How to Set Up GoHighLevel from Scratch (Complete 2026 Guide)

Before you start

Two things to have ready before you touch any settings. First, decide which plan fits your situation. The Starter plan at $97 per month covers one business. Agency Unlimited at $297 covers unlimited client accounts. See the full plan breakdown if you are unsure. Second, set up a dedicated business phone number through GHL rather than using your personal cell. GHL uses Twilio for phone and SMS, and you will be assigned a local number that routes through the platform.

Step 1: Account basics and branding

Log into your GHL account and go to Settings > Business Profile. Fill in your business name, address, website, phone and timezone. Get this right before anything else because it populates into every automated message and email you send.

Upload your logo under Settings > Agency Settings > Agency Branding. Set your primary color to match your brand. This takes five minutes and makes every email and page you send look professional immediately.

Go to Settings > Email Services and connect a dedicated sending domain. GHL uses Mailgun under the hood. Follow the DNS setup wizard, it takes about 10 minutes and dramatically improves email deliverability compared to sending from a shared GHL domain.

Step 2: Connect your phone number

Go to Settings > Phone Numbers > Add Number. Search for a local number in your area code. GHL will prompt you to set up Twilio if you have not already. For most accounts the connection is automatic. Select your number and assign it as your primary business line.

Once connected, go to Settings > Phone Numbers and configure your number's call forwarding. Decide whether inbound calls ring your mobile, a desk phone or go straight to voicemail. Most service businesses forward to a mobile during business hours and voicemail after hours.

Test the number by calling it from your personal phone. Confirm it rings where you expect. This matters because the missed call text-back in Step 6 only fires on calls that reach the GHL number and go unanswered.

Step 3: Set up your calendar and booking

Go to Calendars > Add Calendar. Name it something clear like "Free Consultation" or "Site Visit." Set your availability hours, buffer time between appointments and the maximum days in advance someone can book.

Connect it to your Google or Outlook calendar under Calendars > Calendar Settings > Integrations. This prevents double-booking by checking your personal calendar before confirming any GHL appointment.

Set up confirmation and reminder messages. Go to Calendars > Notifications and add an SMS confirmation that fires immediately after booking, and a reminder SMS 24 hours before the appointment. These two messages alone reduce no-shows by 30 to 50 percent for most businesses.

Step 4: Build your first pipeline

Go to Opportunities > Pipelines > Add Pipeline. For a service business, start with these stages in this order:

• New Lead every new contact lands here automatically
• Contacted you have spoken or messaged them
• Estimate Sent proposal or quote delivered
• Follow Up waiting on their decision
• Won job confirmed and booked
• Completed job finished, ready for review request
• Lost went with a competitor or not moving forward

Keep it simple for the first month. You can add stages later. A pipeline you actually use beats a complex one you ignore.

Step 5: Import your contacts

Go to Contacts > Import Contacts and upload a CSV. GHL's import wizard maps your columns to its fields. The minimum useful columns are: first name, last name, phone, email. If you have job history or notes, bring those too as custom field values.

After import, tag your contacts to segment them. Use tags like "past customer," "estimate requested," "residential" or "commercial." Tags are how GHL knows which automations to trigger and which contacts to include in campaigns.

Do not worry about having perfect data. Import what you have. You can clean and add to it over time.

Step 6: Turn on missed call text-back

This is the highest-value thing you can do in GHL and it takes under 20 minutes. Go to Automations > Create Workflow > Start from Scratch. Set the trigger to Missed Call. Add an action: Send SMS. Write a short message:

"Hi, this is [Business Name]. Sorry we missed your call. We are with a customer right now. Can you tell us what you need help with and we will call you back shortly?"

Set the delay to zero so it fires within 60 seconds of the missed call. Publish the workflow. That is it. You have just set up the automation that most service businesses report as their highest ROI GHL feature. See our dedicated missed call text-back setup guide for advanced configuration options.

Step 7: Set up review requests

Go to Automations > Create Workflow. Set the trigger to Pipeline Stage Changed and select the Completed stage from your pipeline. Add a 2-hour delay, then add a Send SMS action with a review request message:

"Thanks for choosing [Business Name]. We hope everything went well. If you have a moment, a Google review would mean a lot to us: [your Google review link]"

Get your Google review link from Google Business Profile > Get more reviews. It shortens to a direct review form. Add an email follow-up 24 hours later as a backup for anyone who did not open the SMS. Most businesses see 20 to 40 percent of completed jobs turn into reviews within the first 90 days of running this.

Step 8: Build your first automation workflow

Now that your foundations are set, build an estimate follow-up sequence. Go to Automations > Create Workflow. Trigger: Pipeline Stage Changed to Estimate Sent. Then add these steps:

• Day 0, immediately: SMS: "Hi [first name], just sent over your estimate. Let me know if you have any questions."
• Day 1, 10am: Email: summary of what the estimate covers and what working with you looks like
• Day 3, 10am: SMS: "Following up on the estimate I sent. Happy to answer any questions or adjust anything."
• Day 7, 10am: Final SMS: "Just checking in one last time on the estimate. No pressure at all, let me know either way."

Add an If/Else branch after each message that checks if the contact has replied. If they reply, the sequence stops automatically. This prevents the awkward situation of automated messages going out after someone has already said yes. See our full estimate follow-up guide for the complete sequence with all message templates.

Step 9: Connect your domain

If you want to host a website or funnels inside GHL, go to Sites > Domains > Add Domain. Enter your domain name and follow the DNS instructions. GHL walks you through adding the required CNAME records to your domain registrar.

For most service businesses, keep your main website where it is and use GHL for specific landing pages and funnels. You can point a subdomain like book.yourdomain.com or go.yourdomain.com to your GHL pages without moving your main site.

Your first week checklist

If you complete all ten items in your first week, you have done more than most GHL users accomplish in their first month. The missed call text-back and review request alone will show measurable results within two to three weeks.