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Small business owner reviewing CRM and funnel software

The Truth About GoHighLevel: What I Use, What I Skip, and Who It Is For

If you are curious about whether GoHighLevel could simplify your business, I am going to break down what GHL does, what it does not do perfectly, and who it is best for.

GHL can do a lot. You could easily replace a dozen subscriptions with this one tool.

What GoHighLevel Actually Does

Here is a taste of what is built in:

  • Website builder with beautiful, easy-to-use templates
  • Landing pages with A/B testing
  • Sales funnels, webinar funnels, and checkout pages
  • Forms, surveys, and quizzes with advanced logic
  • QR codes and chat widgets
  • Social media planner
  • Email campaigns and automations
  • Two-way SMS and text messaging with a real phone number
  • Trigger links for tracking webinar attendance or actions
  • Invoicing (including recurring invoices), estimates, contracts, and payment links
  • Coupons, upsells, order bumps, and abandoned cart tracking
  • Multi-user access and team permissions

For a small business owner juggling a website host, email platform, funnel builder, SMS tool, quiz builder, calendar, and invoicing software, consolidating even half of those into one subscription is a huge win.

How I Use GoHighLevel in My Business Right Now

Here is a quick look at how I actually use GHL day to day:

  • Webinar funnel: warm and cold opt-in pages, success and replay pages, plus email and text reminders with automation. I even track attendance through GHL using trigger links.
  • Future checkout pages: although most of my checkouts are still on ThriveCart (because I have a lifetime license), I plan to move them over gradually as we update funnels.

What I Have NOT Moved to GHL (and Why)

There are a few things I have not moved, and the reasons are specific:

  • Client booking calendars. I still use Google for this and do not book often enough to prioritize switching.
  • General email marketing. My newsletters and most automations run through ActiveCampaign. For my niche, deliverability matters, and I prefer to keep my cold webinar traffic separated from my warm list to avoid spam flags.

The takeaway here is that consolidating everything into one tool is not always the right call. Keep what is working, move what is not.

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The Downsides to Know About

It is not perfect. Two things to know before you commit:

  • Billing is not purely flat rate. You pay a monthly fee, but you also pay extra for emails and texts you send. It is less than a penny per message, but costs can add up for high-volume senders. Budget for it.
  • Platform speed. Sometimes it is a bit slow to load. Not enough to frustrate me, but definitely noticeable.

Who GHL Is Best For

GoHighLevel is worth a look if you fit one of these profiles:

  • You are brand new to business and do not want to piece together 20+ subscriptions from day one
  • You are running a service business with funnels, email, and SMS as core marketing channels
  • You are tired of paying for separate tools that do not talk to each other cleanly

It could work for many other business models too, but I cannot speak directly to e-commerce businesses since I have not tested it for that. If you have, please share your experience in the comments.

The Bottom Line

I am excited to have GoHighLevel as a channel sponsor because I do not stamp my approval on just anything. I only work with providers I truly believe will take care of my community.

If you are ready to simplify your business systems, save money, and experiment with one powerful tool, GHL is definitely worth a look. They currently offer a 30-day free trial, which is double the usual length, giving you enough time to actually set up the core of your business and see if the platform works for you.

This post may contain affiliate links. I may earn a small commission when you click on the links at no additional cost to you. Read the full disclaimer here.

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