HighLevel vs WordPress: Which is Best For Your Membership Business?
HighLevel vs WordPress comparison – Discover which CRM and website builder offers better value, functionality, and growth potential.
In this show, we dive deep into the key differences between HighLevel and WordPress, two powerful platforms that cater to distinct needs. We’ll explore their features, usability, pricing, and best use cases to help you determine which one is right for your business. Whether you’re a marketer or a small business owner, this comparison will help you make an informed choice.
This Week’s Sponsors
Kinta: Kinta
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LifterLMS: LifterLMS
The Show’s Main Transcript
[00:00:34.980] – Jonathan Denwood
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 140. In this show, we’re going to compare a popular website, business, and online business marketing optimization platform called High Level. Wordpress. We’re going to assess their strengths and weaknesses. I did a bit of research into it to refresh my knowledge about high-level concepts. I have used it in the past, and I’m sure Kirk has as well. It should be a great show. Kirk, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and viewers?
[00:01:23.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
Certainly. My name is Kurt von Ahnen own an agency called Manananomas. We primarily work on membership and learning websites, collaborating directly with the WP Tonic team.
[00:01:33.680] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s fantastic. It should be a great show. But before we get into the meat and potatoes, I have a message from one of our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. We’re coming back, folks. I’d also like to take this opportunity to offer you a great special deal. We’ve got a great course that shows you how to build a modern membership website or community website on WordPress. It’s done by Kirk himself, and it’s just a great resource. It’s normally around $49, but you get it for half price. Additionally, if you purchase the course, I will send you an exclusive coupon code, allowing you to receive 50% off your first year’s hosting with the WP Starter plan. Additionally, you receive all the software that Kirk demonstrates how to use to build your website as part of the hosting package. What more could you ask for, I say? To get all these goodies, simply visit Wp-tonic. Com/deals, Wp-tonic. Com/deals, and you’ll find all the links that I mentioned during the show in the show notes on the WP Tonic website. As usual, if someone were booking a consultation with you and was considering either high-level or WordPress, how would you start the conversation, Kurt?
[00:03:09.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s interesting because when we launch into a conversation like this, Jonathan, I feel like we’re asking, ‘Would you rather just use Go High Level or would you like to hire my agency to build something compatible in WordPress?’ However, that’s not the way Go High Level really works, either, because there are a ton of people who just want to help others achieve a high level. It’s a very involved platform in its own right. And so it’s a very difficult task. I personally have issues with their offer solely due to the pricing, as I know we can duplicate content in WordPress. However, it is really nice that everything is together. So, man, it’s like a coin toss. I think the needs assessment conversation with the client in this case doesn’t necessarily come down to task versus execution, but rather to what your appetite is for plugin updates and additional subscriptions. And is there a real value in having something in one place? It’s like one tool, one subscription, one cost. If that’s the real drive for the client, then I might say, Okay, try going high level. However, to me, it’s a difficult request, especially since, in my opinion, I would have to opt for the higher plan.
[00:04:33.140] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s like $400 a month. It’s a lot of money.
[00:04:35.780] – Jonathan Denwood
Why would you go with the higher plan?
[00:04:38.520] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, at our level as an agency, we would provide it to other customers and build it as a platform, along with various portals, and so on. I feel like we’re going to go through the review too quickly if I just throw everything at everybody now. But it’s like their web builder, to me, isn’t as good as what? What do you do with WordPress? Their drag-and-drop feature.
[00:05:01.920] – Jonathan Denwood
I feel we’ll stop there because it will ruin the whole show. My observation is this, and I like your feedback if you think I’m on the right track. I think, as you know, I’m trying to develop something, and the actual back-end interface, I took cues from what high-level level with their interface, and I think you probably have observed I love that, where I actually like the way high-level did their interface, and it looks very WordPress-ish, probably isn’t a word. But it also has problems. The problem isn’t… There are some issues that we will discuss during the show, including certain things that you need to understand at a high level, in my opinion. However, I will begin with non-technical issues here. It seems to me that it’s aimed at a very broad market sector, which causes, I wouldn’t say confusion, but I have some concerns because I think one of its biggest audiences that it sells to are micro-agencies, marketing, optimization agencies, Marketing Automation Agencies, and Digital Marketing Agencies. When you compare it to some of the alternatives, which you would probably have to buy separately, even though they cost $400 or more due to additional charges, which I’ll go through with the audience, it seems compelling.
