GoHighLevel Setup Checklist: Blank Account to First Lead

A GoHighLevel setup is about forty decisions in a fixed order, and the order matters more than the speed. File the A2P 10DLC registration on day one, because the carriers approve it on their own schedule. Set up the email sending domain before the first campaign, because a domain that starts cold lands in spam. Build the pipeline before the funnel, because the funnel’s forms have to write into fields that exist. Everything else follows.

This is the checklist I run on every sub-account I build, for a single business or for an agency snapshot. The phone and texting facts are checked against HighLevel’s help center as of 3 November 2026; the order and the tests are mine, from 65+ accounts. If you would rather have it done, the sub-account setup on my pricing page is this list, built in 5 to 10 working days.

Key takeaways

Day one: business profile, users, the phone number and the A2P 10DLC registration, the email sending domain. Those three registrations have waiting times you cannot shorten.
Build in this order: pipeline and fields, calendars, forms, pages, then workflows. Each layer uses the one before it.
Four workflows cover most businesses: instant lead reply, missed-call text-back, appointment reminders and review requests. Reactivation comes once there is a list to reactivate.
Nothing is live until a real phone has received the text, a real calendar has taken the booking and a real card has paid in test mode.
Hand over a Loom walkthrough, a workflow list and a saved snapshot, so the account can be run and rebuilt without you.

1. Account and people

Business profile: legal name, address, website, time zone and business hours. The time zone drives every calendar and every workflow wait.
Users and permissions: one seat per person who will log in, with the owner as admin. Never share one login.
Custom values for the details workflows will reuse: business name, phone, booking link, review link, service area. Change them once, everywhere.
Notification settings: who gets the new-lead email and SMS, and who gets the missed-call alert.

2. Phone and texting, on day one

Buy or port the business number inside HighLevel. Decide whether it forwards to a mobile, a desk phone or the app.
File the A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration. HighLevel’s A2P summary says registration is required when a business sends SMS or MMS to US recipients from local numbers, and my missed-call text-back guide prices it: $22.50 to $64 one-time and $1.50 to $10 a month, passed through at cost. Toll-free numbers go through a separate verification instead.
Until the registration is approved, texts can show as sent and never arrive, so do not test or launch SMS workflows before the approval shows in the account.
Set the voicemail greeting, the call timeout and the missed-call text-back toggle under Settings, Phone System, Voice. HighLevel recommends a ring time of 10 to 20 seconds before a call counts as missed.
Call recording and the whisper message, if you want them, with the consent wording your state requires.

3. Email, on day one

Add a dedicated sending domain, on a subdomain such as mail.yourbusiness.com, and publish the SPF, DKIM and DMARC records HighLevel generates.
Set the default from name and reply-to address, and make sure replies land in the conversations inbox, not a forgotten mailbox.
Warm the domain: the first sends go to your most engaged contacts, not the whole imported list.

4. Pipeline, fields and tags

Write down how a lead becomes a customer today: who answers, how quotes go out, what counts as won. Turn that into pipeline stages; the default pipeline that ships with the account almost never survives this step.
Custom fields for the facts you quote or route on: service, property or job size, source, budget, preferred time.
Tags for the things that are not a stage: source, campaign, lead quality, do-not-text.
Opportunity settings: what moves a card automatically (a booked call, a paid invoice) and what stays manual.

5. Calendars

One calendar per bookable thing: estimate, consultation, service visit. Each with its own duration, buffer, availability and the staff it assigns to.
Confirmation email and SMS, a reminder 24 hours before and one an hour before, with the address or the video link.
Google or Outlook sync for every staff member, so a booking never lands on a lunch break or a day off.
Round-robin or priority assignment if more than one person takes the appointments.

6. Forms, surveys and pages

A short form for the site and a longer survey for the application or quote path, both writing into the custom fields from step 4, with consent wording for texting.
The booking or quote page in the builder, on the business domain, connected through the sites domain settings, with the form, the calendar and the tap-to-call number.
Thank-you pages for the form and the booking, because that is where the tracking event fires and where the follow-up link lives.
Stripe connected and a product created if anything is paid online, tested in test mode.

