
Choosing the right CRM and marketing automation tool can be daunting. I get it—there are so many options out there, and it's tough to know which one will help your business grow without feeling like you're drowning in features you don't need. I've compiled this guide to compare GoHighLevel vs. Keap, two of the most talked-about platforms in 2025.
Whether you're running an agency, managing a small business, or building your entrepreneurial dream, I'm here to help you figure out which tool aligns best with your goals. Let's dive in and break down everything you need to know about these platforms so you can make the best decision for your business.
GoHighLevel vs Keap Overview
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of features, pricing, and benefits, let's take a step back and look at the bigger picture. To make the right choice, it's essential to understand what GoHighLevel vs Keap offer and, more importantly, who they're designed for.
Each platform has its strengths, and their target audiences are quite different. Whether you're managing a team, running an agency, or handling everything solo, knowing the basics of each platform will help you see which one fits your needs like a glove. Let's break it down.
What is GoHighLevel?
Built for Agencies:
If you're an agency or digital marketer, GoHighLevel is like having a secret weapon. It's specifically designed to help you manage clients more efficiently. The best part? You can white-label the platform and resell it as your service, a game-changer for adding extra revenue streams.
All-in-One Solution:
Are you tired of paying for tools like ClickFunnels, Mailchimp, and Calendly? GoHighLevel consolidated these tools into one platform. It's a huge money-saver and keeps your workflow simple and streamlined.
Customization at Its Best:
Whether creating unique workflows, setting up automation, or integrating with other apps, GoHighLevel allows you to tailor the platform to your needs.
Comprehensive Automation:
Automation is where GoHighLevel truly shines. From SMS marketing and email follow-ups to appointment scheduling, it handles repetitive tasks so you can focus on growing your business.
Notable Features of GoHighLevel
GoHighLevel offers impressive features to centralize and streamline your business operations. Here's a closer look at what makes it stand out:
Funnel Builder and Landing Pages
With GoHighLevel, you can create high-converting funnels and landing pages without needing external tools like ClickFunnels. The drag-and-drop builder makes designing and customizing funnels for lead generation, sales, or client onboarding easy.
SMS and Email Marketing Automation
GoHighLevel's automation tools combine the power of SMS and email marketing to help you nurture leads and engage with customers. Its workflow builder allows you to design complex, multi-channel campaigns with ease.
Appointment Scheduling and Calendar Sync
Say goodbye to missed opportunities! GoHighLevel's integrated calendar sync and scheduling features ensure you never miss an appointment. Clients can book directly, and the system automatically updates their calendars.
CRM and Pipeline Management
The built-in CRM helps you track leads, manage client relationships, and visualize your sales pipeline. Customizable stages allow you to adapt the pipeline to your unique sales process.
Membership Sites and Online Courses
GoHighLevel lets you create and manage membership sites and online courses, making it an excellent choice for education, coaching, or digital product sales businesses.
Built-in Reputation Management Tools
Managing your online reputation has never been easier. GoHighLevel includes tools to automate review requests, monitor feedback, and build trust with potential clients.
Why GoHighLevel Works Best for Agencies
What is Keap?
Keap (formerly known as Infusionsoft) might be exactly what you need if you're a small business owner or solopreneur. It’s a CRM and marketing automation platform designed to simplify client relationship management, automate repetitive marketing tasks, and organize your sales processes.
Unlike platforms that cater to agencies or larger teams, Keap is all about usability and simplicity, making it a top choice for smaller operations that don't want to be bogged down by overly complex tools.
Key Benefits of Keap
Ease of Use
One of Keap’s standout features is its intuitive interface. You don't need to be tech-savvy to get started. The platform is designed to make CRM and marketing automation approachable for everyone, even if it's your first time using a tool like this.
Client Management Focus
Keep beyond basic CRM functionality by helping you manage the entire client relationship lifecycle. It includes features like invoicing, quotes, and pre-designed email templates to keep client communication seamless and professional.
Comprehensive Support
For new users, Keap offers exceptional onboarding support, access to training materials, and an active community of small business owners who share tips and best practices. It's a platform that grows with you as you learn.
Notable Features of Keap
CRM for Small Businesses
Keap's CRM is built, focusing on the essential tools small businesses need to manage leads, track customer interactions, and organize contacts effectively.
Email Marketing and Campaign Automation
With Keap, you can set up automated email campaigns to nurture leads and keep customers engaged without needing constant manual effort.
Invoicing and Payment Processing
With built-in invoicing tools, simplify your billing process. Keap lets you send quotes, track payments, and even easily handle recurring billing.