[00:07:01.480] – Jonathan Denwood
It has a very strong affiliate program, and they have a very effectively utilized online influencers for the agency. Then you’ve got the ’99, which is really aimed at a totally different audience, in my opinion. It’s aimed at what I would say, I have a WordPress, but especially the Kajabi, people looking at Kajabi. Kajabi starts with their kickstarter, but their plans are the Kajabi plans. If you upgrade to a higher plan, you won’t receive anything additional. What you get is more bandwidth, more admin users, and more ability to set up funnels. As you go up the stack, you’re not given a lot more extra functionality. The Kickstarter plan that starts to be paid month-to-month is $89. It’s not restricted; it’s just artificially restricted to one admin and only one task. I think they’re called Pipelines, where if you buy the high-level plan, there is a much higher level before you hit a restriction. It’s not unlimited. You need to opt for the 400 plan for that. They’ve simplified their pricing, as they previously had three tiers, but now it’s been reduced to two tiers. I see a slight… Well, I’m not sure you could utilize the word ‘problem,’ but I do see some consequences.
[00:09:07.030] – Jonathan Denwood
It seems a little bit schizoid about who its real target audience is. Am I making… What do you think of That’s the final statement.
[00:09:15.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think when you point out the micro agencies, especially in the digital marketing space, Jonathan, I think you nailed that right on the head. I’m a member of a Slack group with a large collection of digital marketing professionals channels, right? And they’ve all got their specialty, pay-per-click advertising, Facebook, whatever. But it’s high levels like their little darling, whenever they want to discuss about how we’re going to automate something. And automation generally becomes part of the conversation. And then they have the higher plan, so they have the API access, and then they’re constantly trying to manipulate this go high level to automate something in some other platform. And like I said, it’s the little darling of this group. And what I see from it is a lot of times they look at it as this cure all tool, and it can do all these crazy cool things, and it does like it’s an unlimited thing. But in reality, having been behind the scenes with them and seeing what they go through for the testing and the automations and the API calls and all those things, it becomes a very complicated piece of work. And I think that that defies the messaging in which it is sold.
[00:10:33.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
They sell it as if it’s, hey, just just plug this thing in, right? Just just plug this in and boom, you’re good to go. And it’s not like that at all. It’s very complicated and has a lot of different nuances and levels and features to it. And I chuckled when I was watching a couple of the tutorials just to make sure that my head was in the game for today’s show. And every feature they would point out, they go, and of course, you You can automate that as well. And of course, you can automate that as well. But they never tell you, here’s the automation process, and here’s the tools you require and the setup that you need to automate these things. It’s involved. And just like anything else would be with WordPress or some other tool as well.
[00:11:16.580] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, you make some excellent points, as you normally do, because I call it API hell, is that it is part of the modern internet calling APIs. But you got every API call you do to external service, you’re relying on the quality of that API, the quality of the link. As you pile on the APIs, you’re introducing more and more complexity and risk of one particular API failing. I’ve been there, done that. I haven’t seen the consequences. I think you’ve got to, if you’re an experienced digital marketer or developer, you got to really go a little bit cautious about all this. That’s my opinion. But we’re aimed at if you’re trying to build a membership website in 2025. I think they really market themselves. They start off They really market themselves against Kajabi. I personally think if you’re not looking at WordPress, you just won’t consider it. I think you’d be better off going with Kajabi if you’re that entrepreneur, that single entrepreneur. Because I spoke to a lady a week ago, I was on her podcast, and she found a very intelligent lady. She found WordPress Then she went to Wix or… What’s the other one?
[00:13:07.600] – Jonathan Denwood
The other… Square Space. It was Square Space she went to, actually, folks. She found that quite difficult as well. Then she’s bought high-level. She’s bought high-level to do the marketing. I didn’t say anything to her because I thought, Well, if you found the other two difficult, you’re going to find high-level. Then It’s not that the interface is rubbish. I’ve already said I quite like the interface and the product, I was influenced by their interface and I’ve adopted it into what I’m trying to build. But it’s everything it does. It does. There’s a lot going on. You could say there’s a lot going on in Kajabi, but I think their training, their video training, their documentation, and the UX design is better. What do you think?
