How to use GoHighLevel: a beginner's setup order from first login to first automated reply

The short version for GoHighLevel beginners

To use GoHighLevel, set up one sub-account in this order: business details and calendar, contacts, a phone number that can send texts, one pipeline, the Missed Call Text Back setting, and one follow-up workflow. Then test it with your own phone before any customer sees it.

Beginners tend to open every menu at once. The product has funnels, courses, invoicing, social posting and more, and none of it needs to be touched in the first week. The steps below use menu paths from HighLevel's help center. This site has not used the product hands-on, so the steps are documentation-based.

What you need before you start

• A plan. Starter is $97 per month, as read on 3 October 2026, after a 14-day trial. It includes unlimited users and contacts and three sub-accounts.
• Admin access. Only admin users can import contacts.
• A contact list as a CSV file under 30MB. Each row needs a name, an email or a phone number.
• A phone number that is allowed to text. Local numbers need A2P 10DLC registration; toll-free numbers need verification. A local number costs $1.15 per month.
• A wallet balance. Texts, calls and emails are charged by usage from a wallet that recharges your card automatically.

Eight setup steps in order

1. Open your sub-account and find LaunchPad in the left menu if you have it. It is the official checklist and starts with foundational setup. HighLevel says it is not shown on every account, so follow the steps below if it is missing.
2. Enter business details, branding and opening hours, then create a calendar. These are the first LaunchPad items.
3. Import contacts. Go to the Contacts tab, open Smart Lists and choose Import Contacts. Upload the CSV, map the columns, tick the confirmation box and start. Matching emails or phone numbers are merged, not duplicated.
4. Add a phone number and register it for texting. Nothing else that sends SMS works until this is done.
5. Create one pipeline. Go to Opportunities, click Pipelines, then Create New Pipeline. Name the stages and save. HighLevel's own examples include New Lead, Booked Call and Closed.
6. Turn on Missed Call Text Back. Go to Settings, Phone System, Voice, then Voicemail & Missed Call Text Back. Tick the enable box, write your message and send a test. Set the incoming call timeout to 10 to 20 seconds, the range HighLevel recommends.
7. Build one follow-up workflow. In Automation, create a workflow and open its Settings tab. Turn on Stop on Response so it stops when the lead replies, and set a time window so texts only go out in business hours.
8. Add a staff alert. Use the Send Internal Notification action so a person is told by email, app or SMS when a lead replies. Then call your own number from another phone and watch the whole chain.

A worked example: a three-person cleaning company

A cleaning company with three staff takes the Starter plan at $97. It imports 600 past customers from a spreadsheet, rents one local number at $1.15 and builds a pipeline with four stages: New Lead, Quoted, Booked and Closed.

It enables Missed Call Text Back with a 15 second timeout. In a month it misses 90 calls, so 90 texts go out at $0.00747 each, about $0.67. A workflow sends one more text the next morning to anyone who has not answered, inside a 9am to 5pm window. If all 90 get it, that is another $0.67. The month's bill is roughly $99.50 before A2P registration fees and any calls made from the dialer. The missed call text back setup guide covers the settings one by one.

The mistakes the documentation warns about

The most documented mistake is duplicate texts. Missed Call Text Back fires on every missed call, including repeat calls from the same person. HighLevel's article recommends using its workflow recipe with a wait step of about 20 minutes, or tag filters, if callers often call back.

The second is turning on texting before the number is registered. The feature needs at least one SMS-eligible number in the account. The third is forgetting that a workflow keeps running after a person replies unless Stop on Response is on. Each of these is a setting, not a fault, and each is fixed in a minute once you know where it is. The response limitations page lists more.

How to learn GoHighLevel for free

• HighLevel Academy: the company's learning hub, announced in November 2025, with free on-demand courses and certifications on workflows, funnels and AI tools.
• HighLevel Bootcamp: a one-hour live session on Zoom, described on its page as free to join and listed as running every weekday at 11am Central. Its page says there is no recording, so you must attend in full.
• The help center: every menu path on this page comes from a help article, and most articles carry a last-modified date.
• LaunchPad product tours: click-by-click overlays inside the app for each setup task.

Learn one job first. Once missed calls are answered and a pipeline is in use, add the next feature from the feature list. Prices were read on 3 October 2026 and can change.