GoHighLevel Starter vs Unlimited vs Agency Pro: which plan you need

Which GoHighLevel plan fits a single business, a freelancer or an agency?

Choose by what will run inside the account, not by the size of your team. Users and contacts are unlimited on all 3 published plans, so hiring staff or growing a list never forces an upgrade. Three things usually do: how many sub-accounts you need, whether clients should pay for their own usage, and whether you will sell HighLevel as your own subscription product.

• A single business (a salon, a contractor, a coach, an online store) needs Starter at $97 a month. HighLevel’s Terms define a sub-account as “a subscription for one business,” so one business usually needs one, or one per location if it runs each site separately.
• A freelancer or new agency with 2 or 3 clients also fits Starter, as long as every workspace fits under the cap of 3, including any sub-account you keep for your own marketing.
• An agency that needs a fourth sub-account, or one that wants each client’s texting and email charged to that client, needs Unlimited at $297 a month. Our 5-person agency stack budgets for Unlimited because an agency that size usually runs more than 3 clients.
• An agency that sells HighLevel as its own subscription product, with clients signing up on its website and paying its prices for usage, needs Agency Pro at $497 a month.

Enterprise sits above all 3 and is sold by quote only.

What does the $97 Starter plan include, and where does it stop?

Starter is not a cut-down edition of the core software. HighLevel’s pricing card lists “All Core Features” and 24/7 support on it, and the page’s core feature list covers the CRM and pipelines, the website and funnel builder, workflows, calendars, forms, email and SMS marketing, reputation management, courses, communities, and payments and invoicing. The card pitches it at “smaller businesses and solo marketers.”

Its limits show up in four places:

1. 3 sub-accounts in total. The pricing page sells no extra sub-accounts as an add-on; the next step is Unlimited.
2. No rebilling. Every text, call and email your sub-accounts generate is paid from your own wallet. Getting it back from a client means building it into your fee or invoicing it yourself at cost, since the Terms allow markups on passed-through fees only on Agency Pro.
3. No dedicated email IP. HighLevel sells dedicated IPs only on Unlimited and Agency Pro.
4. Basic API access, with location-level keys rather than agency-wide ones.

For a single business, only the third limit tends to matter, and only at high volume: HighLevel advises sending at least 50,000 emails a week from a dedicated IP, so a business at that volume that wants one has to move up to Unlimited.

What does the $297 Unlimited plan add over Starter?

HighLevel’s FAQ, which calls the two plans Agency Starter and Agency Unlimited, names the sub-account count as “the primary difference” between them, and Unlimited removes the cap. Some older help articles call Unlimited the Freelancer plan. It adds two other things a growing agency uses: rebilling of phone and email usage to clients, and dedicated email IPs at $59 a month each.

Rebilling on Unlimited works like this, according to HighLevel’s help articles:

• You connect your agency’s Stripe account, then the client adds a card in their sub-account’s billing settings. It must be the client’s card, not the agency’s, and the sub-account needs at least one account admin to manage it.
• HighLevel keeps charging your agency wallet for the client’s usage; the same usage is then deducted from the client’s own wallet, which your Stripe account tops up from the client’s card.
• The multiplier is set at 1.05x. The pricing page calls this “no markup”; HighLevel’s phone rebilling article explains the extra 5% as cover for the Stripe fees on your Stripe account, which is what charges the client’s card.
• Phone rebilling works only for sub-accounts on HighLevel’s built-in phone system, not a connected Twilio account. Email rebilling works only through HighLevel’s own email service, and the client cannot change sending provider while it is on.

SaaS mode, any multiplier above 1.05x, and rebilling of AI Employee usage or premium workflow steps all stay on Agency Pro. The pricing card also lists “Basic API Access” as an Unlimited addition, while HighLevel’s API article says Starter gets basic access too; if an integration depends on the API, confirm which plan it needs before choosing.

Unless you want rebilling sooner, upgrade when you sign the client that needs a fourth sub-account, not before. HighLevel charges an upgrade straight away with a prorated credit for the rest of the old plan, so there is no penalty for waiting. HighLevel’s FAQ says Unlimited lets you add clients “without your software costs increasing”; that is true of the subscription, not of each new client’s texts, calls and email.

What does Agency Pro add for $497, and how does SaaS mode work?

HighLevel’s help articles also call Agency Pro the Pro plan or the “$497 SaaS plan.” Its pricing card lists 5 additions over Unlimited: SaaS mode, automated sub-account creation, rebilling of phone and email with a markup, user and agent reporting, and advanced API access. SaaS mode comes with the plan; the pricing page lists no separate SaaS fee.