[00:14:00.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
You’re touching on something, and I feel like you’re so close to where my head’s at with this, but you haven’t cracked it open yet. You mentioned Go High Level having a very strong affiliate program and stuff like that. I’ve talked to people that were like, Oh, you can buy Go High Level direct. I thought you had to go through somebody to get access. People literally think it’s like this, you got to know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody, like joining Amway or something to get into Go High Level. It’s that level of emotional buy-in. That’s what I’m going to go with right there. I’m going to say emotional buy-in. And with that comes a lot of anecdotal training, anecdotal experts that are quasi-experts that are just trying to be helpful and lend advice, but they’re really not being direct in the way that they do it. A lot of the content made for Go high level is not high-quality content. And whereas Whereas when you look at Kajabi, I feel like a lot of the content that comes out for Kajabi is much more, to the point, informative and helpful. I’ve noticed there’s- Are you talking about the content that the company is producing?
[00:15:15.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, in general, on YouTube, like a search, like the community, community-supplied information.
[00:15:24.660] – Jonathan Denwood
If you look at- The reason I’m asking you, because both have I’ve been very skilled about utilizing the influencers and using the affiliate marketing, and it’s one of the things I’ve not been very good at, something I need to look at. But you think for various reasons, the actual quality of the content, when you look from these influences, it’s much more better done by the Kajabi influences?
[00:15:56.320] – Kurt von Ahnen
I think the Kajabi messaging in in general, is more succinct to the point and helpful, whereas I feel like the go high-level content in mass, overall, if you were to grade everything, is more amateurish in its presentations. I did find some great people. I found some great tutorials on it.
[00:16:17.540] – Jonathan Denwood
I think I want to see if you can come on the right track. I think that’s that statement that it’s a bit skit-side because it’s really trying to aim at these two communities where Kajabi is very focused on education and coaching, where high level is you got these two very big buckets of digital agencies. I think that causes a bit shows up in the content that you’ve just remarked about.
[00:16:50.600] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, and while Kajabi focuses on the educational e-learning portion more heavy-handedly than its other capabilities, I find that most of the CRM content, most of the go high level content is focused more on the CRM levels. I think when you look at those two different focuses, generally in the content, I get it like Kajabi is like an eLearning tool that also does some things, and go high level is like the CRM tool that also does some things. But a lot of those tools are.
[00:17:23.580] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s much broader, isn’t it? It’s aimed at dental practices, service That could very well be the cause for why I feel like the content is watered down.
[00:17:33.940] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah.
[00:17:34.820] – Jonathan Denwood
Where I don’t think Kajabi has a very effective CRM in… It depends what you call a CRM. What I think we’re talking about here is keeping sales records about interaction with possible customers, where Kajabi is a light version of active I don’t think active campaign is a sales-orientated CRM, it’s a marketing optimization system, and you could say that. There’s all flavors of CRMs, aren’t there?
[00:18:15.480] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, absolutely.
[00:18:16.860] – Jonathan Denwood
What are we doing for time? We got enough time to go through a couple of the subcategories that I wrote out in my show notes. I What would you say are the pros, one or two of the pros, one or two of the cons with high level?
[00:18:39.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, definitely one of the pros is to the point that everything’s there. Everything is there. The CRM is there. If you want to put in a course, you’ve got the ability to put in a course. It incorporates both SMS messaging and email messaging. So that’s really cool. And one of the things that I think is a in this particular instance when it comes to the messaging is that it incorporates both types of messaging in its menu. If I’m having a conversation with you, for instance, Jonathan, I don’t have to go to one menu to see the emails in a second menu to see the SMS messaging. I get to see all the messaging in one cohesive window.
[00:19:21.120] – Jonathan Denwood
I was influenced by that. But I think one thing that they don’t point out is that you’re going to pay extra for the email and for the SMS on top of what you’re being charged for high level. They don’t really spell that out until you’re actually using it. What’s one or two cons in your mind?
[00:19:47.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
This is going to sound very surfacey, just the complication of it. Like I was saying, almost every feature that they point out, they go, Oh, and you can automate that, right? And so then you getting into the funnels. And when you build the funnel, it’s a visual funnel builder, like what we have with Fluent CRM that we use with our clients. So the adoption rate for someone like you or I would be rather quick because we go, Oh, it’s just like Fluent CRM. I click here to add the next step, add the step, add the boom. But for people coming in fresh, it’s not- It’s over the top.