Appointment Scheduling
Keep includes scheduling features that make it simple for clients to book time with you, reducing back-and-forth emails and ensuring you stay on top of your calendar.
Basic Sales Pipeline Management
While not as advanced as some other platforms, Keap offers a straightforward way to manage your sales pipeline, ensuring no leads fall through the cracks.
GoHighLevel vs Keap Feature Comparison
Choosing the right CRM and marketing automation tool is no small decision. The features each platform offers can make or break your choice. In this section, I'll break down the key features of GoHighLevel vs. Keap, helping you understand what they offer. Let’s dive into the comparison!
Marketing Automation
GoHighLevel vs Keap: A Deep Dive into Marketing Automation
When considering different CRM platforms for my business, I quickly realized that each platform's marketing automation tool would play a huge role in my decision. In this section, I will break down the marketing automation features of GoHighLevel vs Keap so you can see how each platform measures up.
GoHighLevel: Advanced and Customizable Automation
GoHighLevel stands out when it comes to marketing automation. The platform offers a drag-and-drop workflow builder, making it super easy to create highly customizable automated campaigns. What I love most about GoHighLevel is how it integrates multiple channels, such as SMS, email, and even voicemail drops. You can create workflows based on customer behavior, such as clicks, form submissions, and lead scoring.
Here are a few features I think are particularly powerful:
SMS marketing with automated follow-ups
Triggered workflows based on customer actions (e.g., clicks, form submissions)
Email drip campaigns with personalization options
Appointment reminders and follow-up messages
Keap: Simplified and Easy-to-Use Automation
On the other hand, Keap's marketing automation is more straightforward. If you’re running a small business and just getting into the world of marketing automation, Keap is a solid choice. It doesn't come with all the bells and whistles that GoHighLevel offers. Still, its simplicity makes it an excellent tool for businesses that need essential email marketing without diving into too much complexity.
Keap also offers a drag-and-drop automation builder, but it's much more essential than GoHighLevel's advanced capabilities. It’s designed to help you quickly set up automated email campaigns, such as sending newsletters or promotional emails. However, SMS integration in Keap is limited and requires you to rely on third-party tools to set it up. So, if SMS marketing is a big part of your strategy, this might be a bit of a hurdle.
Here’s what Keap offers in terms of automation:
Email campaigns with easy-to-use templates for newsletters and promotions
A simple automation builder for follow-up scheduling
Limited SMS integration, which requires third-party tools
Sales Pipeline Management
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Sales Pipeline Management Comparison
When I was choosing between GoHighLevel and Keap for my business, one of the most important features I had to evaluate was sales pipeline management. How well a platform helps you track leads, close deals, and follow up is crucial to your success. So, let's dive into the sales pipeline tools both GoHighLevel and Keap offer.
GoHighLevel: A Robust, Customizable Sales Pipeline
GoHighLevel truly shines when it comes to sales pipeline management. It offers a drag-and-drop interface, which makes it super easy to visualize where each of your leads and deals are in the sales process. You can create as many pipeline stages as you need and move deals with just a click.
What I love most about GoHighLevel is its customizability. You can set lead scoring based on predefined rules, ensuring you focus on the most promising prospects. You can also automate follow-ups through email or SMS or even set up reminders for appointment scheduling, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks. For agencies that manage multiple clients or complex workflows, GoHighLevel's pipeline management tools are perfect.
Here are some key features of GoHighLevel's sales pipeline:
Drag-and-drop pipeline management for easy tracking
Automatic lead scoring to prioritize high-potential prospects
Seamless integration with email, SMS, and appointment scheduling
Fully customizable pipeline stages to match your unique sales process
Keap: A Simple, Straightforward Pipeline
On the other hand, keep offers a more straightforward approach to pipeline management. It's great for smaller businesses or solopreneurs who don't need the complexity of a robust CRM. Keap allows you to manually create basic pipeline stages and move deals through the pipeline. While this is perfect for businesses with straightforward sales processes, it doesn't offer the depth or customization that GoHighLevel provides.
Keep integrating with email for lead follow-ups, which is a nice touch, but its pipeline management is relatively essential. It doesn't have advanced features like automatic lead scoring, and you won't be able to customize the pipeline stages to the same degree as GoHighLevel. This simplicity is a plus for many small businesses, but for agencies or companies with more complex needs, it might not cut it.
