Vendasta Pricing Overview

OLD REVIEW: I like the scope of Vendasta's tools to be the best. There's a CRM, a task manager, a fully-fledged marketplace with a variety of price points and industries, and more. Vendasta's customer support is pretty good. They're very quick to answer questions and will make occasional exceptions to improve the customer experience. The biggest selling points of Vendasta are their wide array of services, their automation tools that help you easily bring new clients through the pipeline from prospect to partner, and the support for partners from the management level. EDIT: I do not like anything about Vendasta. It fulfills 0 of the promises it makes. After leaving my first negative review of Vendasta, they offered me 6 months of their team membership susbcription for free. I accepted, thinking I might as well start using more of the features and hopefully enjoying the software. Once I started digging into the platform more, though, I realized the actual marketing "automation" Vendasta offers is horrendous. For one, you can't integrate a native form on your website into their email marketing software. They also don't work with Zapier. Essentially, Vendasta promises to be an "agency in a box," but can't perform any of the necessary features (white label, pipeline management, sales support). You end up needing to pay for additional services like Mailchimp and Calendly ON TOP of Vendasta because the platform is that god d*mn awful. Not to mention, their CRM and task manager are nearly unusable. I would highly recommend a combination of GoHighLevel and Notion over Vendasta any day of the week.

Vendasta promises to do a lot of things: marketing automation, white label, CRM, and task manager. It does NONE of those things. My original review focused on the white label downfalls; I'll leave that below. This one is going to be about the rest of the mess. Vendasta is a marketing automation platform that doesn't automate much. Today, I was just told that I can't embed their meeting booking tool directly into my webpages with HTML and I can't automatically import leads from my native contact forms (Elementor) into their email marketing software. Now, I will have to pay for Mailchimp and Calendly on top of Vendasta to perform the same basic tasks. If I had GoHighLevel, this would not be a problem. Nobody should ever pay for Vendasta. I write these reviews so that their sales team can't swindle future agency owners, small and large, like they swindled me. I will not stop until Vendasta offers me early termination. I strongly encourage you to check out GoHighLevel. From what I've heard from my mentors, it seems to be the software of choice for marketing automation. I also dislike the Vendasta marketing services team. Vendasta markets itself as a white-label solution. On their home page, they write: "Find products to sell, market with ease, and fulfill under your brand. With Vendasta, you can deliver an amazing experience for your customers and truly make a difference." Moreso than their CRM, client dashboard, or their marketing automation tools, their big promise is that they provide white-label services. Thus, this review is through the lens of Vendasta as a white-label agency. Unlike a lot of other white label agencies (51 blocks, Agency Elevation) that charge you on a per-account basis (i.e. Agency Elevation charges fixed rates starting at $300 per Google Ads account), Vendasta makes you pay $6,000 upfront for access to their marketing services team and then makes you pay again by taking a % of ad spend. As a white-label agency, it's way more expensive than its competitors, but the service does not appear to be that much better. I've used their Google Ads service for one account and their social media management service for another. I've been DRASTICALLY disappointed by both. The marketing services team has dropped the ball so hard that I'm feeling compelled to update this review for a second time. The Google Search Ads copy I received on my first account read like it was written by a non-English speaker. Whatever copy wasn't pulled straight from the client's website sounded clunky and awkward. I found typos and inconsistent punctuation (dashes) as well. The campaign has been a disaster. A total disaster. The client had previously run a campaign that spent $500 in the first month and saw 17 conversions from non-branded keywords. Vendasta's team has spent $500 and seen 1 conversion. The worst part is that I've had to come in and essentially manage the campaign myself, and the marketing services team can't even follow my direct instructions. For example, I notice that most of our clicks were coming from a recipes page on our website. Naturally, I direct them to write a new ad group specifically for recipe keywords that would take visitors directly to the recipes page on the website. I provided the exact URL I wanted traffic to go to. The team came back a day later saying they created the ad group and are directing traffic to a specific recipe....WHY? Aside from not being a good idea, it's not what I asked for. Why am I paying them for this?? I told them the margin for the product was about $40. They started bidding on keywords that had CPCs of $6-7. I sent them a keyword list full of broad match keywords to replace their expensive phrase and exact match terms. It took them a week to change the keywords. On our strategy call, the PPC tech went back and forth with me when I told her I wanted to move all of the spend to shopping ads, since that's what was working before. She reasoned that "Google Ads take time to optimize," my response was: "I understand, I've run a couple of these myself, but the client got 38 conversions in their first month with a $500 campaign created by a FREE Google Ads specialist. If we spend $1,000 + $500 management and get ONE, there's not going to be a month 2. We're supposed to be the experts here." It's funny how much back and forth there is. I shouldn't have to argue with the people I'm PAYING to manage a Google ads campaign for me. If this was someone on Upwork, I would have fired them way before this could ever happen. As for social media, the posts were off-brief and I had to archive them. In our pre-launch call, I showed examples of content I liked and topics I wanted to talk about. When asked, I explicitly said, "No, I do not want to post stock photos." If the team had simply told me "we're not capable of creating those types of content," I would have said "Okay," and pulled the plug. Instead, they were agreeable and scheduled out 3 months of stock photos with cookie-cutter generic copy. Had I sold this service to a client, instead of trying it on my account, I would have been very embarrassed. The lack of communication of expectations was unprofessional and disappointing. There seem to be good strategists among the administration and management levels at Vendasta; I've spoken with them and deeply enjoyed the conversation. The talent you actually get, however, is embarassing. On our strategy call, Vendasta's PPC tech dared to tell me the campaign was running super successfully, likely reading off a script, after I spent the first 15 minutes talking to the account manager about why the campaign WASN'T doing well. I wish the same talent that's present at the management level existed at the execution level. I expected more premium services because they're priced much higher than other white-label agencies. Unfortunately, it feels like working with someone overseas from Fiverr or Upwork -- lots of oversight is required. I will likely not be renewing, or downgrading to the most basic package, for year 2. It seems like Vendasta doesn't know what it's trying to be. It's priced like HighLevel and has many of the same features, but it markets itself like a white-label solution. As a HighLevel competitor, it lacks some key features like a funnel builder and a white-label dashboard. As a white-label agency, it's more expensive for work that isn't any better. What is Vendasta's unique value proposition supposed to be?

