GoHighLevel vs ClickFunnels in 2026: Which One, and When Both
GoHighLevel vs ClickFunnels compared on price, CRM, follow-up, checkout, courses and agency use, with the plan limits from both pricing pages on 3 November 2026.
By Talha Abid8 min read
GoHighLevel and ClickFunnels overlap on one thing, the funnel builder, and differ on almost everything around it. ClickFunnels is a sales page and checkout tool with email, courses and communities attached. GoHighLevel is a CRM platform with a funnel builder inside it, plus a phone system, two-way SMS, calendars, reputation management and the workflow engine that ties them together, built to run many client accounts under one agency login.
I have built 30 or more funnels on ClickFunnels and 65 or more systems on GoHighLevel, and I move funnels from one to the other most months, so this is a working comparison rather than a feature list. The plan limits and prices below come from ClickFunnels' pricing page and HighLevel’s pricing page as they read on 3 November 2026.
Key takeaways
- Both start at $97 a month, but they are not the same $97. ClickFunnels Launch caps you at 10,000 contacts, two team members and one brand, with no API or custom code editor. GoHighLevel Starter gives unlimited contacts and users across three sub-accounts, with usage charges for SMS, calls and email on top.
- ClickFunnels wins on the selling page: the editor, the checkout with order bumps and one-click upsells, the affiliate centre and the courses are built for selling information products.
- GoHighLevel wins on everything after the opt-in: pipelines, missed-call text-back, appointment reminders, review requests, two-way texting and calling from the same inbox.
- Agencies choose GoHighLevel because of sub-accounts, snapshots and white label. ClickFunnels is priced per brand workspace, which gets expensive at five clients.
- Running both is common and workable: ClickFunnels for the funnel, GoHighLevel for the CRM, joined by a webhook. Moving entirely to GoHighLevel is a rebuild, not an export.
What each one is
ClickFunnels 2.0 is a page builder for funnels and websites with the pieces an online course or coaching business sells through: order forms, one-click upsells, email broadcasts and sequences, courses, communities and an affiliate centre on the higher plans. One account is one brand workspace on the entry plan, which suits a creator with one offer.
GoHighLevel is a CRM first. Contacts, pipelines, conversations by text, email and phone, calendars, reputation, payments and workflows sit in every sub-account, and the funnel and website builder is one tab among them. The agency layer above the sub-accounts, with snapshots to clone a setup and white label to brand the app, is why it became the default platform for marketing agencies. My guide on what GoHighLevel is goes deeper.
Pricing, side by side
ClickFunnels lists four plans. Launch is $97 a month, or $81 a month billed annually, with unlimited funnels and pages, one brand workspace, two team members, 10,000 email contacts, 50,000 emails a month, three courses and three communities, five custom domains, and no API, webhooks or custom code editor. Scale is $197 ($164 annually) with five workspaces, five team members, 75,000 contacts, 300,000 emails, six courses and communities, unlimited domains, webhooks and full API access and the custom code editor. Optimize is $297 ($248 annually) with ten workspaces and members, 150,000 contacts, 750,000 emails and ten courses. Dominate is $5,997 a year, annual only, with twenty of each and 400,000 contacts.
GoHighLevel lists three. Starter is $97 a month ($970 a year) with three sub-accounts, unlimited contacts and users and the core feature set. Unlimited is $297 ($2,970 a year) with unlimited sub-accounts, phone and email rebilling at cost and basic API access. Founder, formerly Agency Pro, is $497 ($4,970 a year) with rebilling at a markup and SaaS mode. The page marks SMS, email and calling as "Usage based charges apply": HighLevel’s billing article lists email at $0.675 per 1,000 and SMS and calls at Twilio-equivalent rates, and US texting also needs A2P 10DLC registration, which my missed-call text-back guide prices out.
| ClickFunnels Launch | ClickFunnels Scale | GoHighLevel Starter | GoHighLevel Unlimited | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monthly price | $97 ($81 annual) | $197 ($164 annual) | $97 | $297 |
| Contacts | 10,000 | 75,000 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Team members or users | 2 | 5 | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Brands or client accounts | 1 workspace | 5 workspaces | 3 sub-accounts | Unlimited sub-accounts |
| Phone, SMS and calling | Not included | Not included | Included, usage billed | Included, usage billed |
| API and webhooks | No | Yes | No | Basic |
| Custom code | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
The table is why the "both cost $97" comparison misleads. A coach with 12,000 subscribers is on ClickFunnels Scale at $197 before anything else; the same list on GoHighLevel costs the plan fee plus the emails sent. An agency with five clients is at five ClickFunnels workspaces or one GoHighLevel Unlimited plan.
Where ClickFunnels wins
The selling page. ClickFunnels' editor and templates were built for long sales pages, video sales letters and webinar registrations, and they still produce a cleaner page faster than GoHighLevel’s builder, which I say as someone who builds in both every week. The checkout is the other reason: order bumps, one-click upsells and downsells, two-step order forms and payment plans are native and well tested, because the whole product grew up around them.