Key features of Keap's sales pipeline:
Basic pipeline stages with manual updates
Integration with email for follow-up reminders
Limited customization options for pipeline stages
GoHighLevel vs Keap: SMS Marketing Comparison

This increased my customer base tremendously, and the one personal preference that helped my business was SMS marketing. Regarding customers, the open rate of an SMS message is beyond 90 percent, which makes this tool effective for business communication in real-time. Here, I will explain the feature difference between GoHighLevel and Keap in the aspects of SMS marketing.
GoHighLevel: Built-in SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is where GoHighLevel shines, specifically their acquired platform, HeatSynx. What we love about SMS on GoHighLevel is that it is actually built-in, unlike many other platforms where you have to rely on an app or service. This makes it extremely easy and cheap for business people who want to automate their text message marketing.
Key features of GoHighLevel's SMS marketing:
Real-time two-way mobile text messaging for customer interaction
Setting up of sent messages to follow up and qualify leads
Integrated reporting of the sms performance metrics
Mobile alert for appointments and other special offer campaigning.
Keap: Third-Party Integrations for SMS Marketing
However, Keap also has the capability of SMS marketing, but it is not as integrated as GoHighLevel. Keap has SMS functionality, but you must combine it with third parties like Twil to use it. This makes the process more complex and costly, especially for the business first engaging in bulk SMS marketing. Also, it is an integration, so as much as you may benefit from integrations, there are no specific built-in ops or interactions like you have with GoHighLevel.
Key features of Keap's SMS marketing:
Listing third-party services such as Twilio.
Standard voice and SMS with additional customization and expenses
They require two elementary message-handling operations (sending and receiving).
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Website Builder Comparison
Web creation is one of any business's most important tools for developing its online presence. While comparing GoHighLevel vs. Keap, I noticed that website creation's availability (or absence) influenced me. Let's see what each platform offers regarding website and funnel creation and management.
GoHighLevel: A Complete Website and Funnel Builder
That is why it is unique compared to other solutions that promise to include a website and funnel builder. For any agency together with a business that wants to create landing pages, sales funnels, and complete websites, personalizing both the design and features, GoHighLevel fits into the bill. I could create clean, internet-shattering funnels from its user-friendly interface: drag and drop and templates within a few days.
Key features of GoHighLevel's website builder:
An easy drag-and-drop editor with templates that can be used to design the page quickly.
Domain hosting and management are provided out of the box.
It is easily integrated with CRM and other corporate marketing automation.
Lander – landing pages; Funnels – building sales funnels; Websites – general web page building
Keap: No Built-In Website Builder
This Keap crack does not come with a website builder; if you want to build a website, you have to use other tools, such as WordPress or the website builder of your choice. This would not be an issue for some, but it is an extra step for me, operating at another level of complexity and expense. You will then have to dole out the website creation and management responsibilities by yourself, which may prove cumbersome. Also, linking the website to Keap's CRM and marketing automation options is clunky because Keap lacks a built-in website builder.
Key points about Keap:
No built-in website builder
Needs other platforms like WordPress from which they can be accessed
Extra intervals of work necessary for designing and supporting Websites
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Ease of Use Comparison
As for website builders, you can go to a high level and not even think about anything else. Using Crisp's features, building a landing page, or even a small to medium website does not require other software or applications. The prospect of having all the hosting, domain management, and CRM/marketing automation in one place is a big plus for agencies and companies looking to consolidate their services.
Thus, it becomes very convenient for businesses that do not want to deal with the processes of coordinating between multiple tools to use GoHighLevel's website builder. If you are in the market for an easy-to-use, one-stop shop, then GoHighLevel is a no-brainer.
GoHighLevel: More Powerful, but a Steeper Learning Curve

GoHighLevel is easy to use but has many features, so the user might encounter difficulties understanding how to use them. The platform's main advantage, flexibility, might not be for newcomers, and it is a bit confusing initially. For somebody who is a big fan of customization and scalability, GoHighlevel was a platform with astonishing options and features I liked. Still, at the same time, I had to spend some time to become familiar with the interface and its functionality.
Key points about GoHighLevel:
Comes with additional utilities which are sometimes complex to grasp
It has more flexibility than a Linear one, but students feel it is pretty complicated, especially when they start using it.
It is most suitable for users who are designing a website on their own or who want to be directly involved in the technical aspects of their sites.
Keap: Simple and Intuitive
In contrast, Keap was built to be simple to use, as seen from the layout of the above screenshot. The representations of this diagram are not very complicated; thus, I could start working with it instantly without many additional hours of training. This puts Keep on the bestseller list for small business owners, solo entrepreneurs, and those who do not want to deal with multiple systems, managing CRM and marketing automation simultaneously.
Key points about Keap:
Intuitive and clean to be easily navigable.
