Keap and GoHighLevel are similar-looking platforms that offer features for marketing, lead nurturing, and CRM. Let’s discover which is the better option.
- Plans cost from $97/month
- GoHighLevel is ranked as the #2 platform on SupplyGem
- Rated 4.9/5 on Trustpilot
- GoHighLevel is an advanced platform with excellent CRM, sales, and marketing tools
- Plans cost from $199/month
- Keap is not currently ranked on SupplyGem
- Rated 2.9/5 on Trustpilot
- Keap is for small businesses and is very user-friendly
Key Takeaways:
- GoHighLevel is our pick of this comparison thanks to its advanced and comprehensive features
- Keap is a beginner-friendly alternative but costs more for fewer features
GoHighLevel vs Keap at a Glance
| Feature | GoHighLevel | Keap |
|---|---|---|
| Current Promotion | 30-day free trial | 14-day free trial |
| Smart Contact Lists | ✅ | ✅ |
| Pipelines | ✅ | ✅ |
| Automated Calendars | ✅ | ❌ |
| Funnels | ✅ | ❌ |
| Websites | ✅ | ❌ |
| Landing Pages | ✅ | ✅ |
| Email Campaigns | ✅ | ✅ |
| Blogs | ✅ | ❌ |
| Split A/B Testing | ✅ | ❌ |
| Courses | ✅ | ❌ |
| Automation | ✅ | ✅ |
| Analytics | ✅ | ✅ |
| CRM | ✅ | ✅ |
| Integrations | ✅ | Limited |
| SMS Marketing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Phone Marketing | ✅ | ✅ |
| Social Media Management | ✅ | ❌ |
What Is GoHighLevel?
GoHighLevel gives you everything you need to perform CRM, sales, and marketing tasks.
From comprehensive page-building tools to advanced automation and campaign building and selling the platform as SaaS, GoHighLevel is a genuine all-in-one platform.
You Might Also Like:
What Is Keap?
Keap is a CRM platform aimed specifically at small businesses and provides lead management, sales, and marketing features to help them grow their business. Through Keap’s automation features, businesses can offload manual tasks and create a more efficient working environment.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Key Difference
GoHighLevel is a platform directly aimed at marketing professionals and agencies whereas Keap is aimed at small businesses. Both platforms have CRM, sales, and marketing features but GoHighLevel’s are definitely more advanced than Keap’s.
Furthermore, Keap appears to be aimed at novice users or those who aren’t very computer savvy while GoHighLevel requires technical knowledge to use it properly.
Finally, the other key difference is the price. GoHighLevel is a lot cheaper than Keap, especially since it doesn’t require you to fork out extra to have more contacts.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Pros and Cons
GoHighLevel Pros
- Unlimited features and contacts with all plans
- Huge number of features for the price
- Course building and community creation features included
- Uses advanced automation
- You can create multi-channel campaigns
- You can sell the GoHighLevel platform as SaaS
GoHighLevel Cons
- Requires a steep learning curve to use
- Training material is sub-par and often outdated
You Might Also Like:
Keap Pros
- Very user-friendly and great user experience
- Excellent help and support
- Automation and workflows are very easy to learn
Keap Cons
- It’s quite expensive for what you get
- You must pay extra for more contacts
- The platform lacks a website and funnel builder
- Doesn’t offer many native integrations
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Affordability
| Platform | Cheapest Plan | Top-Tier Plan | Discount for Paying Annually | Free Trial? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GoHighLevel | $97/month or $80.83/month billed annually | $297/month or $247.50/month billed annually | 17% | 14-day free trial |
| Keap | $199/month or $159/month billed annually | $289/month or $229/month billed annually | 20% | 14-day free trial |
Winner Is GoHighLevel
When comparing the cheapest plans, GoHighLevel is definitely a lot more affordable than Keap.
Keap is a little cheaper for the top-tier plans. However, you soon realize that the number of contacts you can add is limited, and if you want more, you must pay more for your subscription. GoHighLevel, on the other hand, has unlimited contacts on both its plans.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: CRM Features
GoHighLevel CRM Features
We’ve long been fans of the extensivity of GoHighLevel’s CRM features and tools. There is no need to use a third-party app because everything is provided for you, and better still, most of it can be automated.
Here’s what GoHighLevel allows you to have or do:
- Unlimited contacts and contact lists with tagging, smart, and bulk actions
- Unlimited and automated pipelines
- Unlimited calendars with automated management and bookings
- Streamlined conversation feed for all text-based communications
- Call, SMS, leave voicemails, social media message, WhatsApp, and email contacts all from GoHighLevel
- AI-powered conversational SMS bot for automated lead nurturing
Keap CRM Features
Keap also provides a comprehensive list of CRM features for its users. Although there’s quite a lot you can do, we feel it’s more limited in comparison to GoHighLevel:
- Make calls, send SMS messages, and listen to voicemail via the Keap platform.
