Automation
GoHighLevel workflows: what is free and what is metered
The workflow builder itself is free on every GoHighLevel plan, including the $97 Starter, with no cap on workflows or steps. What costs money is premium actions and triggers, billed as executions: 100 free for the lifetime of the account, then $10 a month for 10,000 and $50 for 65,000. Ordinary steps like send email or add tag never count.
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The short version
- Unlimited workflows on every plan. Automation is not what the tiers gate.
- Only premium actions, premium triggers, marketplace apps and LC Apps burn executions.
- The free allowance is 100 executions for the life of the account, not per month.
- Past your bundle it bills automatically. There is no hard stop, so a loop costs money rather than halting.
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The builder is free
This is the fact most articles about GoHighLevel automation get wrong, and it changes the buying decision. The workflow builder is not a higher-tier feature. An agency on the $97 Starter plan gets exactly the same builder, the same triggers, the same branching and the same unlimited number of workflows as an agency paying $497.
What the tiers gate is how many client accounts you can run and whether you can put your brand on the platform. Automation capability is flat across the range. If you are choosing a plan on the basis of automation, you are choosing on the wrong axis, and the pricing breakdown covers what actually differs.
What an execution is
The distinction is worth learning properly, because it decides whether your automation costs nothing or costs a tier. A workflow that waits three days, checks a condition, adds a tag, sends an email and moves a pipeline stage burns zero executions no matter how many contacts run through it. A workflow that calls a marketplace app, fires a premium trigger or uses an LC App burns one execution every time that step runs, per contact.
External AI model steps sit outside this meter as well, but that is not a saving, because AI has a meter of its own. Every message the automation sends is also charged separately from the wallet. The execution count is one of several bills a busy workflow generates, which is why our AI pricing page matters if you are automating anything with a model in it.
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What the builder costs | Nothing. The workflow builder is on every plan including the $97 Starter, with no cap on the number of workflows or the number of steps in them. |
| What actually costs money | Premium actions and premium triggers, billed as executions. Marketplace apps and LC Apps count too. Ordinary actions such as send email, add tag, wait, or if/else do not. |
| How the meter resets | Monthly, with your billing cycle, on every paid tier. The free allowance is the exception, it is 100 executions for the lifetime of the account. |
| What happens past the bundle | It keeps running and bills the overage automatically at your tier rate. There is no hard stop, so a runaway loop bills rather than halts. |
| What it does not cover | Everything with its own meter. SMS, calls, email sends, AI usage and phone numbers bill separately from the wallet whatever your Workflow Pro tier. |
Workflow Pro pricing
Four tiers, and the interesting column is the last one. The per-execution rate falls as you climb, so the tiers are not simply bigger buckets of the same thing. Scale gives you six and a half times Starter’s volume for five times the price, and halves the overage rate on top.
The review request action is the workflow most local businesses build first, covered on the reputation management page.
| Tier | Price | Included executions | Each after that | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | 100 executions, lifetime | $0.01 | A lifetime allowance, not monthly. Most agencies burn it in the first week. |
| Starter | $10 / month | 10,000 / month | $0.008 | The realistic floor once a single premium workflow is live. |
| Growth | $25 / month | 30,000 / month | $0.006 | Three times the volume for two and a half times the price. |
| Scale | $50 / month | 65,000 / month | $0.004 | The cheapest per execution, at $0.00077 each inside the bundle. |
The builder is the part you should test
Build one real workflow during the trial rather than reading about the interface. It is the single fastest way to find out whether the learning curve is one you will climb.
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The 100 execution trap
Every other meter in GoHighLevel resets monthly. This one does not. The free tier gives an account 100 premium executions for its entire existence, so a single premium workflow attached to a moderately busy form can exhaust it inside a week and then quietly start billing at a cent per run.
A cent sounds like nothing until it is running per contact per step. Ten thousand executions on the free tier’s overage rate is $100. The same ten thousand on the $10 Starter tier is $10. If you know you are going to use premium actions at all, the $10 tier is not an upgrade, it is the cheaper option from the first thousand runs.
This kind of thing is why we keep a running list of the charges that surprise people on the main review, and why the upgrades page is worth reading before you click accept on anything inside the account.
What to automate first
The automations that pay for themselves fastest are the boring ones, and none of them need a premium action. Speed to lead is the obvious first build: a form submission fires a text within sixty seconds, then an email, then a task for a human if neither gets a reply. Missed call text-back is the second, and it is close to free money for any business that answers a phone.
After that, appointment reminders, a review request timed a day after a job is marked complete, and a slow reactivation sequence for contacts that went quiet ninety days ago. All ordinary actions. All unmetered. Together they cover most of what an agency actually sells as automation, which is worth knowing before you budget for a Workflow Pro tier you may not need yet.
| Automation | Triggered by | Costs executions? |
|---|---|---|
| Speed to lead, text then email then task | Form or funnel submission | No |
| Missed call text-back | Inbound call not answered | No |
| Appointment reminder sequence | Calendar booking | No |
| Review request after job completion | Pipeline stage change | No |
| Anything calling a marketplace or LC App | Varies | Yes, one per run |
Note the last row. The moment a workflow reaches outside the platform, it starts counting. That is the honest dividing line, and it is a reasonable one: HighLevel meters the steps that cost it money to run and leaves its own alone.
Two things workflows are commonly wired to: granting access to courses and memberships, which is the strongest reason to host a course here, and responding to form submissions the moment they arrive. Anything that sends a text is billed at the phone system rates.
The single most valuable workflow for a trade is not on this page, it is an automatic reply to a missed call. That one is covered on missed call text back.
If the automation is more than the business needs
Workflow depth is where GoHighLevel is genuinely strong and where most accounts use perhaps a tenth of it. Systeme.io's automation is simple to the point of blunt, which for a single offer is usually enough, and it costs nothing to find out.
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The middle setting
ClickFunnels sits between the two: real automation and email sequences without the branching complexity, at the same $97 as GoHighLevel Starter.
Start the ClickFunnels trialAffiliate link. We earn a commission if you subscribe, at no extra cost to you. 14 day trial, then $97 a month with a 30 day money-back guarantee.
Common questions
Are workflows included in every GoHighLevel plan?
Yes. The builder, the triggers, the branching and the number of workflows are identical on the $97, $297 and $497 plans. Automation is not what separates the tiers, client sub-accounts and branding are.
What is the difference between a workflow and a campaign?
Campaigns are the older, simpler sequence tool and are effectively superseded. Workflows are the visual builder with branching, conditions, waits and triggers. New builds should use workflows, and campaigns exist mostly for accounts that predate them.
How much does Workflow Pro cost?
Free for 100 executions across the lifetime of the account, then $10 a month for 10,000, $25 for 30,000 or $50 for 65,000. Overage past the bundle runs from $0.008 down to $0.004 per execution depending on tier.
What counts as a premium action?
Premium triggers and actions, marketplace apps and LC Apps. Standard steps such as send email, send SMS, add tag, wait, if/else and update contact do not count, however many contacts pass through them.
Does GoHighLevel stop my workflows when I run out?
No. It keeps running and bills the overage automatically at your tier rate. There is no hard cap, so a workflow that loops will generate charges rather than fail, which is worth knowing before you build anything recursive.
Do the emails and texts my workflow sends cost extra?
Yes, and separately from executions. Messaging bills from the prepaid wallet at its own rates, such as $0.675 per thousand emails, whatever Workflow Pro tier you are on. The two meters are unrelated.
Last reviewed September 3, 2026