Created for those with no affiliate marketing experience and running small businesses.
It takes little training to get up to speed with this effect.
GoHighLevel vs Keap: Factors to Consider Before Choosing
It's not only about setting GoHighLevel against Keap; it's also about realizing how you can use them, both or separately, in your business. I considered the following things while deciding, leading to developing some guidelines. But before that, let's analyze these factors so that you can choose which platform fits your purposes.
Business Size and Needs
The size and type of business have a massive influence on the kind of CRM that will be useful to an organization.
GoHighLevel also comes in handy for agencies, consultants, or any business that deals with many clients. It offers enhanced capabilities for serving multiple clients and configurable options that enable users to adapt work processes to organizational requirements.
Meanwhile, Keap is best for selling to small businesses or solopreneurs targeting one type of client. It is perfect for small companies seeking to handle clients' relations and use plain email marketing automation that requires no special tools.
Automation Requirements
There is also the degree of automation that the business requires as it pressures the supply chain for more efficiency.
GoHighLevel is proficient in complex work mechanisms and integrated systems. You can give your customers unique and distinct campaigns for SMS marketing, email marketing drip campaigns, and autoresponder campaigns based on the customers themselves. Overall, this is a real game changer for those requiring power and flexibility with multi-step workflows and integration of other tools.
Keep is less complex; its sole purpose is to send emails and follow-ups. If you want to send introductory emails, follow-ups, and promotional messages without getting into more elaborate processes, systems, and operational procedures, Keap will suffice.
Budget
Of course, your budget has to be a crucial factor in becoming a decisive criterion when choosing between two platforms.
GoHighLevel can be somewhat costly, especially if you consider the many features the software boasts. It is versatile, and to achieve such things, you may have to buy from several different services, so while the price tag is higher, it may end up saving you money in the long run.
In general, Keap Carter tends to be cheaper, especially for new businesses. The basic CRM services and the variety of billing options, with the option of email automation, are comparatively lower in price.
Scalability
For your business's future development, you need a CRM platform that can grow with you.
GoHighLevel has great flexibility, especially in terms of scalability, which makes it perfect for companies with expansion on the horizon. Whether you are growing your team, managing more clients, or escalating your marketing campaigns, all these GoHighLevel tools are designed to evolve with your business.
The Keap platform is perfect for small to medium businesses, although not ideal for companies with larger marketing teams. The occasion may also arise where the platform does not have other features to offer as your business expands.
Support and Training
Finally, to guarantee the success of your project, it would be advisable to ensure that the chosen platform offers good help and tutorials.
Some features of GoHighLevel are available for support, although the more elaborate ones can take some time to master. Fortunately, they offer courses and handouts, but they are not always easy to use, and first-time users may not know where to begin.
Onboarding and training support is another area where Keap has proven to be one of the best. Because its platform is relatively easy to navigate, exceptional guidance on how to use it is not essential. However, Kemp's support will be helpful if you are new to CRM.
Conclusion
If you are an agency or consultant, GoHighLevel is most likely exactly what you are looking for because it is the type of system that offers comprehensive features with easily scalable and automated solutions. It provides considerable features that can assist in organizing complicated procedures and working with numerous individuals most effectively.
On the other hand, if you're a small business or solopreneur who prefers simplicity and convenience, Keap is more suitable. This program's simple design and control panel make it ideal for users who need a program that works without necessarily requiring a lot of detailed input.
The good news is that both platforms are strong, and both offer a free trial. Therefore, it is beneficial to try all of them during work to observe which interface seems more natural to use. However, the best product is the one that performs well and allows you to achieve as much in a day without getting in your way.
FAQs
Which platform is more cost-effective?
From the former observation, GoHighLevel can be cheaper for agencies because it combines multiple tools in one package. In contrast, Keap has a more suitable price for small businesses or sole traders with more straightforward requirements than large enterprises.
Can GoHighLevel vs Keap integrate with other tools?
Yes, GoHighLevel and Keap both allow for the connection to other software services. GoHighLevel's API is comparatively more powerful, and that makes it much better than most for developers or businesses that may require more customized integration. Keep also has integrations but is a platform more aimed at presenting users with more straightforward templates for automation.
Do they offer free trials?
Yes, there are GoHighLevel trials, and Keap also offers free trials so customers can have a better experience before choosing them. This is a good way to get practice and figure out what platform is right for your business.
Which is better for agencies?
So, if you are an agency, GoHighLevel is the one to use. It provides white-label features that enable you to resell the platform to your clients as your own. Further, the tools for automation and client management are designed specifically for agencies that deal with several clients and marketing campaigns.
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