- Have a dedicated phone line (only for US and Canadian customers).
- Sync with Google or Outlook and set up appointments.
- View all conversation threads in one place.
- Send a personal booking link so clients can make appointments.
- Create contact lists and add smart tags.
- Use message templates or use AI to craft a message.
- Set up and manage pipelines.
Winner Is GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel provides more communication channels by including social media messaging and WhatsApp. In fact, we’re surprised that Keap does not support this. Additionally, GoHighLevel’s calendar tool is completely independent of Google or Outlook and allows you to automate the booking process.
Overall, GoHighLevel has a lot more functionality and allows for unlimited contacts without having to pay more.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Sales and Marketing Tools
GoHighLevel Marketing Tools
GoHighLevel has an abundance of sales and marketing tools that will keep even the most advanced marketing professional happy, such as:
- Building tools for websites, funnels, landing pages, blogs, and more.
- Create unlimited automated email campaigns.
- Build funnels for a variety of purposes with automated bookings and payments.
- Create unlimited landing pages, data collection forms, and surveys.
- Create sophisticated automated workflows incorporating multi-channel marketing strategies.
- Use split A/B testing to see what works.
- Use SMS, phone, voicemail, social media messaging, and WhatsApp in the same campaign.
- View detailed analytics and data from GoHighLevel and Google and Facebook ads.
- Set up and schedule all social media posts in GoHighLevel.
- View pipeline performance and automate the entire customer journey through each pipeline.
- Utilize AI to create a conversational booking bot.
Keap Marketing Tools
At first glance, it feels like Keap has a lot to offer in the marketing department, but take a closer look and you’ll find it lacks many features. Notably, it doesn’t have a website or funnel builder which in our opinion are basic features of any marketing platform.
Most of Keap’s marketing efforts surround SMS or emailing:
- Create automated SMS or email campaigns.
- Build landing pages using a variety of templates.
- Use landing pages and forms for lead data capture.
- Create automated workflows for your entire campaign.
- Use Keap’s lead magnet blueprints for high-converting campaigns.
Winner Is GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel offers a true “all-in-one” experience and provides all you could ever think of to use within a marketing campaign. Notably, its ability to create multi-channel campaigns is super useful for businesses that need a bespoke marketing solution.
Put simply, you can do so much more with GoHighLevel’s marketing features. Keap really does pale in comparison.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Page-Building Tools
GoHighLevel Page-Building Tools
GoHighLevel certainly has a comprehensive list of page-building tools to make use of and allows you to create funnels, landing pages, blogs, and websites with relative ease. The drag-and-drop editing tool is simple to grasp and works smoothly. When creating a web page, we found most of the process intuitive and straightforward.
Although you can build a page from scratch, GoHighLevel provides over 1,000 templates that you can use as a starting point. While there is certainly a lot to choose from, the designs do lack variety and can look a little dated.
Keap Page-Building Tools
What page-building tools? Disappointingly, Keap does not offer any type of feature for building websites, sales funnels, or blogs. Instead, you only get to create a simple landing page.
We suppose that since Keap is aimed at small businesses rather than marketing agencies, it probably doesn’t want to overcomplicate things for individuals who may not be very tech-savvy. However, for the cost of the platform, we would have expected at least a full website builder to be included.
The landing page builder offers 22 templates and utilizes an uncomplicated drag-and-drop building tool. It’s easy to use and will keep beginners happy.
Winner Is GoHighLevel
We don’t feel that it’s enough to offer just a landing page builder. These days all businesses require a proper website, so why doesn’t Keap – a platform aimed specifically at small businesses – include this?
Sure, GoHighLevel is more complex to use, but it provides everything a business could ever need to grow its client base without having to pay extra.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Automation
GoHighLevel Automation
The automation tool in GoHighLevel is seriously advanced. You can use it to automate pretty much anything from straightforward email sequences to complex, multi-channel campaigns.
The workflow builder provides a nice visual map of the process you have created and is pretty easy to use.
However, such a complex tool is not easy to learn. You must be prepared to put some time and effort into learning GoHighLevel workflows because it’s not always apparent how to do things. For that, we say it’s not very beginner-friendly but the sky’s the limit once you do figure it all out.
Keap Automation
We’re actually big fans of Keap’s automation tool, mostly because it divides it up into “easy” and “advanced” automation processes.
