Looking for the perfect funnel builder?

Stuck between ClickFunnels and GoHighLevel?

I get it.

Been there.

I’ve tested both platforms extensively over the last year.

But first – a quick heads up.

These two aren’t exactly best friends.

There’s even been some legal drama. CF alleged that GHL ripped their design.

But that’s not what matters to you.

What matters is finding the perfect fit for your business.

Let’s dive in.

Overview

What does GoHighLevel do?

HighLevel (aka. GoHighLevel) is a complete business toolkit for agencies.

It gives you everything needed to manage client campaigns in one place.

The best part?

You can rebrand the whole platform and sell it to your clients for a profit.

This makes it perfect to simplify your tech stack.

We’ll see about that.

What does ClickFunnels do?

ClickFunnels used to focus primarily on funnel building.

That changed in 2023.

They added really good new capabilities.

That was a good call, considering the fierce competition from the likes of GoHighLevel, Kajabi, Systeme, and Kartra.

This was the result:

Did you get it?

Let’s break that down further.

What I like about GoHighLevel 👍

• Multi-channel marketing: I love that GoHighLevel makes it seamless to integrate SMS texts, voicemail drops, Facebook Messenger, and even WhatsApp messages into email campaigns and funnels.
• Comprehensive platform: All of the functionality you need is available in one place. For example, HighLevel also includes reputation management, appointment booking, and a social media planner, which can replace dedicated tools such as Buffer, Yelp!, and Calendly.
• Unlimited everything: Expect unlimited emails sent, funnels, contacts, courses, students, users, and more. GoHighLevel alternatives such as ClickFunnels, Kajabi, and Kartra often have limits.
• Reputation management: Pull online reviews from Google, Facebook, and Yelp!, review, and respond to dissatisfied customers privately — right from the GoHighLevel app.
• Reseller/White label program: Get the SaaS Pro plan, resell the GoHighLevel platform to as many customers as you want with your own branding, charge a minimum of $97/month/customer, and keep the profit.

👎 What I don’t like about GoHighLevel: Like most comprehensive platforms, you’ll need to invest time and effort to learn the system and overcome overwhelm. You may not be able to take advantage of all that GoHighLevel has to offer, especially if you’re not a digital agency or have several businesses on the platform.

Explore GoHighLevel

What I like about ClickFunnels over GoHighLevel 👍

• ClickFunnels 2.0 is all-in-one: Since 2023, ClickFunnels has added ecommerce pages, courses, customer hubs, and other tools to make it a more complete platform.
• Easier to use: ClickFunnels feels better organized in tabs and pages than GoHighLevel. It makes it easier to find what you’re looking for and keep track of what you’re doing.
• Specialized funnel builder: Yes, ClickFunnels also integrates SMS, voicemail drops, and calls into its funnels. However, it tends to offer superior funnel and email templates, as well as more robust funnel analytics.
• Handy conversion optimization tools: Look forward to 1-click upsells and downsells, order bumps, optimized ecommerce pages and stores, and more.
• Polished branding tools: ClickFunnels offers more branding tools than HighLevel, including a diverse range of premium templates, colors, and elements for free.

👎 What I don’t like about ClickFunnels: The CRM features are basic and may require additional tools for advanced needs. Native integrations are limited compared to GoHighLevel, and template customization could be more flexible.

Explore ClickFunnels

Why people are ditching ClickFunnels?

I’ve used ClickFunnels.

Built my first few funnels there.

It was exciting—back then.

But two things are happening now:

First: value.

ClickFunnels isn’t cheap.

$147/month for 20 funnels and 3 courses.

Add 4.9% transaction fees on sales.

Want more?

You’re upsold to the $297 tier. That’s what most people end up.

And still, you’ll need external tools for email, community, or CRM.

In contrast, platforms like GoHighLevel are packing in way more.

Full CRM, email + SMS automation, funnel builder, appointment scheduling, even white-label options—for the same price.

It’s like ClickFunnels, ActiveCampaign, Calendly, and Kajabi had a baby—and it charges less.

You can even resell them to your clients (on a recurring basis) at no extra fee.

It’s a no-brainer for agencies and advanced marketers.

People are realizing it.

Second: philosophy.

People aren’t willing to pay premium prices anymore just to be part of the “funnel hacker” crowd.

The “hype” or like the “Mystique” around funnel building has faded.

ClickFunnels used to be about belonging to an elite community of marketers.

But now? Those same tools are everywhere, often cheaper or free.

The perceived value has shifted dramatically. On one end, funnel building has become commoditized – these tools are now widely available and often free.

On the other end, people are gravitating towards platforms that offer genuine community building and meaningful connections.

You know Alex Hormozi’s “Skool” of Thought?

If you look at the popularity of platforms like Skool and Kajabi, you know what I’m talking about.

Upfront bottom line

Here’s the deal with ClickFunnels – it’s clean and focused on building funnels, landing pages, and courses that convert well.

But do note that it doesn’t come with the community features and has plenty of restrictions and fees.

Want to learn more?