[00:20:24.690] – Jonathan Denwood
That’s another thing that’s influenced me in the phenomenon, attempting to build out as Well, hopefully this has been education, so you understand what… It’s a bit long-winded for me, but there’s always some logic to what I’m up to, isn’t it? I think. Wordpress. Well, let’s leave that to the second half, really, about what we think about WordPress. When it comes to a website builder, high level, it has its own internal page website builder. You Link, you can utilize WordPress. They have a partnership with a company that hosts it for you. If you use WordPress, it’s had a lot of criticisms about cost and performance, or you can use… But let’s just concentrate on… Because I wouldn’t recommend utilizing their WordPress solution. I think either you’re going to use their builder or you’re going to use WordPress. When it comes to the actual builder, the native builder high level, what was your thoughts?
[00:21:41.900] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, it’s interesting, Jonathan, because I am aware of the lack of performance and cost issues with their WordPress offering, I immediately just looked at the internal page builder that they have. And so the WordPress wasn’t even the option for me. I was like, Well, how good is it? It’s got templates. It’s got a drag and drop builder. You can muddle through. My questions as I started to work with it is I didn’t see a lot of SEO options or optimization things or things like that.
[00:22:16.140] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, it hasn’t. That’s the point. I found the library of starter websites to be a little bit dated myself.
[00:22:26.580] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I think things look like, well, to your point, like a dentist website from 15 years ago. It just had that feel, but it’s a good start. It’s a good first draft. I always get people like, Hey, it’s enough to get started. It gets over the writer’s block. It gives you something to build on.
[00:22:43.520] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, I think with Kajabi, they’re more modern. I think I can tell a Kajabi website for a mile off, but I’m in the business, so I should be, and I think you can. I think you can recognize a Kajabi website pretty quick. I can, but I think their actual selection is more modern than high level.
[00:23:05.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
Now, I think…
[00:23:06.620] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, go on. Oh, go ahead.
[00:23:07.670] – Kurt von Ahnen
I butt right in. I’m sorry. I was just going to finish up. I didn’t find the granular control that we’ve gotten used to in WordPress for flexibility of design, that wasn’t in that builder.
[00:23:21.560] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m not sure if you can criticize that because in some ways, I think there’s too much granularity in WordPress. That’s debatable, isn’t it? I think when it comes to WordPress, I think the two main competitors, I’m not going to mention Alimator, you could mention it, but I think the two main competitors is Cadence WP or Generate Press. They’re the two that I… I think there’s a couple that you look at as well, but I think it really has to be based on Gutenberg technology, really. I think Cadence and Generate Press offer speed, flexibility, and they’ve got a lot of their own staff a lot of websites that are well-designed. We provide some at WP tonic, and there’s a great third party out there for both of these solutions. What do you think?
[00:24:29.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, As you know, Jonathan, I’m a fan of the Cadence WP. I’m also a fan of ASTRO, which to me, they’re very similar in the way that they work and operate. And when it comes to customer-client work, I like to stick with those simpler non-tech page builders because I don’t like asking for trouble, trying to turn some complicated thing over to a client. So I try to use the cadence as often as possible just so I want to deliver it to a client. If it’s to be a client-managed website, then we have less issues in the future when they break stuff.
[00:25:05.580] – Jonathan Denwood
All right. I think it’s time for us to go for our mid-break. I think we’ve done well. I think I’ve controlled myself. I think we’ve been For us, for me, we’ve been focused. We got a load of stuff to discuss in the second half. We will be back in a few moments, folks. Three, two, one. Coming back, folks. I want to point out we got a great other free resource. We got a newsletter. I do it every week. It’s about WordPress and membership, best WordPress technology, and mix it up with some other stories as well. I edit it and get it all created myself. It’s totally free. All you have to do is go over to wp-tonic. Com newsletter, and you’ll be able to sign up. So Wp-tonic. Com/newsletter and sign up for the weekly newsletter. Right, let’s move forward. Landing Page Builder. Well, yeah. Would I be correct? Because they do have a library of one-page landing pages. But if you use something like Cadence WP or Generate Press, they also got a library. Because it’s using Gutenberg patterns, sections, it’s something that Gutenberg does rather well. These third-party solutions and also you got ASTRA.
[00:26:35.520] – Jonathan Denwood
So Cadence WP, Generate, because I think you like Generate Press, but you just haven’t used it very much, have you?
