Most GoHighLevel accounts are incomplete. Not broken — just incomplete. The platform is so deep that most users set up the features they recognise and unknowingly leave the most powerful parts untouched. The result: a CRM that does 30% of what it could.

This checklist covers every critical step of a proper GoHighLevel onboarding — from your first agency settings to advanced automations and integrations. Work through it in order. By step 20, you’ll have a fully functional GHL system, not just a half-configured account.

Estimated time to complete: 4–8 hours for a standard account. More for complex multi-location or agency setups.

Before You Start: What You Need Ready

Gather these before logging in:

• Your business name, address, phone number, and website URL
• A domain you own (for email sending and funnel/website hosting)
• Your Twilio account credentials (or a willingness to use GHL’s LC Phone)
• Your Mailgun or SMTP credentials (or LC Email)
• Stripe account for payment processing
• Google Business Profile login (for review management)
• Facebook Business Manager access (for Messenger integration)
• All existing contact data exported from your previous CRM

Phase 1: Agency Account Setup (Steps 1–5)

Step 1: Configure Agency Settings

Navigate to Agency Settings and complete every field: business name, logo, address, phone number, timezone, and currency. These populate across all your sub-accounts, so getting them right now saves you correcting them in 20 places later.

Also configure your agency email — this is the ‘From’ address for all system notifications. Use a business domain email, not Gmail.

Step 2: Set Up LC Phone or Twilio

GoHighLevel needs a phone system to send and receive SMS. You have two options:

• LC Phone (Lead Connector Phone) — GHL’s native phone system. Simpler to set up, built directly into the platform. Recommended for most users.
• Twilio — more control, slightly cheaper at volume. Required if you need specific number types or international numbers.

Whichever you choose: purchase at least one phone number and verify it for A2P 10DLC (required by carriers for business SMS in the US). Skipping A2P registration means your SMS will be filtered or blocked.

Step 3: Set Up Email Sending (LC Email or Mailgun)

Without email set up, GHL can’t send campaigns, automations, or notifications. LC Email is the easiest option — available directly in GHL settings. For higher deliverability at volume, connect Mailgun with your domain’s DNS records (SPF, DKIM, DMARC).

Test your sending: trigger a test email and check it lands in the inbox, not spam. Check your domain’s spam score at mail-tester.com before sending any campaigns.

Step 4: Connect Your Domain

You need a custom domain for: funnels and websites, email links, and your branded portal (if using SaaS Mode). Add your domain in Settings → Domains, then point your DNS records as instructed. Allow 24–48 hours for full propagation.

Step 5: Configure Business Hours

Set your business hours in Settings → Business Hours. This controls when your AI Employee (conversational bot) responds, when missed-call-text-back triggers, and when calendar availability is shown. Getting this wrong means prospects receive responses at 3am.

Phase 2: CRM Foundation (Steps 6–10)

Step 6: Build Your Pipeline

A pipeline is the backbone of your CRM. Go to CRM → Pipelines → Add Pipeline. Create one pipeline for your primary lead flow. Typical stages:

• New Lead
• Contacted
• Qualified
• Proposal Sent
• Won
• Lost

Resist the urge to create 15 stages. Start simple. Add complexity only when you can see leads consistently reaching each stage.

Step 7: Import Your Contacts

Go to Contacts → Import Contacts and upload your CSV. Map each column to the correct GHL field. Common mapping mistakes to avoid:

• Mapping ‘First Name’ to the Full Name field (creates ‘John Doe’ in the First Name column)
• Importing duplicate contacts without cleaning the CSV first
• Losing custom field data by not creating the custom fields before importing

Before importing, create any custom contact fields you need (Settings → Custom Fields → Contacts). Import after these are created.

Step 8: Create Tags

Tags are GHL’s most powerful segmentation tool. Create a consistent tag taxonomy before you start. Good tag categories:

• Lead source: source-google, source-facebook, source-referral
• Status: hot-lead, qualified, nurture, not-qualified
• Industry or service interest: interested-implementation, interested-automation
• Lifecycle: new-lead, active-client, past-client

Tags are case-sensitive and hard to merge later. Standardise your naming convention (lowercase-with-hyphens is most common) and document it somewhere your team can reference.

Step 9: Set Up Custom Fields

Custom fields let you capture information that GHL’s default fields don’t cover. Create them in Settings → Custom Fields. Think about: what data do you need on every contact? Common ones:

• Industry
• Business size
• Monthly ad spend
• Current CRM platform
• Lead source (beyond just the tag)

Custom fields can be added to forms and surveys, referenced in workflows, and used in email/SMS personalisation tokens.

Step 10: Create Your First Smart List

Smart Lists are saved filters in your contact database. Create at least these three:

• All Active Leads: Pipeline Stage is not Won or Lost
• Hot Leads: Tag = hot-lead
• No Activity (30 days): Last activity date is more than 30 days ago

Smart Lists update automatically as contacts meet or stop meeting the criteria.

Phase 3: Calendar & Booking (Steps 11–13)

Step 11: Configure Your Calendar

Calendars (Settings → Calendars) are one of GHL’s most-used features. For each calendar: set your appointment duration, buffer time between appointments, maximum bookings per day, advance notice required, and which team member it belongs to.

Connect your Google Calendar or Outlook Calendar to avoid double-bookings. GHL will check your external calendar for conflicts in real time.

Step 12: Customise Your Booking Page

The booking page is often the first interaction a prospect has with your business. Customise: your logo and colours, a short description of what the call is for, the confirmation message, and the pre-appointment questions (captured in a form the prospect fills before booking).