Check out my detailed, hands-on ClickFunnels review here.

But.

GoHighLevel is your best bet, if you run a digital agency or want to resell software to multiple clients (with your own branding for extra profit)

Take a look at my complete GoHighLevel review to see why.

Hold on though.

Let’s dig deeper into this ClickFunnels vs. GoHighLevel comparison.

You’ll see exactly how they differ in key areas like email marketing, funnel building, and pricing.

Key difference #1- ClickFunnels has a more robust website builder

You get a good set of page building tools with both platforms.

Each one gives you helpful stuff like countdown timers, testimonials, and FAQ blocks that help turn visitors into buyers.

However, I personally prefer ClickFunnels for its more polished and organized layout.

ClickFunnels boasts more polished web and landing page options, including features like landing page gradients and refined corner and border styling.

One feature I liked here is Universal Sections, which you can edit to make multiple place changes at once.

On the other hand, GoHighLevel excels in ease of use with its page builder.

It allows you to quickly select, customize, and publish your web pages with minimal hassle:

You can also customize your pages with this variety of HighLevel elements and content blocks:

Both ClickFunnels and GoHighLevel let you connect your WordPress site.

Key difference #2: Funnels and workflow automation (the real deal)

Let me show you how these two handle funnels differently.

ClickFunnels gives you some really polished funnel templates. Check this out:

Here’s what makes ClickFunnels stand out:

• 1-click upsells and downsells
• Order bumps in your sales funnels
• Unlimited funnels, contacts, and pages
• Team permissions for funnel access (like Google Docs)
• A/B split testing to improve conversions

Plus, their WorkFlows feature is super handy – one trigger can start multiple actions across different funnels.

Now, let’s look at GoHighLevel.

The big win for GoHighLevel? Multi-channel marketing. You get:

• Two-way SMS/MMS
• Voicemail drops
• Emails
• Appointment booking
• Call tracking
• Facebook messages

Their funnel builder is really easy to use, even for beginners.

Plus, GoHighLevel gives you more funnel templates than ClickFunnels.

Sure, these templates aren’t as fancy as ClickFunnels’, but they work well and you can customize them.

But here’s the game-changer: GoHighLevel Snapshots.

What’s that? It lets you clone entire marketing setups from one account to another. Super useful for agencies.

Here’s what you can clone:

• Funnels
• Automation workflows
• Trigger links
• Calendars
• Custom fields
• SMS campaigns
• CRM settings

Yes, it takes some time to learn.

But if you’re running an agency, being able to clone entire marketing systems is worth its weight in gold.

Bonus point: You can import your ClickFunnels workflows into GoHighLevel. ClickFunnels doesn’t offer this the other way around.

Key difference #3: CRM capabilities – HighLevel’s powerhouse vs ClickFunnels’ basics

Yes, ClickFunnels 2.0 improved their CRM.

But HighLevel takes it to another level.

First ClickFunnnels:

Here’s what ClickFunnels 2.0 now offers:

• Contact list building
• Contact segmentation
• Two-way SMS messaging

But HighLevel gives you way more:

• Native WhatsApp integration
• Built-in social media planner (replaces tools like Buffer)
• Advanced call tracking
• Multi-source appointment booking

While both platforms let you call contacts, only HighLevel tracks those calls.

Want to schedule social posts?

HighLevel’s planner is good enough to replace paid tools like Buffer or HootSuite.

For booking appointments, HighLevel wins again.

Your leads can book from anywhere – funnels, web pages, blogs, you name it.

Key difference #4. Email marketing

👉 Both platforms give you basic autoresponders for welcome and thank you emails – nothing surprising there. They also let you set up smart campaigns that trigger based on how people interact with your stuff. Pretty standard these days.

But here’s what I really like:

GoHighLevel takes it further by connecting email campaigns with live chat, WhatsApp, SMS, booking systems, voicemail drops, and webhooks.

That’s a lot more useful for most businesses.

This means you can capture more leads by considering their location, preferred communication style, and engagement levels.

Meanwhile, ClickFunnels excels in email deliverability, open rates, and conversions—a significant advantage!

Plus, you can easily track your email marketing results on a dedicated dashboard:

Conversely, my friends and I had mixed feelings about GoHighLevel’s email marketing.

One thing is certain: you’ll need to integrate Mailgun to send bulk emails and improve deliverability in GoHighLevel.

That said, if you want to split-test your emails, GoHighLevel is the only way to do it here.

Now:

If beautiful, modern email templates, ClickFunnels offers plenty of them:

ClickFunnels takes the lead in organizing its templates into intuitive categories like promotions, newsletters, and order confirmations.

On the other hand, I’m not sure if it’s just my account, but I couldn’t find any templates to jumpstart my campaigns in GoHighLevel, even after checking multiple times.

Overall, the visual email sequence creators on GoHighLevel and ClickFunnels’ email builders are quite similar. Email campaigns are also fairly straightforward to build, even for marketers with little experience.

Key difference #5. Course creation and membership features

Let’s look at what both platforms offer for creating courses and membership sites.

