HighLevel AI Mistakes to Avoid: 12 Common Pitfalls & How to Fix Them (2026)

The 12 Most Common GoHighLevel Mistakes

GoHighLevel gives you an enormous amount of control over your marketing, sales, and communication systems. That is one of its biggest strengths — and also one of its biggest risks. The platform does not hold your hand through every configuration decision, and a single misconfigured setting can silently undermine your campaigns for weeks before you notice.

After running GoHighLevel across multiple agency accounts since mid-2024, we have seen (and in some cases made) every mistake on this list. Here are the 12 pitfalls, organized into four categories:

1. Skipping email domain authentication
2. Misconfiguring your custom domain
3. Building your CRM pipeline without a plan
4. Setting up Twilio without understanding costs
5. Launching workflows without testing
6. Not using conditional branching
7. Forgetting wait steps between actions
8. Over-automating the customer experience
9. Ignoring SMS consent requirements (TCPA)
10. Not disclosing call recording
11. Underestimating the learning curve
12. Not monitoring AI performance

Let's break down each one — what goes wrong, why it matters, and exactly how to fix it.

Mistake #1

Skipping Email Domain Authentication

This is the single most damaging setup mistake we see, and it is shockingly common. When you connect a sending domain in GoHighLevel, the platform lets you start sending emails immediately — even if your DNS records are not properly configured. The result: your carefully written emails land in spam folders instead of inboxes.

What goes wrong: Without SPF (Sender Policy Framework), DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), and DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) records properly set in your DNS, email providers like Gmail and Outlook have no way to verify that your messages are legitimate.[1] Your emails get flagged as suspicious, deliverability tanks, and your open rates drop below 5%. We have seen agencies run entire onboarding sequences for weeks before realizing none of their emails were reaching inboxes.

How to fix it: Before you send a single campaign email, go to Settings > Email Services in GoHighLevel and follow the domain authentication wizard. You will need to add three DNS records to your domain registrar: an SPF TXT record, a DKIM TXT record, and a DMARC TXT record. Use a tool like MXToolbox to verify propagation. This takes 15 minutes of work and 24–48 hours to propagate — but it is the most important 15 minutes of your entire setup.[1]

Mistake #2

Misconfiguring Your Custom Domain

GoHighLevel lets you connect custom domains for your funnels, websites, and client-facing pages. This is essential for professional branding, but the DNS configuration trips up a surprising number of users — especially those working with multiple subdomains across client accounts.

What goes wrong: The most common issue is confusing CNAME records with A records. GoHighLevel requires a CNAME record pointing your subdomain (e.g., app.yourdomain.com) to their servers. If you use an A record instead, or point to the wrong target, your pages will either not load at all or display SSL certificate errors. We have also seen users forget to enable SSL provisioning inside GoHighLevel after adding the DNS record, leaving their pages stuck on an insecure HTTP connection.

How to fix it: Follow GoHighLevel's domain setup guide exactly — do not improvise.[1] Add the CNAME record as specified, wait for DNS propagation (typically 1–4 hours, but up to 48 hours), and then verify the connection inside GoHighLevel's domain settings. Check the SSL toggle and confirm your pages load over HTTPS. Use a DNS checker tool to verify your records are live before troubleshooting anything else.

Mistake #3

Building Your CRM Pipeline Without a Plan

GoHighLevel's visual pipeline builder is intuitive and easy to use. That is actually part of the problem: it makes it tempting to start dragging and dropping stages before you have thought through your actual sales process.

What goes wrong: We see two failure modes. The first is too many stages — pipelines with 10 or 12 stages that nobody uses consistently, where leads get stuck in vaguely defined middle stages like "Follow Up" or "Interested." The second is too few stages — a pipeline with just "New Lead" and "Closed" that gives you zero visibility into where deals are actually stalling. Both versions make your CRM data unreliable and your reporting useless.

How to fix it: Before you open the pipeline builder, grab a whiteboard (or a blank document) and map your actual sales process from first contact to closed deal. Identify 4–7 distinct stages where a meaningful action or decision happens. Give each stage a clear, action-oriented name: "Appointment Booked," "Proposal Sent," "Contract Signed." Then build the pipeline to match. Resist the urge to add stages "just in case" — you can always add them later when you have real data showing where you need more granularity.

Mistake #4

Setting Up Twilio Without Understanding Costs

GoHighLevel uses Twilio as its backend for SMS and voice calls. This is an industry-standard integration, but it means you pay per-message and per-minute costs on top of your GoHighLevel subscription. Many new users do not realize this until they get their first Twilio invoice.