[00:26:43.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
I like the template selection and the layouts that they provide.
[00:26:47.620] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Those three. So it’s Cadence, Generate Press, or ASTRA. I don’t think you go wrong with either three, really. I just prefer Cadence rather than Ashta, but I think you prefer Ashta. Well, I don’t know. No, that’s not right. I think you like both, don’t you? Really, don’t you?
[00:27:08.160] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’ll settle this for you because I know the curiosity is killing you, Jonathan.
[00:27:11.700] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, because you never made it really clear.
[00:27:14.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m a sucker for a lifetime deal. I bought the Ashtra Pro lifetime deal years ago, and I built hundreds of websites on it.
[00:27:24.500] – Jonathan Denwood
I did as well.
[00:27:25.580] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, and I built hundreds of websites on it, and I just got really comfortable with it. And when they integrated with ZipWP for startups, it just made things really simple. But then you take a look at Cadence. Cadence is a very similar platform. They also have their starter sites with their AI tool that works almost identically as Zipwp, except it actually adds some SEO features that Zip WP doesn’t do yet. To me, they’re both very similar, and I’ve access to both, so why not?
[00:27:53.980] – Jonathan Denwood
The other thing I like about Cadence, I don’t know if actually does the same, is they got on the higher plan, which you get when you host with WP tonic, their higher plan, they get all the WU commerce integration add-ons. I think they’ve done an excellent job with WU commerce as well, haven’t they? Really, I don’t think there’s a lot between high levels landing page. The thing that it does do, because you’re getting the integration with their visual marketing optimization system and the email and text messaging, it’s all integrated in one interface. I actually thought, like my comment about the websites, the landing page looked a bit dated to me, but you’re getting all that integration. But if you use something like Cadence and you utilize something we’re going to talk about next, because we’re going to be talking about email and marketing optimization, I think it’s not really a lot in it, really, with a modern WordPress website. What do you think?
[00:29:21.880] – Kurt von Ahnen
Are we referring to email marketing and automation?
[00:29:24.490] – Jonathan Denwood
Well, the landing page, if you introduce a modern WordPress WordPress, email marketing plugin to the mix with cadence, it’s not that difficult, is it?
[00:29:39.420] – Kurt von Ahnen
No. For landing pages, for me, for the longest time, I let people confuse me. I was like, why do they keep calling them landing pages?
[00:29:49.540] – Jonathan Denwood
Why do they keep calling them landing pages? Why do they keep calling them landing pages?
[00:29:51.810] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m like, Why do customers say it? Clients, other agencies would say it. But I specialize in making landing pages. I’m like, isn’t a landing page just a single page with a form capture on it? And I would keep thinking like, what? So the idea is, yeah, I could build a single page in my website for that purpose with anything. And then looking at the automation tools that you bring in, well, what does the form do? Does the form connect to a CRM? Does it list build? Does it send emails? Does it make appointments? And that brings it to another level. So when you start talking about and marketing automation and the tools that you have listed in your show notes, well, then it makes total sense. Wp Funnel and Mailman is a great pair.
[00:30:38.760] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. You got the landing page and it’s all integrated in one interface. But like I say, the next category, if you add what we suggest in this podcast to the WordPress mix, you’re going to get something that’s probably, in my opinion, better features, costs, and the actual landing pages, in my opinion, look a bit better. When you come to email a marketing optimization, one thing that I level, and I did double I’m going to check this and I’m pretty sure, but I checked it as much as I could, is it doesn’t come with the engine, the email sending engine. You actually got to use a third party and they use Melgun, and you You have to pay extra for on top. At the end, when we talk about prices, and I think on my show notes, I didn’t give you a section on prices, unfortunately, but I added it. It could be between $30-$50 a month on top what you’re going to be charged at the ’99 level, depending on how many email you send out plus the text messaging they’re using Trilio or a third-party provider for that. They’re just providing the interface. They’re not giving you any limits.
[00:32:13.160] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s all extra on top. They don’t make that very clear, do they?