The easy version allows you to select triggers and actions from dropdown boxes to create a simple automation. It’s super straightforward to follow and includes guides and prompts, making it the perfect way to introduce automation to movie users.
The advanced version allows you to create full workflows by dragging and dropping icons onto the workflow space. Even though it’s advanced, it has still been designed with user-friendliness in mind
Overall, from what we’ve found so far, this is one of the easiest automation tools to learn.
Winner Is: GoHighLevel
We found it quite hard to compare the two automation features because they operate in such a different fashion.
GoHighLevel’s automation has amazing capabilities that allow you to create sophisticated workflows that can automate most of your business. On the other hand, Keap’s automation is built with the beginner in mind and is super easy to use.
Ultimately, we had to place GoHighLevel as the winner because it has the capability to scale much higher than Keap.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: User Experience
GoHighLevel User Experience
GoHighLevel used to have a fairly mediocre user experience, but this has drastically improved over the years. The platform’s willingness to listen to its users and accordingly implement changes means that the platform is centered around what users really need and want.
The result? A smooth operating platform that is a pleasure to use. The only thing is that you must be prepared to put in the hours in order to learn the platform. Most of it is intuitive, but the more complex features like automation take some learning. Stick with it, though, because the results are worth it.
Keap User Experience
Keap has a great user experience, and clearly, a lot of thought has been put into the platform and how it functions. The interface looks great, and you can quickly find what you’re looking for.
Plenty of prompts and guides help you through features as you learn them so that it doesn’t take long to understand what you are doing. It has definitely been designed with the less tech-savvy in mind so any type of business can pick up and run with it.
Winner is: It’s a Draw.
Both platforms offer a great user experience. GoHighLevel is harder and more complex to learn but gives more opportunities to scale. Keap is easier to handle, but we fear that users may start to get frustrated with its limitations later down the line.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Customer Service
GoHighLevel Customer Service
There are a number of ways you can get support for GoHighLevel. If you want live support, you can either call or make use of the live chat facility. New users also get invited to schedule a Zoom call for onboarding.
If you want the fastest response times (they can be somewhat slow in normal cases), there is an upgrade option that costs $300/month for priority support.
GoHighLevel also has a help portal and a number of onboarding videos available. Our gripe with these is that they are not updated frequently enough to keep up with GoHighLevel’s updates, platform changes, and feature releases. As such, the material is often wrong, misleading, or confusing. The GoHighLevel team does seem to be working on improving this, but it’s still got a long way to go.
Keap Customer Service
Keap provides you with live messaging and the opportunity to schedule a live call. When testing this, we found we could book a 20-minute call for the same day so it was nice not having to wait. The caller was prompt and helpful with our query.
The help center has everything you need from text and image walkthroughs to video demonstrations. One thing we like here is that all the help articles appear within the help pop-up box and don’t take you away from the platform. This means you can consult the help guides without navigating away from what you are currently working on.
Winner Is Keap
Keap has the same level of live support as GoHighLevel, but what sets it apart is its help center. Everything is up-to-date and comprehensive. The setup guides and wizard are also extremely handy for anyone new to the platform.
GoHighLevel’s outdated training material lets down users. It really must improve in this area.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Final Verdict
We feel that Keap is a great platform and is ideal for the less tech-savvy business owners among us. However, the number of features you get does not justify the cost and the platform lacks a more affordable plan.
GoHighLevel is harder to master but it has the capability to scale in line with your business thanks to the abundance of features you get for a very affordable price.
Ultimately, we say that GoHighLevel is well-worth the learning curve and provides unbeatable value for your money.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is GoHighLevel or Keap Better for CRM?
GoHighLevel is better than Keap for CRM because it provides more features and communication channels in this area. Unlike Keap, GoHighLevel allows you to automate most CRM tasks and use social media messaging and WhatsApp to contact customers.
Is GoHighLevel or Keap More Affordable?
GoHighLevel is more affordable than Keap. For $97/month, you get unlimited features and contacts. In comparison, Keap costs $199/month, and you have to pay extra if you want more than 1,500 contacts.
Can I Use GoHighLevel or Keap for Free?
GoHighLevel and Keap can only be used for free if you sign up for a 14-day free trial. Keap’s free trial can be accessed without providing credit card details, whereas you must add them for GoHighLevel’s free trial.
What Is the Difference Between GoHighLevel and Keap?
GoHighLevel is designed for marketing professionals and agencies, while Keap was made for small businesses. GoHighLevel has more advanced but harder-to-use features. Keap is a more basic tool but is very beginner and user-friendly.