What goes wrong: Users launch SMS campaigns without registering for A2P 10DLC (Application-to-Person 10-Digit Long Code), which is now required by US carriers for business texting.[3] Without registration, messages get filtered or blocked entirely. On top of that, A2P registration involves a one-time campaign registration fee (typically $15) plus a monthly brand registration fee, and per-segment SMS costs that can range from $0.0079 to $0.05+ depending on carrier surcharges.[5] A high-volume agency sending 10,000 texts per month could see Twilio charges of $80–$150 on top of their GoHighLevel plan.

How to fix it: Budget $15–$80 per month for Twilio communications costs depending on your volume.[5] Register for A2P 10DLC through the Twilio console before you launch any SMS campaigns — the approval process can take 1–3 weeks, so do not wait until launch day.[3] Monitor your Twilio dashboard weekly to track spend. Consider setting up usage alerts in Twilio to catch unexpected cost spikes early.

Mistake #5

Launching Workflows Without Testing

GoHighLevel workflows are live the moment you toggle them on. There is no sandbox environment, no "draft" mode, and no undo button. If your workflow has a mistake, it will execute that mistake on every contact that enters it.

What goes wrong: We have seen users accidentally send promotional SMS messages to their entire contact list at 2 AM, trigger email sequences to contacts who already purchased, and even send test messages containing placeholder text ("[FIRST NAME], your appointment is at [TIME]") to real prospects. In one case, a misconfigured workflow sent the same follow-up email 14 times in a row to 200+ contacts before anyone noticed.

How to fix it: Always use GoHighLevel's test mode before activating a workflow. Create a dedicated test contact (use your own phone number and email) and run it through every branch of your workflow manually. Check that each SMS, email, and action fires correctly with merged fields populating as expected. Only toggle the workflow to "Published" once your test contact has successfully completed the entire sequence. Also consider adding a filter at the workflow entry that excludes contacts tagged as "test" from production runs.

Mistake #6

Not Using Conditional Branching

The simplest workflows are linear: trigger, action, action, action. They are also the least effective. When you treat every lead the same regardless of where they came from, what they are interested in, or where they are in their decision process, your messaging feels generic and irrelevant.

What goes wrong: A one-size-fits-all workflow sends the same follow-up sequence to a warm referral who is ready to buy and a cold Facebook ad lead who barely knows your brand. The referral finds the educational drip content patronizing, and the cold lead finds the aggressive close messages off-putting. Both are less likely to convert than if they had received tailored messaging.

How to fix it: Use GoHighLevel's If/Else branches to create divergent paths based on meaningful data points. Branch on lead source (referral vs. paid ad vs. organic), pipeline stage, tags, custom field values, or engagement behavior (opened email vs. did not). You do not need to build 20 different paths — even a single branch point that separates "warm" from "cold" leads will meaningfully improve your conversion rates. Start with one branch and add complexity over time as you collect data.

Mistake #7

Forgetting Wait Steps Between Actions

This is a small mistake that creates a big problem. When you build a workflow with multiple outreach actions (SMS, email, voicemail drop) but forget to add wait steps between them, all the actions fire within seconds of each other.

What goes wrong: Your lead receives an SMS, an email, and a voicemail drop within a 30-second window. Instead of feeling like they are being followed up with over time by a real business, they feel like they just got spammed by a bot. This is one of the fastest ways to generate opt-outs and damage your sender reputation. We have seen opt-out rates jump from under 2% to over 15% when wait steps were missing from a multi-channel sequence.

How to fix it: Add appropriate delays between every outreach action. A reasonable cadence is: initial response within 5 minutes of lead capture, second touchpoint 2–4 hours later via a different channel, third touchpoint the following day, and subsequent touches spaced 2–3 days apart. GoHighLevel's wait step supports minutes, hours, and days — use all three. Test the timing from the lead's perspective by running your test contact through the workflow and evaluating how the sequence feels on the receiving end.

Mistake #8

Over-Automating the Customer Experience

Automation is GoHighLevel's core value proposition, and it is easy to get carried away. We have seen accounts where literally every customer interaction — from first contact through onboarding to retention — is automated. The result is an experience that feels robotic and impersonal at exactly the moments when personal connection matters most.

What goes wrong: High-value prospects who are ready to make a purchasing decision get funneled into a generic nurture sequence instead of connecting with a human. Existing customers with urgent service issues receive automated "we'll get back to you" messages instead of immediate human attention. The automation saves time but costs revenue, because the moments that most need a human touch are the moments that drive the biggest deals.

How to fix it: Identify the 3–5 moments in your customer journey where a human conversation creates disproportionate value. These typically include: the first conversation after a lead is qualified, the proposal or pricing discussion, onboarding kickoff, and escalated support requests. Build your workflows to automate everything around these moments while creating clear handoff points that route the contact to a real person. Use GoHighLevel's internal notifications and task assignments to alert your team when a contact reaches a human-required stage.