Courses and communities are included from the entry plan, three of each on Launch, and the affiliate centre on the higher plans lets you run a partner programme without another tool. For a creator selling information products to a list they already own, that is the whole business in one account, and the limits only bite when the list passes 10,000.
Where GoHighLevel wins
Everything that happens after someone gives you their number. A pipeline that matches how you sell, a text that goes out when a call is missed, a reminder before the appointment, a review request after it, and a reactivation campaign to the people who went quiet. These are the workflows I set up first in every account, and ClickFunnels has no equivalent because it has no phone system and no two-way texting.
Calendars with confirmations, a shared inbox for text, email, calls and social messages, reputation management and payments are all in the same sub-account, so a local business runs on one login. Contacts and users are unlimited, which matters once a team touches the CRM. And the agency layer has no counterpart: snapshots clone a whole setup into a new client account, white label puts your brand on the app, and SaaS mode on the Founder plan sells it as your own product, which my white label and SaaS mode guide covers.
The costs people miss
On ClickFunnels, the contact cap and the missing API on Launch are the two surprises. A list that grows forces the upgrade, and the first integration you need beyond the built-in ones needs Scale for webhooks. Each extra brand is a workspace, so a consultant with two offers under two names is paying for Scale as well.
On GoHighLevel, the surprises are usage and setup. Texts, calls and emails are billed as you use them, A2P registration has its own fees and approval wait, and the account does nothing useful until someone builds the pipeline, the calendars and the workflows. The learning curve is real: most of the accounts I inherit were bought with good intentions and left half set up. My GoHighLevel review lists the complaints in full.
Which should you choose
Pick ClickFunnels if you sell courses, coaching or digital products to an email list, want the strongest checkout and affiliate tools, and do not need calling, texting or a sales pipeline. Pick GoHighLevel if your leads need to be called or texted back, your business books appointments, you run more than one brand or client, or you want the funnel and the follow-up in one account you own. Pick GoHighLevel without hesitation if you are an agency.
If you already run funnels on ClickFunnels and the only thing missing is a CRM with texting, you do not have to move. Keep the pages where they are, send each form submission to a GoHighLevel sub-account by webhook, which needs the Scale plan, and let GoHighLevel do the follow-up. That is the setup I build for coaches who like their ClickFunnels pages and need missed-call text-back for the sales calls.
Moving from one to the other
There is no export between the two builders. A move is a rebuild: pages recreated in the GoHighLevel builder, contacts imported from a CSV with their tags, sequences rebuilt as workflows, order forms recreated against your Stripe products, and a redirect for every old URL so ads and emails keep landing. For one to three funnels it takes one to two weeks and the old account stays live until the new one has taken real orders. The full process and the fixed price are on my ClickFunnels to GoHighLevel migration page.
What I build, at fixed prices
A funnel built on either platform starts at $349, a ClickFunnels build or fix at $299, a GoHighLevel sub-account setup with the core automations at $497, and a migration from ClickFunnels to GoHighLevel at $499. Every price and what it includes is on the pricing page. If you decide on GoHighLevel and do not have an account yet, you can start a trial here; HighLevel pays me a referral commission if you do, and your price stays the same.
Frequently asked questions
Is GoHighLevel cheaper than ClickFunnels?
At the entry level they both list $97 a month, but GoHighLevel adds usage charges for texts, calls and emails, and ClickFunnels adds plan upgrades as contacts and brands grow. For a single creator with a list under 10,000, ClickFunnels is usually the cheaper bill. For a local business that texts its leads, or anyone with several brands, GoHighLevel is cheaper by the second account.
Can GoHighLevel replace ClickFunnels completely?
For most businesses, yes: funnels, order forms, courses, communities and email all exist in GoHighLevel. The pieces ClickFunnels still does better are the sales page editor and the affiliate centre, so a business built around affiliates and long-form sales pages should test those two before moving.
Does ClickFunnels have a CRM?
ClickFunnels 2.0 keeps contact profiles, tags and email history and sends broadcasts and sequences, which covers email marketing for one brand. It does not include a phone system, two-way SMS, a shared conversations inbox or appointment calendars with reminders, which is what people usually mean by a CRM for a service business.
Which one is easier to learn?
ClickFunnels, because it does less. A first funnel can be live in a day. GoHighLevel takes longer because the pipeline, calendars, phone setup and workflows all need decisions, which is why most owners have the first account set up for them and then run it themselves.
Can I use ClickFunnels pages with the GoHighLevel CRM?
Yes. A ClickFunnels form or order can post to GoHighLevel through a webhook, which ClickFunnels offers from the Scale plan, and the contact then flows through the GoHighLevel pipeline and workflows. It is a common halfway house before a full migration.