Before we dive in, a quick note: I’m a passionate user and proud affiliate of GoHighLevel. The advice in this article is born from my own experience using automation to scale my businesses and help hundreds of other entrepreneurs do the same. I recommend GoHighLevel because I use it every single day and have seen the incredible results firsthand. My goal is to be transparent and, above all, helpful.
If you’re an entrepreneur or a small business owner, does running your business feel like you’re trying to juggle a dozen different apps at once? You know the drill. You’ve got one tool for your email, another for your website, a third for scheduling appointments, and a fourth for your sales pipeline. It gets messy and expensive – fast.
This chaotic collection of software is what many of us call the “Franken-stack.” You’re paying for Mailchimp, ClickFunnels, Calendly, a separate CRM, and then you’re probably even paying for Zapier just to duct-tape them all together. Every single one of those has its own monthly bill and its own learning curve. It’s a chaotic, expensive, and totally disconnected system. As one user on Reddit perfectly put it, the goal is simple: cut costs and make more money. Your Franken-stack is actively working against that goal. This is the exact pain GoHighLevel was built to solve.
The All-in-One Promise
So, how does GoHighLevel plan to fix all this? With a single, bold promise: to take all of that chaos and squeeze it down into one single, unified platform. At its heart, GoHighLevel (or just “HighLevel,” as most users call it) is designed to be the one and only operating system for a business’s sales and marketing. The whole idea is to get you to ditch all those other tools and run your entire business from one dashboard.
And when they say all-in-one, they are not kidding. This isn’t just a couple of tools cobbled together. We’re talking about:
- A full CRM for your leads
- A website and funnel builder to replace something like ClickFunnels
- Email and SMS marketing
- A calendar to replace your Calendly
- Course hosting
- Social media scheduling
- Online review management
But the real secret sauce, the thing that ties it all together, is the ability to automate pretty much everything.
The Magic of Workflows
Having all these tools in one toolbox is cool, but the real magic is how they all talk to each other seamlessly. And that’s where the workflow builder comes in. It is the engine that connects every single feature across the entire platform.
Let’s walk through a simple example. Imagine a potential customer fills out a contact form on your website. Boom. Instantly, a workflow triggers. It automatically sends them a personalized text and an email. It adds them as a new opportunity in your sales pipeline. It assigns that lead to a specific person on your team and then it even pings that salesperson with an internal notification. All of that happens in a blink without you lifting a finger.
But, and this is a big but, let’s be realistic. While that example sounds simple, the true power of these workflows comes with a seriously steep learning curve. As YouTuber Jason Whaling puts it, they can be overwhelming. The platform gives you this incredible flexibility, but it’s like being handed a giant blank page in an app like Notion. You have to build the systems yourself, and that can feel pretty intimidating at first.
The Agency Game-Changer: White-Labeling
Now, here’s where things get really interesting. While any small business can use GHL, the platform has a special set of features built just for marketing agencies. For them, it’s not just another tool. It’s a way to completely reinvent their entire business model. And that transformation is built on one killer feature: white-labeling.
This means an agency can take the entire GoHighLevel platform, strip away all the GHL branding, and slap their own logo, their own colors, and their own domain name on it. They can then go sell it to their clients as if it’s their own proprietary software.
Think about the old agency model. It’s all about one-off projects, right? You build a website, you get paid, and then the revenue stops. It’s a constant hunt for the next client. But with this new GHL SaaS (Software as a Service) model, agencies can sell access to their software for a monthly subscription. This creates predictable, stable, recurring income. It’s a total game-changer. Instead of constantly being in that feast or famine cycle, the agency builds a base of subscribers, paying them every single month. You might charge a client something like $497 a month just for access to your platform, which is really just GoHighLevel doing all the heavy lifting behind the scenes.
The Good, The Bad, and The Buggy: A Realistic Look
Of course, that all sounds amazing in theory, right? But what’s it actually like using this thing day in and day out? On the positive side, when this platform clicks for a business, it really clicks. A lot of users are finding huge success by tailoring the platform to a super-specific niche, like real estate.
But, and you knew there was a but coming, that immense power comes with its own set of problems. A really common complaint you’ll see is about bugs. Because the platform tries to do so much and they release new features so fast, some users feel like they’re just in a constant battle with support tickets. And that experience of pushing through the rough parts is a really common story. Many users describe a tough, frustrating initial setup, but then a light bulb moment where the true potential finally becomes crystal clear.
This also highlights a key trade-off you have to accept. GoHighLevel is a jack of all trades, but it’s a master of none. A dedicated calling software is probably going to have a smoother interface. As one user pointed out, the calling feature can be clunky, and that’s kind of the price you pay for having everything under one roof.
But to bring it all home, despite the bugs, despite the learning curve, the insane potential for scale seems to be the main attraction. As another user so powerfully puts it, you can run nearly an entire sales and marketing operation with just this one platform.
Is GoHighLevel Right for You?
At the end of the day, it all boils down to this one question. GoHighLevel offers an absolutely incredible level of control. It can replace a dozen other tools, slash your software bill, and even create entirely new ways for you to make money. But all that power comes with complexity. So the real question you have to ask yourself is this: for your business, is having that ultimate control worth tackling what is honestly an ultimate learning curve?
Ready to explore the power of an all-in-one platform? Grab your 30-day free trial of GoHighLevel and see for yourself if it’s the right fit for your business. It might just be the peace treaty your marketing toolbox has been waiting for.
Get a 30 Day Trial of High Level/GHL at https://bit.ly/wbs-ghl
About the Author
Jonathan Mast is an AI-Powered Topical Authority Strategist and the founder of White Beard Strategies and Valorous Circle. With over 30 years of digital expertise, Jonathan has a proven track record of scaling businesses to 7 figures and helping thousands of clients save time, increase profits, and deliver more value through automation and AI. As a passionate user and affiliate partner of GoHighLevel, he is dedicated to helping entrepreneurs break free from the daily grind and build businesses that work for them.