ClickFunnels 2.0 recently added course features.

Here’s what you get:

• Course content organization into modules and lessons (like Kajabi)
• Content locking for paid members
• Drip-feeding to control lesson access
• Progress tracking to spot where students get stuck
• Automated workflows (like adding students after payment)

  

But GoHighLevel takes it further with:

• Ready-to-use course templates
• Unlimited video hosting
• Course completion certificates
• Student discussions in comments
• Quizzes and assignments
• Easy Kajabi course imports

You can create both paid and free courses within your HighLevel community, featuring drip feeding, content locking, and automated workflows.

You’ll also benefit from unlimited video hosting, students, users, workflows, and more.

Here’s what both platforms are missing:

• No direct imports from Dropbox, YouTube, Wistia, or Vimeo
• No gamification tools (like badges or leaderboards)

Key difference #6. GoHighLevel includes online reputation management

This is exclusive to HighLevel.

Online reviews are crucial for your marketing success.

Here’s why:

They directly impact your credibility and local search rankings when potential leads research your business online.

GoHighLevel makes review management simple:

You can collect, organize, and manage reviews from Facebook, Google My Business, and Yelp! – all from one dashboard. This makes maintaining your online reputation much easier.

You can also:

• Automated review requests: Automatically send custom SMS and email review request messages right after a transaction.
• Smart follow-up: If a customer doesn’t respond to the first request, GoHighLevel sends a gentle reminder after a set period.
• Analytics dashboard: See trends and metrics related to your online reputation, including the number of reviews, average rating, and review frequency over time.
• Reputation protection: Negative feedback is automatically routed to a private feedback form, protecting your public ratings while obtaining constructive feedback.

Ultimately, you do not need third-party review managers when you have HighLevel. It just works, and you’ll soon wonder how you lived without it.

Key difference #7. Integrations and connectivity

GoHighLevel shines with its extensive integration options.

You get:

• Native WhatsApp integration
• Direct Google Analytics connection
• Facebook Ads integration
• Slack connectivity

Plus, GoHighLevel gives you API access with every plan.

This means you can connect pretty much any tool you want.

The best part?

You won’t need many third-party tools because GoHighLevel already includes most features you need.

Now, let’s look at ClickFunnels.

ClickFunnels keeps things focused on funnel-building integrations like:

• MailChimp
• HubSpot
• LeadPages

You can add more connections through Zapier, but here’s the catch:

👉 ClickFunnels only gives you API access with their $297/month plan. That’s quite limiting if you want to create custom integrations.

The bottom line?

GoHighLevel gives you more built-in tools and better integration options out of the box.

Key difference #8. GoHighLevel offers better suport

You get free access to a welcome course and onboarding video tutorials (which I recommend you don’t miss).

When you start your free trial, you’ll get a direct support phone number.

I tested this by reaching out about sub-account setup – Travis responded within 24 hours and provided excellent, knowledgeable help.

ClickFunnels takes a different approach with:

• Onboarding calls
• Detailed documentation
• Learning hubs
• Help videos right above templates

Both platforms offer extra training options:

ClickFunnels: Live training sessions included

GoHighLevel:

• Done-with-you account setup ($299)
• Specialized platform training ($97)

These paid options can save you lots of time if you’re in a hurry to get started.

Both platforms offer chatbot support, but it can be tricky to reach a real person.

The wait times can be a bit long.

That said, once you connect with support staff, they’re knowledgeable and helpful.

Key difference #9. Pricing are different

Consider this:

And now this:

Let me break down the pricing differences:

Both GoHighLevel and ClickFunnels support unlimited page products funnels and so on.

Now about trial:

Both platforms give you 14 days to test drive.

Close right?

But read here:

GoHighLevel has three distinct plans.

Two of these plans include white labeling and mobile apps for both iOS and Android.

GoHighLevel’s SaaS Pro plan ($497/month) is perfect for agencies.

You can:

• Rebrand the platform completely
• Resell to unlimited clients (minimum $97/month each)
• Break even with just 5 clients and profit from there

On the other hand:

ClickFunnels has simplified their lineup by removing their Funnel Hacker plan.

Now I need to talk at some hidden costs 💰 because these are important to know.

GoHighLevel has some extra charges:

• $0.01 per broadcast email
• Fees for email validation, WhatsApp, SMS, and calls
• Charges come in $20 batches based on usage

ClickFunnels also has additional fees:

• $0.01 for integrations
• $0.10 per video hosted
• $10 per 1TB of video bandwidth

GoHighLevel vs ClickFunnels Verdict

So, which one should you pick – ClickFunnels or GoHighLevel?

Let me break it down for you.

If you just want to build funnels quickly, offer basic courses, and send emails easily, ClickFunnels might work better for you.

It’s simpler to use and gets the job done.

But here’s the thing: if you’re running an agency or need to manage multiple clients, GoHighLevel is clearly the better choice.

You get way more features like client management tools, marketing across different channels, and tools to manage your online reputation.

Plus, it grows with your business and saves you money in the long run.