Set up a booking confirmation email and a reminder email (24 hours before) and reminder SMS (1 hour before). Businesses that add SMS reminders see no-show rates drop by 30–40%.

Step 13: Build a No-Show Sequence

Create a workflow that triggers when an appointment status changes to ‘No Show’. The sequence: immediate SMS (‘We missed you — want to reschedule?’), 2-hour email follow-up, and a 24-hour final SMS. This alone recovers 15–20% of no-shows.

Phase 4: Automation Foundations (Steps 14–17)

Step 14: Set Up Missed Call Text Back

Settings → Business Services → Missed Call Text Back. Enable it, write your text message (‘Hi [name], sorry I missed your call — how can I help?’), and set your business hours. This is the single highest-ROI automation in GoHighLevel. Turn it on for every client account.

Step 15: Build a New Lead Nurture Workflow

Create a workflow triggered by a new lead entering your pipeline (or a form submission). The sequence should include: immediate SMS (‘Thanks for reaching out — we’ll be in touch shortly’), email follow-up within 5 minutes with your calendar link, second email at 24 hours with a value piece, third touch at 72 hours.

The 5-minute contact rule: leads contacted within 5 minutes are 21x more likely to convert than those contacted after 30 minutes. Your workflow enforces this automatically.

Step 16: Configure the AI Employee (Conversation AI)

AI Employee (now called Conversation AI in GHL) handles initial responses to inbound messages 24/7. Set it up in Settings → Conversation AI. Define: what it can answer, how it should respond, when it should escalate to a human, and what appointment it should book.

Test your AI Employee by sending test messages from different channels — SMS, email, Facebook Messenger, Instagram DM. Each channel may need separate testing.

Step 17: Set Up Review Requests

Go to Reputation Management → Review Requests. Create a workflow that sends a review request at the right moment — typically 24–48 hours after a job is completed or a positive conversation. The request should: go via SMS first (higher open rate), include a direct link to your Google Business Profile, and be personalised with the customer’s name.

Phase 5: Funnels, Websites & Integrations (Steps 18–20)

Step 18: Build or Import Your First Funnel

Even if you already have a website, build at least one lead capture funnel natively in GHL. A funnel keeps prospects inside the GHL ecosystem — meaning form submissions, page visits, and conversions are all tracked and can trigger automations automatically.

Use the GHL funnel builder (Sites → Funnels → Add Funnel) or import a snapshot that includes pre-built funnel templates. A basic lead gen funnel has two pages: a landing page with a form, and a thank-you page with your booking calendar.

Step 19: Connect Third-Party Integrations

Connect the tools your business already uses:

• Facebook & Instagram: Settings → Integrations → Facebook → connect your Business Manager and Pages
• Google My Business: For review management and conversation routing
• Stripe: Settings → Payments → Stripe. Required for any payment links, order forms, or subscriptions inside GHL
• Zapier or Make: For any tool GHL doesn’t natively integrate with
• QuickBooks: If you need invoice sync

Step 20: Run Your System QA

Before going live, test every piece of your setup:

• Submit your lead capture form — does the contact appear in GHL? Does the automation trigger?
• Book an appointment — does it appear in your calendar? Did you receive a confirmation email?
• Send yourself an SMS — does it deliver? Does your reply come back into GHL?
• Trigger a review request — did you receive it? Does the Google link work?
• Test missed call text back — call your GHL number from another phone and miss it. Did the text arrive?

Key Takeaways

• Complete all 5 phases in order — each phase builds on the last.
• Register for A2P 10DLC before sending any business SMS (or your messages will be blocked).
• Missed call text back is the highest-ROI automation in GHL — enable it immediately.
• Don’t skip QA testing — a misconfigured automation that fires on real leads is worse than no automation.
• Standardise your tag naming convention before importing any contacts.
• 5-minute contact rule: your lead nurture workflow should trigger within 5 minutes of a form submission.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does GoHighLevel onboarding take?

A basic account setup takes 4–8 hours if you have all your information ready. A full agency setup with multiple sub-accounts, custom funnels, and advanced automations typically takes 20–40 hours spread over 1–2 weeks.

Do I need Twilio to use SMS in GoHighLevel?

No. GoHighLevel offers LC Phone (Lead Connector Phone) as a native alternative to Twilio. LC Phone is simpler to set up and works well for most users. Twilio gives you more control and may be preferable for high-volume or international use.

What is A2P 10DLC and do I have to register?

A2P 10DLC (Application-to-Person 10-digit long code) is a US carrier regulation requiring all businesses sending SMS from 10-digit numbers to register their brand and campaigns. It’s mandatory — unregistered numbers face heavy filtering. Registration takes 2–4 weeks, so do this first.

Can I import my contacts from another CRM?

Yes. GHL accepts CSV imports. Export your contacts from your current CRM, clean the file, create any custom fields in GHL first, then import with field mapping. For large imports (50,000+ contacts), run a test import with 50 contacts first.

What’s the difference between a workflow and a campaign?

Workflows are GHL’s automation engine — triggered by events (form submission, tag added, appointment booked) and can do almost anything. Campaigns are simpler scheduled message sequences. Workflows replaced campaigns for most use cases. Learn workflows first.

What should I set up if I only have 1 hour?

In order: (1) Connect your phone number and enable Missed Call Text Back, (2) create one pipeline with basic stages, (3) set up your calendar and booking page. That’s the minimum viable GHL setup.

Want this done for you? Our GHL specialists can complete all 20 steps for you, live, in 5–7 days — get GoHighLevel implementation help and skip the setup entirely.

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