No matter what kind of system you’re evaluating – CRM, marketing automation, project management, you name it – the shiny features are the least important place to start.
The BrandTrellis team has spent more than two decades building and scaling digital platforms. When we are advising a company on whether a system like GoHighLevel, HubSpot or Salesforce is a good fit, we start with two simple questions:
Is the value worth the cost?
Will your team actually use it?
Everything else is secondary.
Cost: What Are You Really Paying For?
When most people think “cost,” they look at the monthly subscription and stop there. That’s a mistake.
There are three major cost categories you or your team should consider:
Licensing: What you pay every month or year per user, per contact or per feature set.
Implementation and configuration: Getting the tool set up so it actually does what you need. That includes data migration, integration with other systems, automations and permissions.
Ongoing management and support: Someone has to maintain workflows, fix issues, update things as your processes evolve and train new team members.
When we evaluated GoHighLevel at BrandTrellis, we didn’t just ask, “Is this cheaper than Salesforce or HubSpot?” We asked, “Once we factor in all three types of cost, does the value we get from this platform justify the investment?”
If you buy an expensive platform and only use a small portion of its capabilities, you’re overpaying. Conversely, if you buy a cheaper platform that forces you to bolt on five other tools and pay a consultant just to make it all talk to each other, you’re not saving money there either.
Adoption: Will Your Team Actually Use It?
The second big pillar – the one that kills most implementations – is adoption.
A “perfect” system that no one uses is worse than an imperfect one that everyone uses daily. According to the marketing research firm CSO Insights, 43% of CRM customers use fewer than half the features they have on their CRM. What’s more, 72% of customers say they’d trade functionality for ease of use.
When we talk about adoption, We are looking at two main things:
1. Does it align with existing workflows?
If a new system forces people to completely change how they work, your adoption rate is going to suffer.
The platforms that get adopted faster usually:
- Map well to how the business already operates
- Allow you to incrementally introduce new functionality rather than forcing a full process overhaul on Day One.
This is one reason tools that look and feel similar to what people already know (e.g., pipeline views similar to Pipedrive or Salesforce) tend to do better in the real world.
2. Is the interface intuitive enough?
I’m not saying every system needs to be “simple.” Powerful tools are, by nature, complex.
But they should:
- Follow common design patterns users may already know
- Make common daily tasks easy and obvious
- Hide (or at least not shove in your face) the advanced options until you need them.
When we evaluated GoHighLevel, one of the things we liked was that its CRM interface feels familiar to anyone who has used another modern CRM. Pipelines, deals, contacts – these terms and concepts are not foreign. That lowers the adoption barrier.
The Reality Check Questions
Before we ever recommend a platform to a client, we will walk them through a few reality-check questions:
- What are you hoping to achieve with this tool in the next 6-12 months?
If the answer is “everything,” that’s a red flag. We want 2-3 concrete outcomes we can measure. - Who will own this system internally?
A tool with no owner is a tool that dies. You need at least one person who is accountable for making sure the platform is configured, maintained, and used. - How much change can your team handle right now?
Introducing a new CRM in the middle of a sales reorg or a major product launch is usually a bad idea. - What are you using today, and is it actually failing you?
If a company is already on HubSpot or Salesforce, is using it, and feels they’re getting value, we are not going to casually recommend ripping it out. The cost and disruption of change can outweigh the benefits of “better” features.
Our Simple Evaluation Framework
When the BrandTrellis team is in a platform evaluation conversation, we are thinking through a simple matrix:
High cost + low adoption = disaster
High cost + high adoption = acceptable if ROI is strong
Low cost + low adoption = wasted time and distraction
Low cost + high adoption = ideal, if it truly meets your needs
GoHighLevel hit that last category for us: a reasonably priced platform, with a bit of initial complexity, but high adoption potential because it consolidated so many tools we already needed.
The takeaway is this: Don’t fall in love with a platform’s marketing site. Fall in love with the idea of your team actually using it every day and getting measurable results from it. Everything else should serve that goal.
Why This Matters More Than Features
It’s tempting to evaluate systems based on feature checklists:
“Does it do SMS?”
“Can it handle AI agents?”
“Does it integrate with tool X?”
Features matter, but only after you establish:
- That you can afford the total cost (not just licensing)
- That your people will actually adopt the platform.
A system like GoHighLevel is attractive because it consolidates a lot of functionality (CRM, marketing automation, calling, SMS, chat, AI agents, social messaging) into one place. That lowers integration costs and simplifies the tech stack. But it also introduces complexity in configuration and setup.
So the question becomes: do you have the internal expertise, or a partner like BrandTrellis, to help you through that learning curve?
Take a look at the checklist below to evaluate the questions to ask as you evaluate a CRM.