[00:32:19.120] – Kurt von Ahnen
No, really unclear. I’ve had multiple clients that have, we’ve done the marketing side of their website. They hire Somebody outside of our agency. They think they’re getting a deal, they do a go high level. I only know about it because they say, oh, I need to add all these mail settings to the DNS settings, right? Because we’re managing the site and the DNS settings. And I’m like, oh, what did you do? Oh, it’s And all this mail gun stuff has to be added to the DNS settings to send the mails. And then it doesn’t take very long, Jonathan, before they realize I’m in too deep, I’m spending too much money, and I’m not turning revenue with my site yet. And then we end up backing things back out of the site and going more native in WordPress. My fear when we do a show like this, Jonathan, is that listeners and viewers might be listening to this going, oh, do I need all this stuff? Oh, I need all this stuff to launch my business. And that’s the cool part about WordPress. With WordPress, you could do it in phases. Here’s a brochure style website as needed.
[00:33:22.540] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m going to add a CRM as needed. I’m going to add an appointment setting tool as needed. I’m going to add… But if you go in with high level, and you jump in with both feet super quick and you give yourself all these tools, but you haven’t built an audience or a customer base yet, it just seems like too much. You get in there and you feel like, I don’t even know what to do with all this because you don’t have the data to float around in it yet. You have to grow to fill it. And then you’re out of pocket for an extensive tool that you’re not leveraging yet.
[00:33:55.900] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. I think I’ve got two recommendations. I think If you’re a coach or you haven’t got a very large list, I think WP Funnel with Melmin is a great combination because the WP Funnel does the marketing Melmin gives you a visual builder to build the optimization, and the Melmin gives you newsletter templates and interface to build email campaigns and link it. I think it’s quite polished and got a nice interface. You are going to need an email sending engine, and I recommend Sendgrid. I’ve got nothing against Melgun, but I just prefer Sendgrid. Like I say, you get all this software and Sendgrid If you host with WP tonic, you get all this as part of the hosting package. Unbelievable value. Now, if you’re doing a lot of email marketing and optimization, and you’re looking something comparable to Active Campaign or HubSpot, you’re probably going to be better off using Fluent CRM. I think you’re going to be very at home if you got a bit more experience. I think if you’re starting out WP Funnel, but other people disagree with me. I don’t dislike Fluent CRM. I think it’s fantastic. But I think it’s a really serious I think it’s just as good as active campaign or better.
[00:35:38.260] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you think?
[00:35:40.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m a big fan of the Fluent CRM. To the extent that I was just talking about, on one hand, we’re saying lead magazine, landing page, automation, funnels. But realistically, Fluent CRM has the ability to create email funnels. And for some businesses, that’s the requirement, right? That’s where they need to focus. Again, I go back to there’s so many features in go high level that if you tried to start a business and leverage all of those features, it would be overwhelmed.
[00:36:15.560] – Jonathan Denwood
I want to quickly cover this one, general CRM. What I mean by that is a sales-orientated where you’re keeping records. I think for the membership audience that we’re talking to, this probably is not necessary, but I suppose keeping a record of membership subscribers, I’ve been a bit laxedatal, but that’s the thing I’m going to strengthen from there on because you’ve got to keep records of everybody. Highlevel’s got a good, looked a reasonably good CRM for keeping customer records, subscriptions, everything, and it’s got a good back-end where it’s showing you reports and that. The one, if you need that, I think jet pack CRM. I’m not a great fan of jet pack, but I think you can buy it separately, the jet pack CRM. You don’t have to get… Because jet pack comes with a thousand different things, and some of the things don’t work very well, but I think you can buy it separately. If you want that, it’s going to be a lot. Got any comments on that, or should we move on?
[00:37:33.720] – Kurt von Ahnen
Just jet pack CRM, if people get into the pricing page and look at that, it seems like an unbelievably good deal.
[00:37:42.340] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s not bad, is it?
[00:37:43.560] – Kurt von Ahnen
No. I was actually going to ask if you had any insight on that pricing because it is extremely affordable.
[00:37:50.320] – Jonathan Denwood
It could change any day. Change any day. I treat automatic. They’re But they’re not as bad. They’ve been a little bit unfairier. I treat automatic like the way I treat Google. They can dump a product, increase the price, not support it, buy something A bit like Google, really. They got the same attitude, don’t they?
[00:38:20.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. $17 a month for the entrepreneur version, that’s a lot.
[00:38:29.380] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m a little cheaper than that. I think it’s like $7 a month.
[00:38:32.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, they have a reseller version that’s $5. 40 a month per site.
[00:38:39.640] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve got $115 a year. That’s what I worked at, the $7 a month.
[00:38:45.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, okay.