Vendasta helps me fulfill SEO. For example, I spent days interviewing SEO specialists on Upwork. Thanks to Vendasta, I can hire someone through one of their white-label partners, and provide an excellent service.

The concept is great until you look under the 'hood'. They seem to have a wide variety of products/services, but that's where the positives end.

Most white lable partners are not 'partners' at all. That is very much the case with Vendasta. I had perused their offerings to compare to our current offerings. At first glance, I didn't like their packaging. Further investigation showed horrible pricing that would have cut profitability to nil--just way too expensive for a white lable partner. So, I decided to stick with our current partners. I did like their Reputation Management program and spoke with one of their reps about the need of the client. He confirmed it would be a good fit for them and gave it a try for that one client. Big mistake. First, it took forever to set up the account. Second, I get into the program and learn that it will be double the cost from what I was told to do exactly what was needed--which had been explained up front. I'm not going to charge the client double the amount, so I lose money on the transaction. I ask to cancel the order and just got a run-around. Typical--another white lable partner who doesn't realize that they are an extension of your brand and simply don't care.

None--I had several conversations with a couple of their sales people and decided to sample them for one program. I was told a program would be a good solution for the client's issue. However, I was not told that it would take purchasing multiple programs to accomplish the task, thus doubling the cost. THey refused to give a refund. They are not 'in it' to help anyone grow their business. They exist because they know sales is the toughest part of the industry. They want to feed off of your sales and pay you pennies on the dollar.

Absolutely have nothing good to say about this company!

When getting onboarded I expressed that the client I was working with was not going to have their website online immediately. I paid the "Set Up Fee", which actually is a recurring monthly fee and then learned that the originally fees I was quoted did not include the fee for running our ads on Google! After discussing that the website was not online yet I was assured there was no problem and yet I was charged for the next month's fees though we never used the services ppreviously paid for!!!!

At this time none.

I like that they are prompt to respond whenever I have a question or need help. I like the idea that the Vendasta system is very automated, and I can see the status of my company or my clients. The great highlight of this platform is that I can add my services or products and make it part of the services or products that are available from Vendasta. This is a great solution that I have been looking for a long time. I have never heard of Vendasta before as long as I remember. Vendasta are the best!