Mistake #9

Ignoring SMS Consent Requirements (TCPA)

The Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) governs unsolicited text messages and automated calls in the United States. It is not a suggestion — it is federal law with teeth. And GoHighLevel makes it very easy to send SMS messages at scale, which means it also makes it easy to violate the TCPA at scale if you are not careful.

What goes wrong: Users import contact lists from trade shows, purchased databases, or old CRM exports and immediately start sending SMS campaigns without verifying opt-in consent. The TCPA imposes statutory damages of $500 per unsolicited text message, which increases to $1,500 per message for willful violations.[2] A single blast to a non-consenting list of 1,000 contacts could result in $500,000 to $1,500,000 in potential liability. Class-action TCPA lawsuits are common and aggressive — this is not a theoretical risk.

How to fix it: Implement double opt-in for all SMS contacts. This means the contact explicitly agrees to receive text messages (first opt-in) and then confirms that agreement via a reply or confirmation link (second opt-in). Use GoHighLevel's form builder to create compliant opt-in forms that include clear disclosure language about what kind of messages the contact will receive, how frequently, and how to opt out. Maintain timestamped consent records for every contact. Add "STOP to unsubscribe" language to every SMS message. If you are importing contacts from another system, only include contacts with documented SMS consent.[2]

Mistake #10

Not Disclosing Call Recording

GoHighLevel's AI voice agent and call tracking features can record phone conversations. This is useful for quality assurance and training, but call recording laws vary significantly by state and country.

What goes wrong: Users enable call recording or deploy the AI voice agent without notifying callers that the conversation is being recorded. In "two-party consent" states like California, Florida, Illinois, and 10 others, all parties on a call must consent to recording.[2] Recording without consent in these states can result in both civil liability and criminal charges. Even in "one-party consent" states, failing to disclose AI involvement in conversations can create legal and trust issues.

How to fix it: Add a recording disclosure to every voice agent script and IVR greeting. A simple statement like "This call may be recorded for quality and training purposes" at the beginning of each call satisfies most state requirements. For AI voice agent deployments, disclose that the caller is speaking with an AI assistant. Review the recording consent laws for every state where your business operates or where your contacts are located — the law that applies is typically the stricter of the two jurisdictions. When in doubt, always disclose and always get consent.[2]

Mistake #11

Underestimating the Learning Curve

GoHighLevel replaces 10+ individual tools with a single platform. That is its selling point — but it also means there is a lot to learn. Users who expect to be fully productive on day one end up frustrated and overwhelmed by the end of week one.

What goes wrong: New users try to set up everything simultaneously — CRM, funnels, email campaigns, SMS workflows, voice agent, calendar booking, reputation management — in a single weekend. They get stuck on one complex feature (usually workflows or Twilio integration), conclude that the platform is "too complicated," and cancel before the 14-day trial ends. We have seen this pattern repeatedly in the GoHighLevel Facebook community, which has over 100,000 members discussing exactly these kinds of onboarding challenges.[4]

How to fix it: Budget 2–4 weeks for setup, not 2–4 days. Prioritize your setup in this order: (1) account settings, domain, and email authentication in the first few days; (2) CRM pipeline and contact import in the first week; (3) your first automated workflow in week two; (4) additional channels and features in weeks three and four. Use GoHighLevel's built-in onboarding tutorials, their extensive knowledge base, and the 100,000+ member Facebook community for support.[1][4] If you have the budget, consider hiring a GoHighLevel-certified consultant for your initial setup — it typically costs $500–$2,000 but can save you weeks of trial and error.

Mistake #12

Not Monitoring AI Performance

GoHighLevel's AI conversation bot and AI voice agent are impressive out of the box. They respond to leads within seconds, handle common questions, and book appointments autonomously. But "set it and forget it" is not a viable strategy for AI tools that are talking to your leads and customers.

What goes wrong: Users configure the AI bot or voice agent, verify that it works during initial testing, and then stop checking on it. Over time, the AI encounters questions it was not trained for and gives vague or incorrect answers. Lead qualification criteria drift as the business evolves but the AI prompts stay the same. Conversion rates gradually decline, but nobody notices because nobody is reviewing the AI's conversations. We saw one account where the AI bot had been confidently quoting the wrong pricing for six weeks before anyone caught it.

How to fix it: Schedule a weekly 30-minute review of your AI conversations. Read through at least 10–15 recent AI-handled conversations and look for: incorrect answers, missed booking opportunities, confused or frustrated contacts, and questions the AI could not handle. Refine your AI prompts and training data based on what you find. Track your AI's key metrics — response rate, qualification accuracy, booking conversion rate — and set performance benchmarks. If any metric drops below your benchmark, investigate immediately rather than waiting for it to recover on its own.[1]