[00:38:48.980] – Jonathan Denwood
Last thing, the most important, high level. The actual building courses, what it offers compared to Lifter LMS or Fluent Community, and you could have both, you could have Fluent Community, and it will work with Lifter LMS. What did you think of what high-level offers in the membership course building, learning area?
[00:39:21.200] – Kurt von Ahnen
Very rudimentary on the course building perspective. I see it being like it’s almost, to to liken it to something. It’s almost like it organizes a series of blog posts in an order that you want somebody to read something. I mean, that’s like it’s a very simple course layout. And you had mentioned fluent community, and fluent community has the ability to have courses. And so I look at the course engine influent community being more similar to like go high levels version than Lifter LMS is 16 levels above it. It just has with the membership content controls and all the stuff that Lifter can do. It’s just a whole different level of LMS than what go high level is purporting to offer. But again, I think with go high levels marketing and their messaging, they market it like the LMS portion of the course ability. Capability is like an add-on, like it’s an extra.
[00:40:22.000] – Jonathan Denwood
I should know this, but I’ve forgotten it. With the fluent community, do they offer an add-on? That works with- Stripe integration?
[00:40:32.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Yes.
[00:40:33.420] – Jonathan Denwood
All right.
[00:40:34.220] – Kurt von Ahnen
So you can sell through. And what’s interesting is, if you say you want the fluent community, let’s say the courses weren’t your focus, but you just wanted to have a course available to teach something simple and you were doing Fluent Community, you wouldn’t have to have Lifter LMS, right? You could have Fluent Community, you could monetize that, and you could leverage that tool to do what you wanted to do. It integrates great with Fluent CRM, so you would be able to track all your sales and do your email marketing, your email funnels, and all of that. Very clean.
[00:41:06.400] – Jonathan Denwood
At some stage, if you wanted to add Fluent Lifter LMS, you could.
[00:41:13.000] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, you could. See, that’s to me, Jonathan, when I see people doing these big projects, and when I look at Go high level, I look at it like it is a big project. This is a big project. It’s got all these features. Do I have 50 people that I can put into this right away and populate it and use it and leverage it, or am I going to build something from scratch? If I’m building something from scratch, it seems like a lot to have to push from a stop.
[00:41:43.260] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, and you got the Fluent Canada as well, Fluent Booking, because that’s another thing. When you’re a coach and you’re looking at high level, they got their own native Canada, but they really push third-party integrations, don’t they?
[00:41:58.920] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m going to do something that you should be doing, and that is pointing out that when we mention all of these tools, we’ve mentioned Fluent CRM, Fluent Booking, WP Funnel. And so, yeah, if you were to listen to this show and you were to look these things up and look at their pricing pages and find hosting, yeah, it would cost a lot of money. You’d be like, for this money, I could just go with go high level and it’s all in one place. But the hosting package that WP Tonic offers, and then maybe Jonathan doesn’t push hard enough on the show, is that it’s all included. It’s all there and it’s good for you.
[00:42:36.300] – Jonathan Denwood
I’m doing a better job. Let’s go to prices that I never gave you because I did it this afternoon. I apologize. High level, Start a plan, 999 per month. That’s 1,188 a year. Plus, I’ve put $50 in for the email between 30 and I put 50, that’s 600. That’s $1,788 a year. Yeah, that’s much cheaper. Now, hosting between 30 and $55, if any of the ones that we recommend. Cadence, $69 a year. The 30 to $55 for the hostings per month. The cadence, Lifter, 69 per year. Wp Funnel and Melmint, $239. 99. Or you can use Fluent CRM, and I think for one site, that’s around $69. 70. It’s a big difference between those jet packs. I worked it out at 115. The Lifter LMS, I put Lifter instead of Fluent Community. The Lifter, because it’s free with the Stripe add on, 140 $59 a year. Hosting, if you host with WP Tonic or some other host around the 35 to 55, I’ve gone at $35 a month, it’s $420. The software is 572 if you use WP Funnelz, you put the two together, that’s 992. But if you host with WP Tonic, you get all the software as part of the hosting, so it’s $420.
[00:44:37.340] – Jonathan Denwood
But I think the Fluent CRM, it’s just a lot more value. You could probably not the 500 to about probably just under 300. No, it’s probably about 250. It’s going to be considerably cheaper than the high level because the high level you got to take in, they’re going to charge you between $30, $50 for the email. What do you reckon? I think I’ve done a better job pushing WP Tonic, you know?