The thing that I currently dislike that I am not quite yet there. Because there is so much to learn. I need more help to fully understand the whole process and gain confidence of the process. I do have some hesitation of the idea that I must pay more from the monthly fee. I have learned that if I want to add more features, there is more fees that I must add to my monthly fee when I just started our partnership. Specially, many businesses are hurting financially. Many of my colleagues of the same field are having a difficult time now days surviving. I highly recommend giving a sense of worth and time, it is to give a bonus of 90 days to see the whole process in operations. Because it is my understanding that it will take at least 30 days to fully understand the whole process, before launching and see results. I want to see my business paying for itself and of course expanding. I must admit that Vendasta products and services are fantastic! I highly recommended.

The problems that I am currently having is not understanding what the features are or what they do. I am still learning. I feel that Vendasta is solving a great gap that currently exist in our operations. I find the platform to be very well planned and it is very efficient. I feel that Vendasta has a great idea to combine all the vendors into one platform. Something, that I was looking for. The products and services are fantastic! The great thing of the whole thing is that the list of products and services are still growing!

I imagine most agency owner's paths to success are different. I was and still am pretty much a one-man band and before Vendasta had little success in marketing and questioned my career choice. I got my spark going with Vendasta which is a great feeling. It gave me a lot of confidence that I was providing value to people. Also, another big one, I felt like I had someone to talk to about this stuff. I think I became a better marketer in 6 months than I did in 3 years of freelancing websites and SEO. I bought all the courses and was just stuck. Shout out to Logan Ochitwa and Rafael Pavlovic, my Vendasta Partners. They're a direct result of the success I've had this past year.

I had some bumps and bruises with all the teams but I still trust everybody. There were communication issues and projects did fall between the cracks. There were some tense moments but nothing I'm too distraught about. I know they're continually working on stuff. I'd like help getting salespeople trained on the platform and account managers so I can grow without going crazy. International Transaction fees. I know it's on my side (US) but I get hit with the transaction fees and then international transaction fees. I'm going to eventually go to Canada just so I can open a bank account. I need more CRM training. I don't know how to use it for email marketing. I didn't like the course with Dennis that much only because it starts at a weird place. It's like watching a series and starting at episode 3. I know it's good info in there but I haven't looked at it since.

I'm solving issues of validity, fulfillment, and invoicing. I've realized I got a long way to go but I'm killing it.

I love that they're a Canadian company that is looking to help agency's across Canada to grow.

Pricing is quite expensive. The setup of an account was $1,000.00 and the monthly cost became exponentially higher as third party vendors/apps were added. The customer service was also bad and after cancelling I was accidentally invoiced twice... They are also tailored to US customers as opposed to Canadian customers which is a bit confusing. Some of the services that are offered are only in the US.

Business processes are not good. There was two turnovers of staff while I used their service.

Vendasta has a great onboarding process, a really easy way to create white-label packages, and they have robust, deep product offerings. My experience in the training and consulting with the employees has been outstanding. My account rep and onboarding agent are readily available, quick to answer questions, and are willing to brainstorm with me to develop go to market plans. The ability to create my own packages and pricing has been a huge benefit as I can tailor my offerings to my local market. Finally, the training documentation and their ConquerLocal training portal is a huge benefit for systematic training, connection to their employees, and socializing with other Vendasta users.

The product offerings are incredibly deep--while it's easy to surf through them, figuring out which ones are best for my clients (e.g. narrowing it down), has been intense. The products are straightforward but I want to review all 180+ of them to make sure I provide the right solutions to my clients.

Cost affordable agency and marketing work for SMBs. The digital products are scalable for any type of business and the ability to offer FREEMIUM products is a big plus. I can also cater the products to each customer such as DIY, DIWM, DIFM (do it yourself, do it with me, and do it for me) . I can provide total transparency and no hidden fees to my customers.

The core of Vendasta is the "Partner Center" which is a well thought out and implemented CRM tailor made for managing the full spectrum of marketing activities. Partner center has both and administrative, sales, operational, and customer facing components. It strikes a good balance of specialization to the domain while maintaining flexibility that will accommodate a variety of business needs. The executive reports, which are actively being developed and improved, are a powerful tool to help agencies manage their client relationships.

The snapshot report is powerful as a sales tool, but I don't believe the per use model is correct. I think the information in here could be much more robust, and for the recurring fees to partners I think the per report charge is far too high.

Our principal reason to use this platform is to allow us to generate greater value and business outcomes for our clients.