of offered features, and pricing can shoot up for high-volume marketing demands.

Here’s a table showing how much you save using HighLevel 👇

HighLevel Features ($97/month)	Replaces Tools	Monthly Savings
CRM & Pipeline Management	HubSpot/Freshsales	$15
Unlimited Sales Funnels	ClickFunnels/Leadpages	$81
Website Builder	Wordpress/Squarespace	$25
Survey & Forms	Jotform	$39
Workflow Automations	Keap	$249
Courses & Communities	Kajabi/Teachable	$89
Email Marketing	ActiveCampaign/Mailchimp	$99
Booking & Appointments	Calendly	$12
Reputation Management	Birdeye/Podium	$89
Total Savings		$698

HighLevel Alternatives

Below is a table comparing the features of HighLevel with those of its competitors.

HighLevel Verdict: Truly Affordable?

HighLevel is truly affordable for low usage marketing needs. It’s best recommended for small businesses and agencies who don’t wish to invest in every other marketing tool, but want a slice of all the features they offer. For this, HighLevel receives the Geekflare Value Award.

Especially for agencies, HighLevel acts as a hub for lead capturing and nurturing, client relationship management, marketing automation, and more. However, HighLevel has its usage limit, beyond which the ‘affordability’ gets compromised with added costs.

I would suggest you take the 14-day free trial to see if HighLevel fits your business or agency needs.