HighLevel’s pricing FAQ and rebilling guide describe the mechanics:

• You set up the plans you sell, and their prices, in the SaaS Configurator. A client can buy one on your website, and HighLevel creates the client’s sub-account without manual setup.
• Sub-accounts created that way have rebilling with your markup switched on by default. You can also move an existing sub-account into SaaS mode by hand; rebilling starts only after the client adds a valid card.
• You set the markup as a multiplier on HighLevel’s rate, per sub-account or per SaaS plan. HighLevel charges your agency wallet at its rate, then deducts your rate from the client’s wallet, which your Stripe account reloads from the client’s card. HighLevel never charges a client’s card itself.
• Unlike on Unlimited, email rebilling is not limited to HighLevel’s own email service; HighLevel’s article also covers email sent through the agency’s Mailgun account.
• Agency Pro is the plan needed to rebill AI Employee usage and premium workflow steps, and the pricing page says most optional add-ons can be resold at your own markup on it.
• Advanced API access adds agency-level keys and OAuth 2.0; the lower plans get location-level keys.

Branding is not on Agency Pro’s list. HighLevel’s pricing FAQ says you can white-label the desktop web app so clients see your logo when they log in, and the plan cards do not tie that to Agency Pro. If your logo on the login screen is the only reason you are looking at Agency Pro, ask HighLevel which plan your setup needs before upgrading.

What rules does HighLevel set on SaaS mode pricing and resale?

HighLevel’s Terms of Service set conditions on any agency that resells access:

• Markups need Agency Pro. The Terms bar marking up any HighLevel fee passed through to customers unless the agency is on what they call the $497 tier.
• A minimum advertised price. An agency may not advertise access to HighLevel’s core platform online below HighLevel’s own current price for the same or a substantially similar plan. The Terms count any 2 or more of these as the core platform: the funnel and website builder, forms, surveys, CRM, email builder, calendars and workflows. The rule covers the advertised price, not the final price a client pays.
• Recurring billing only. Access has to be sold monthly, yearly or on another recurring cycle; lifetime access for a one-time fee needs HighLevel’s written approval.
• Clients are the agency’s responsibility. The agency is liable to its customers for their use of the platform, must resolve their disputes and questions, and may not send them to HighLevel’s support or present itself as part of HighLevel. It may not pitch its branded version to existing HighLevel customers as a replacement, or market it with comparisons to HighLevel.
• Refunds, chargebacks and tax fall on the agency. The agency carries refunds and chargebacks on pass-through fees and must collect and remit any tax due on its resale or markup. HighLevel’s rebilling guide adds that Stripe’s processing fees apply to every charge the agency’s Stripe account makes.

HighLevel can suspend or end an agency’s right to resell, with or without notice, if it breaks the minimum advertised price rule or the Terms, or for any other reason at its discretion.

Do texts, calls and email cost less on a bigger plan?

No. Usage is billed on top of every plan at the same rates, and none of the 3 plans includes a bundle of texts, minutes or emails. When we checked on 26 September 2026, HighLevel’s pricing guide listed one email rate, $0.675 per 1,000 emails, “across all plans,” and made the phone and email systems available on every plan level. An AI Employee costs $50 or $97 per sub-account a month on top of the plan; without one, most AI features are billed per use.

Usage is paid from a prepaid wallet billed separately from the subscription, and HighLevel’s billing article says wallet credits cannot pay the plan itself. With or without rebilling, HighLevel takes each sub-account’s usage from the agency’s wallet first. The plan decides only who can be made to repay it: on Starter the account owner carries all of it, on Unlimited the client can repay phone and email usage at 1.05x, and on Agency Pro the client can repay it at the agency’s own multiplier, AI Employee usage included.

Until rebilling is set up, the agency funds every client’s messages, so a growing client list is a cash-flow question as much as a plan question. The per-unit rates for texts, carrier fees, calls, phone numbers and AI are on our GoHighLevel pricing page.

Should you pay yearly once you know which plan you need?

Billed yearly, each plan costs 10 times its monthly price, paid in advance: $970 for Starter, $2,970 for Unlimited and $4,970 for Agency Pro. That works out to $80.83, $247.50 and $414.17 a month. Only the subscription changes; usage bills at the same rates either way.

The billing rules make a yearly plan easy to leave upward and hard to leave downward. Upgrades are self-serve and prorated, and you can switch to yearly billing as you upgrade. Moving an existing yearly plan back to monthly is not available in the dashboard and takes a request to HighLevel, and the Terms make fees non-refundable, including for partly used subscriptions.

So commit yearly only to the plan you know is your floor: Starter for a single business, Unlimited for an agency already past 3 sub-accounts. If you are weighing Agency Pro for SaaS mode, pay monthly until SaaS mode is set up and in use.