I’m Kayla. I run a small marketing studio in Austin. Two laptops, a fluffy dog that hates Zoom, and a whiteboard that never stays clean. I’ve used both GoHighLevel and HubSpot for my own work and for clients. I’ve built funnels, set up CRM pipelines, and sent a whole lot of emails and texts. And yes, I’ve broken stuff and fixed it at 1 a.m. too. (If you want the blow-by-blow narrative, I laid it all out in this GoHighLevel vs HubSpot deep-dive.)
If you’re craving even more perspective, you’ll appreciate an in-depth comparison highlighting the features, pricing, and ideal use cases for both GoHighLevel and HubSpot that backs up many of the points I make below.
Here’s what actually happened when I put both tools to work.
My setup and why it matters
I help two kinds of folks:
- Local service businesses. Think dentists, roofers, med spas, gyms.
- B2B teams. Mostly SaaS and agencies with a sales team that lives in email, calls, and demos.
So I needed two things: speed for local leads (calls, texts, reviews), and clean reporting for B2B (pipeline health, sequences, forecasting). That split shaped my choices.
A real week with GoHighLevel (now just “HighLevel”)
For a dental client in Round Rock, I built this inside HighLevel:
- A simple landing page with a “Free Teeth Whitening” sign-up.
- A two-step sign-up form that feeds a pipeline.
- Missed Call Text Back. When they miss a call, the lead gets a text in 12 seconds. “Hey, saw we missed you! Want to book a time?” It feels human.
- A calendar with a small deposit. Fewer no-shows.
- Review requests that fire two hours after each visit, and again in three days if no review yet.
- A “Speed to Lead” workflow: if no reply in 5 minutes, send a second text and a voicemail drop.
What changed?
- Show rates went up by 19% in month one. That was the big one.
- They pulled in 123 new leads in 30 days. 61 booked. 44 showed.
- The office manager said the best part was the texting. “People don’t pick up. But they text back,” she told me. I smiled. Because same.
Costs that month for that account:
- I pay $297/month for HighLevel Agency Unlimited across all clients.
- Twilio for calls and texts ran about $58 that month.
- Mailgun for email was $35 because we pushed 40k emails across a few clients.
- A2P registration took me an hour and saved us from carrier blocks. Not fun, but needed.
A small roof repair group in San Antonio was next. I used the same HighLevel base:
- Web form on their “Free Roof Check” page.
- Instant text and call. If the rep was free, it connected live.
- Pipeline stages: New, Reached, Booked, Inspected, Won.
- A tag that fired a “5-star review” text after a job closed.
They doubled booked inspections in two weeks. Not magic. Just speed and steady follow-up. The pages weren’t fancy. But they loaded fast and did the job.
What bugged me?
- One Monday, the calendar didn’t sync with Google for two hours. Support got back by afternoon. I had to re-auth the calendar. Not great.
- The email builder is fine, not stunning. You can make it cute, but not couture.
- Reports are okay for calls and forms. For deep marketing reports, I still export to Looker Studio.
Bottom line on HighLevel: it’s a Swiss Army knife for lead gen. SMS and calls shine. White labeling and client sub-accounts make agency life simpler. But be ready to tinker. And keep coffee handy for DNS, A2P, and the “wait, why did that trigger?” moments. (I also pitted HighLevel against Keap in this hands-on showdown if you’re weighing that option.)
A real month with HubSpot
A B2B SaaS team (7 account execs, 2 SDRs) hired me to fix their follow-up. We used HubSpot for:
- Clean CRM records with custom fields (role, product tier, last demo date).
- Deal stages with entry rules. No stage jumps without a next step set. Tough love.
- Sequences for SDRs: 4 emails and 2 calls over 14 days. If a meeting was booked, everything paused.
- Meetings tool for booking with round-robin.
- Lead scoring (points for page views, event sign-ups, and pricing page visits).
- Slack alerts when a target account hit the pricing page twice in one day.
- Attribution reports to see which webinars fed the most demo requests.
What changed?
- SDR reply rate rose from 5.4% to 9.8% on one new sequence. Subject line was simple: “Tuesday at 10 or 2?”
- Booked demos went up 27% month over month.
- Forecast snapshots finally matched reality. The VP of Sales stopped asking me “Why does this number feel off?” That was a good day.
Email deliverability felt strong. Fewer bounces. Fewer spam hits. The editor was smooth. Tokens in emails still make me weirdly happy. Also, role-based permissions helped when a new AE joined late. He saw what he needed. Not more.
What bugged me?
- Price creep. Starter feels nice. But you want workflows? You’ll move up a tier. Add more sales seats? The bill grows. Fast.
- Some features live in different hubs. So you click around a lot.
- Data rules are strict, which is good. But setup time grows if your team is messy. And teams are messy.
Bottom line on HubSpot: if you have a sales team, it feels like home. CRM is clean. Reporting is clear. Email is smooth. It’s pricey, but it saves time when you scale a real process.
Head-to-head, from my hands
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CRM and data
- HubSpot: clean record history, fast search, strong permissions. Feels like a well-run library.
- HighLevel: solid for pipelines and conversations. But notes can get buried when a lot of texts roll in.
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Automation
- HubSpot: workflows are steady and easy to test. Great for emails, lists, lead scoring, and CRM chores.
- HighLevel: king of SMS and call flows. “Missed Call Text Back” alone makes local teams cheer.
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Email and SMS
- HubSpot: email looks pro and lands well. SMS needs add-ons or partners, and it’s not the main star.
- HighLevel: SMS is built-in and fast. Email works, but set your DNS and watch warm-up. Carriers and spam filters are picky.
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Pages and funnels
- HubSpot: landing pages are tidy, with A/B tests and nice tracking. The blog tool is a bonus.
- HighLevel: funnels and pop-ups are quick to ship. Pretty enough, fast to load, not haute couture.
If you’re still deciding on the best landing page builder, the detailed comparisons over at WebsiteBuilderTools helped me spot performance gaps I would've missed. For an even wider view, my rundown of GoHighLevel alternatives I actually tested calls out where each one stumbled or shined. And because Kartra always sneaks into the conversation, here’s my no-fluff Kartra vs GoHighLevel verdict. The fundamentals of enticing someone to request a dental coupon aren’t that different from persuading a visitor to set up a profile on a dating platform; fast page loads, a straight-to-the-point offer, and near-instant confirmation matter. For a quick case study in how the adult space optimizes sign-up friction, see Together2Night—you’ll notice how the streamlined onboarding is designed to get users chatting within minutes. On the local classifieds side, it’s worth studying how successor platforms to Backpage structure their listings—in Bossier City, for instance, Backpage Bossier shows how tight categories and bold calls to action keep eyeballs moving, a playbook you can borrow for any geo-targeted funnel.
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Reporting
- HubSpot: sales analytics, source reports, and dashboards that execs get.
- HighLevel: call and lead source reports are fine. For deep cuts, I export.
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Team and access
- HubSpot: granular roles, audit logs, sandboxes. Feels safe.
- HighLevel: sub-accounts and snapshots are a dream for agencies. White label keeps your brand front and center.
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Integrations
- HubSpot: huge app marketplace. Zoom, Stripe, QuickBooks, Slack, Salesforce, and more. (If Salesforce is on your shortlist, my [GoHighLevel vs Salesforce field notes](https://