7. The workflows, in order

Instant lead reply: a text and an email within a minute of any form, with the booking link, from the business number, inside business hours and a different message outside them.
Missed-call text-back: built as a workflow, so you control hours, wording and who is notified, with a stop when the caller replies.
Appointment reminders: confirmation, 24 hours, one hour, with a reschedule link, and a no-show follow-up the same day.
Review requests: after a completed job or visit, one message with the review link and one reminder, then stop.
Internal notifications: new lead, booked call, no-show and a daily digest to the owner.
Reactivation: once the contact list exists, a three-message sequence to leads that went quiet, with an opt-out that works.
Every workflow named for what it does, with an entry in the workflow list you will hand over.

8. Reputation, integrations and tracking

Google Business Profile connected, so reviews show in the account and the review link in the workflows is the real one.
Facebook and Instagram lead forms connected if you run ads there; Google Business Profile messaging if you use it.
Zapier, Make or n8n only for the tools HighLevel does not connect natively, with a test row each.
Google Analytics 4 and the Meta pixel on the pages, with a conversion event on each thank-you page, so ad spend is judged on booked calls rather than clicks.
Compliance: DND and opt-out handling confirmed, consent captured on every form that leads to a text, and the business name in every outbound SMS.

The tests before you call it live

Submit the website form from a phone you own. You should get the text and the email within a minute, see the contact in the right stage with the right tags, and see the owner notification arrive.
Call the business number and let it ring out. You should get the missed-call text from the business number, and the conversation should appear in the inbox.
Book an appointment from the page. You should get the confirmation, see it on the staff calendar, and see the opportunity move.
Pay for a test product in Stripe test mode. The invoice, the receipt and the paid tag should all appear.
Reply STOP to a text. The contact should be marked DND and every sequence should stop.
Search for duplicates: one test lead should have produced one contact, one opportunity and one of each message, not two.

If any of the six fails, the account is not live, whatever the dashboard says.

What to hand over

A recorded walkthrough of the account, the workflow list with what each one does and when it fires, the login and the user seats in the client’s name, the registration confirmations for A2P and the sending domain, the list of custom values, and a saved snapshot so the structure can be loaded again. My snapshots guide covers what a snapshot does and does not carry; the per-client steps above are exactly what it leaves out.

Doing it yourself, or having it done

Doing it yourself costs the plan, from $97 a month on Starter, plus usage for calls, texts and email, plus the evenings. My pricing guide breaks the plan and usage costs down. Having it done is the sub-account setup at $497 for the core list above, moving toward $1,500 when funnels, a full site or extra automations are added, in 5 to 10 working days, with 30 days of fixes. Agencies setting up many accounts should read the white-label page, where the checklist becomes a snapshot and a per-client routine.

Frequently asked questions

How long does a GoHighLevel setup take?

With everything in this checklist and the content ready, 5 to 10 working days for one business. The one thing outside anyone’s control is the A2P 10DLC approval, which the carriers handle on their own timeline, so texting can start a little after the rest of the account is live.

What is the first thing to set up in GoHighLevel?

The phone number with its A2P 10DLC registration, and the email sending domain. Both have waiting periods, and everything you build afterwards depends on them working.

Do I need A2P 10DLC if I use a toll-free number?

No. HighLevel’s A2P summary says toll-free numbers go through a separate toll-free verification rather than A2P 10DLC brand and campaign registration. You still have to register before the number can send text messages at volume.

Can I skip the email sending domain and use the default?

You can send, but deliverability suffers and you have no control over the reputation. A dedicated subdomain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC takes twenty minutes and is the difference between the inbox and the spam folder for the sequences you are about to build.

How much does a GoHighLevel setup cost?

Done yourself, the plan from $97 a month plus usage. Done for you, from $497 fixed for the core list on this page, most single-business accounts landing between $497 and $1,500 depending on funnels and automations, with the quote fixed before work starts.