[00:45:17.240] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Well, it’s important because not only are we looking at a spreadsheet and saying this is what it costs, but the white-glove experience with WP Tonic means that it’s already set up for you. And so, when you sign up with WP Tonic, you get access to the website, the back end, and all the tools are already in place. We offer a course that shows people how to use the equipment as it comes set up. It’s all done. The headache is solved.
[00:45:51.580] – Jonathan Denwood
How are we going to wrap this up? Because I think that if you’re an agency and you’re looking at ClickFunnels, or what else could you… What are you going to be looking at? Probably at ClickFunnel 2. 0, you’re probably going to be looking at HubSpot. HubSpot has a similar cult-like feel to GoHighLevel. People get in. If you’re not using the free HubSpot offering, it gets expensive really quickly for our agency. Obviously, you don’t… Well, it’s an affiliate partner scheme. The customer pays, and you receive a kickback, but it’s significantly more expensive. A high-level founder has a highly valuable niche in this digital agency. I think that’s where its strength is. The problem is, I wouldn’t use their website builder. I would use WordPress, but I wouldn’t get my WordPress through high-level because I think it’s junk. However, how that pans out, I suppose they have a plugin that works inside WordPress, and you don’t have to host with them. I would hope for that.
[00:47:21.100] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, they have an integration plugin, but it’s not-Not that good, I was told. Yeah, it’s not a super clean integration.
[00:47:28.120] – Jonathan Denwood
No, I wasn’t told. It was great. See, that’s the problem, folks, because I wouldn’t use their internal WordPress setup. It’s had a bad write-up, folks. But I do see… You really have to use their native website builder, and it’s okay, but it isn’t fantastic, folks, either. The marketing optimization and some of the other features are great. However, when it comes to the ’99 product, if you’re not going to use WordPress, as I mentioned, and hopefully this makes more sense now, Kurt, I think you’d be better off going with Podia or Kajabi.
[00:48:18.860] – Kurt von Ahnen
Well, that’s the rub right there, Jonathan. It depends on how the business is going to scale. I think Go High-Level is one of those interesting tools that, when you actually look at what it does, how it works, and all the features and benefits it offers, it does have value, but it has value in a project that’s already established. However, the problem then arises from migrating from an existing platform to a high-level platform. Now you’ve created this leap, this thing that nobody in business wants to do. Nobody wants to go from WordPress to Squarespace to Wix to Webflow to Podia. No one wants to. They do it because they feel compelled to, for some reason. I think that high-level benefits don’t really shine until the thing is full of customers and it’s humming along with thousands of users. However, the problem is that you have to build a business to that level before you can leverage its skill set.
[00:49:18.320] – Jonathan Denwood
I think for the influencer, the creative, and those looking to build membership or eLearning, at a high level, I wouldn’t recommend it. I think it’s either WordPress, Kajabi, or Podia. If you really want an app and don’t want to use a native builder, consider Mighty Networks, but I’m not a great fan of Mighty Networks either. I think Kajabi or Podia myself. I just think what they offer is more relevant. I think I agree with Kurt; if you have a very large membership, you’re probably going to opt for WordPress. I press myself, personally. I don’t know. I’d be interested in seeing if we receive any comments that disagree. They won’t disagree with you, but they disagree with me. So, Kurt, what’s the best place for people to find out more about what you’re up to?
[00:50:16.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
For business, Manana Nomas. It’s Facebook X. It’s Manana Nomas for everything. Manianonomás. Com. If you want to connect on a personal level, LinkedIn is a great option. Hit the Connect button and We’ll connect and see what happens.
[00:50:32.160] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Like I say, sign up for the newsletter. We also have a free Facebook group, the Membership Machine Show. If you truly want to support the show —and we hope you do —you’ll get some real value. We put a lot of effort into these shows to bring you real knowledge. If you could help us out, the easiest way is to listen to this podcast on your phone. On iTunes or Spotify, it’s really easy to leave a review. Just go down, and it pops up a review. Give us a review, because that really helps us reach new possible listeners. It just grows the podcast, and it encourages us to keep making these shows that hopefully give you a lot of value. We’re going to end it now, folks. We will be back next week with more knowledge to help you build a membership community and achieve success, not only for yourself, but also for your family. We will be back soon, folks. Bye.
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