Methodology
How the index is built, what a grade means, and where the information comes from. Effective August 15, 2026.
The standard
GTM Tech Index is an independent editorial reference. No vendor pays for inclusion, placement, or rating, and no vendor can pay to change a grade. Every record carries a verification date, every figure carries a source basis, and vendor claims are recorded as claims rather than restated as independent fact. Where the index has found nothing to check, it says so: a low grade records an absence of public evidence far more often than a defect, and it is dated, meaning not located in public sources on the date shown.
Three ways of knowing a tool
There are three kinds of information about go to market software, and most references stop at the first. What people say about a tool is mindshare: rankings built from mentions, sentiment, and share of voice, which measure conversation. What a vendor can prove is evidence: documentation, published outcomes, compliance artifacts, enforcement records. What an operator knows is practice: what the tool actually did when someone ran it against a quota. This index is built on the second and adds the third. Grades come from evidence a buyer can check without contacting the vendor, and a distinct class of Operator Verified notes records what the index\u2019s operators have observed in production, labeled as testimony and never blended into the evidentiary record.
The fifteen capability axes
Every indexed vendor is graded on all fifteen axes, in four groups. A vendor record with any ungraded axis is mechanically withheld from publication until the grid is complete.
Whether AI is the product or a feature veneer. The removal test: peel the AI label off, and does anything sellable remain?
What the system does without a human. Draft for review, auto send, or fully agentic, and what contains a bad run.
What models power the product, whether AI generated outreach discloses itself, and whether scoring and routing logic is explainable.
Measured outcomes with a stated basis: replies, meetings, pipeline, win rates. Logos are not evidence and prestige is not measurement.
How the product handles regulated outreach: consent, DNC scrubbing, opt out mechanics, caller ID conduct, and the public enforcement record.
GDPR and CCPA posture: lawful basis, data subject rights handling, DPA availability, subprocessor disclosure.
Where the data comes from and on what legal footing: licensed, contributed, public record, or scraped, and who stands behind the answer.
Whether the product operates inside the terms of the platforms it touches, and the restriction risk a buyer inherits when it does not.
The cross client boundary: whether customer data trains models that serve competitors, plus retention and deletion posture.
Documented depth of CRM and stack integration: objects, sync direction, API surface, marketplace presence that matches the claims.
Where the product runs and where customer data lives, including residency options for EU buyers.
Verifiable security posture: enumerated current certifications and a trust center an outsider can actually read.
Whether a buyer can budget without a sales call. Published pricing graded on completeness, not on the price itself.
The operational craft of sending: warmup, rotation, volume governance, spam rate monitoring, and what happens when reputation degrades.
Who the product actually serves, evidenced: segments, geographies, languages, and customers that match the claim.
What a grade means
A GTM Tech Index grade measures what a buyer can verify from public sources on the date shown. It is not a rating of how good the product is. A vendor can build an excellent system and grade low on an axis because it publishes nothing an outsider can check.
Verifiable evidence at the top of this axis under the GTM Tech Index grading framework. Named, dated, and checkable by an outsider without contacting the vendor.
Substantive disclosure with a real gap. Enough for a buyer to act on, short of the artifact that would settle the question.
The claim is made and the documentation behind it is not published, or the coverage is standard and silent on the questions this axis asks.
Nothing published on this axis that a buyer can check, or a claim that cannot be tested. A D under the GTM Tech Index grading framework records an absence far more often than a defect, and absence is dated: it means not located in public sources on the date shown.
Each axis carries its own definition of what A through D require, shown on every grade badge on hover. F is reserved for an aggravated absence on a squarely applicable axis and is rare by design. Not Rated is not a grade: it records that the index has not yet made a judgement, and a record carrying it is withheld from publication.
Source bases
Stated by the vendor in its own materials: documentation, pricing pages, trust centers, policy pages. Recorded as the vendor’s claim, never restated as independent fact.
Derived from credible third party sources and not confirmed by the vendor. Always labeled, so an estimate can never impersonate a disclosure.
Reported to the index by a named practitioner with direct experience of the product, recorded as testimony with its date.
Drawn from public enforcement actions, court records, or regulatory publications. In this territory that includes TCPA litigation, FTC actions, and platform enforcement that reaches the public record.
Observed in production use by the index’s operators: people who run go to market programs with these tools, not just read about them. Operator Verified notes are dated, labeled as testimony, and sit beside the retrieved public record rather than replacing it. They are published under the index’s house label, not personal bylines.
What the index excludes
Funding rounds, valuations, awards, and analyst quadrant placements are not capability evidence and do not move grades. Customer logos are recorded where announced but are not treated as outcome evidence: a logo proves a contract was signed, not that anything worked. Sponsored content does not exist on the index in any form.
Limitations
The index grades what can be verified from public sources plus labeled testimony, which means a vendor with excellent engineering and poor disclosure will grade below its engineering. That asymmetry is deliberate: a buyer evaluating vendors faces the same public record the index does, and the index refuses to fill disclosure gaps with charity in either direction. Compliance postures are assessed from published sources and public records; the index is not a law firm and nothing here is legal advice. Grades reflect the evidence on the verification date and can change as vendors publish more or as public records grow.
Corrections
Vendors and readers who find an error in a record are invited to say so through the contact form on any page. Corrections are made against evidence, logged in the change log, and dated. A vendor pointing the index to published documentation is the fastest way to move a grade, and it works exactly as well for every vendor.