Quick Summary

Salesmsg was named a 2025 Gold Stevie Award winner for Technology Excellence. Here's the story behind the win, what we built last year, and where we're headed in 2026.

We just won a Gold Stevie Award.

The Stevie Awards have recognized outstanding business achievements since 2002. More than 12,000 nominations are submitted each year from over 70 countries. The Technology Excellence category specifically honors companies building tools that change how people work.

In 2025, Salesmsg took home Gold.

Four Years of Momentum

This isn't our first time being recognized.

Salesmsg has made the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing private companies for four consecutive years. In 2022, we debuted with 718% growth over the previous three years. This past year, we came in at number 1,588 with 275% growth.

We've also won a Sammy Award for CRM Product of the Year from the Business Intelligence Group. And we've racked up over 1,300 reviews across G2, Capterra, and the HubSpot Marketplace.

But a Gold Stevie for Technology Excellence hits different.

The Stevie judges are executives, entrepreneurs, and business educators from around the world. They evaluate thousands of nominations and pick the best. Getting recognized by that group tells us something important.

We're not just growing fast. We're building something that matters.

Why We Built Salesmsg

The data on texting speaks for itself.

It's estimated that 98% of texts get read, while a "good" open rate for email is 20%.

That means texts are 5x more likely to be read than email. Plus, people check their texts an average of 96 times per day.

Compare that to email, where your message might sit unopened for hours, buried under dozens of other emails, or lost in a spam folder.

But when we started Salesmsg in 2017, most business texting tools were clunky. They didn't integrate with CRMs. They made compliance a nightmare. And they weren't built for teams.

So we built a texting and calling platform designed for sales, marketing, and support teams. One that integrates with the tools you already use. One that handles compliance so you don't have to think about it. One that makes conversations easier, not harder.

This award tells us that approach is working.

2025 Was a Building Year

Our product team ships updates every Thursday. Has for years. But 2025 was different.

We didn't just ship incremental updates. We shipped features that changed what Salesmsg can do.

Here’s a look at a few of those features:

AI Agents

AI Agents might be the biggest thing we've ever built.

Here's the problem they solve. A lead fills out a form on your website at 9pm on a Saturday. Your sales team is off until Monday. By then, that lead has already talked to three of your competitors.

Speed to lead is everything. But most teams can't respond fast enough, especially outside business hours.

AI Agents can.

When a lead comes in, your AI Agent texts them back immediately. Not with a canned "thanks for reaching out" message. With an actual conversation.

They use your saved replies and AI Knowledge Base to qualify, answer, and book meetings.

The best part? AI Agents seamlessly hand off to your human team. When a conversation needs a real person, your team gets notified and can jump in.

International Texting

Salesmsg used to work in the U.S. and Canada. Now it works in over 200 countries.

This was one of our most requested features. Businesses don't stop at borders anymore. Your website attracts leads from around the world. Your customers might be in London, Sydney, or São Paulo.

Before international texting, reaching those customers meant email and hoping they'd respond. Or complicated setups with multiple phone numbers and platforms.

Now you just add an international contact to Salesmsg and start texting. Use your existing U.S. or Canadian number. We handle country codes, carrier connections, and compliance requirements for each region.

International texting also works with AI Agents. So if a lead from Germany fills out your form at 3am Eastern time, your AI Agent can respond instantly.

You see pricing per international message before sending, and you can easily track usage.

Deeper CRM Integrations

We've always integrated with HubSpot, Salesforce, ActiveCampaign, and other major CRMs. But last year we went deeper.

Our HubSpot integration now includes a native Salesmsg widget that lets you text directly from your HubSpot contact records. You can build entire SMS workflows without ever leaving HubSpot. Every conversation syncs automatically to your timeline.

We also added more automation triggers. You can now fire off texts based on deal stage changes, form submissions, list membership, and dozens of other events.

The Salesforce integration got similar upgrades. So did ActiveCampaign and Pipedrive. You can see all our integrations here.

The goal is simple. You shouldn't have to switch between tabs to have a conversation. Texting should live where your customer data already lives.

Analytics That Actually Help

We rebuilt our analytics dashboards last year.

Now, dashboards show which messages perform, not just how many you’ve sent.

You can see response rates by campaign, time of day, and message type. You can track revenue generated from text conversations. You can spot deliverability issues before they become problems.

For agencies managing multiple clients, we added cross-account reporting through our multi-organization environment. You can see performance across all your client accounts in one view.

Deliverability and Compliance

This is the stuff nobody wants to talk about. But it might be the most important work we did in 2025.

10DLC registration, carrier compliance, opt-in management, and spam monitoring. Not exciting features, but they’re the foundation everything else is built on.

Here's the reality. Carriers are cracking down on business texting. Messages that would have gone through two years ago now get filtered or blocked. If your deliverability drops, nothing else matters.

We invested heavily in compliance tooling last year. Our built-in 10DLC tools guide you through registration, monitor sending reputation, and automate opt-out management to keep you compliant.

You can read our full SMS deliverability guide and 10DLC blueprint for more details.

What Technology Excellence Means to Us

Winning a technology award is nice. But what does "technology excellence" actually mean?

For us, it comes down to one thing. Does the technology we build help people close more deals, reach new customers efficiently, and make their workday easier?

Not technology for technology's sake. Not features that look good in a demo but never get used. Technology that solves real problems for real businesses.

That's why we've always been product-led. We ship every Thursday. Small improvements compound over time.

We obsess over customer feedback. Our Canny boards are full of feature requests from actual users. Most of what we build comes directly from those requests.

Technology excellence isn't about having the most features. It's about having the right features and making them work reliably.

The Team Behind the Win

Awards don't happen by accident. They happen because people show up and do the work.

Our product team has shipped updates every Thursday for years. They're in the trenches with customers, listening to feedback, fixing bugs, and building features that people actually need.

Our support team answers questions in minutes, not days. When something goes wrong, they make it right.

Our customer success team walks every new customer through onboarding. They make sure you're set up correctly and actually seeing results.

And our customers made this possible. You told us what you needed. You pushed us to build better. You trusted us with your business communications.

This award belongs to all of you.

What We Learned in 2025

Building a company is humbling. Every year teaches you something.

Here's what 2025 taught us.

Speed matters more than ever. The businesses that respond fastest win. AI Agents aren't a nice-to-have anymore. They're becoming essential for any team that wants to compete.

Global is the new default. Your customers are everywhere. If you can't reach them, someone else will. International texting went from a feature request to a core capability faster than we expected.

Compliance is a competitive advantage. As carriers crack down, businesses with solid compliance foundations will thrive. Those without will struggle to get messages delivered at all.

Simple beats complex. Every feature we shipped this year was designed to make things easier, not more complicated. The best technology gets out of your way.

2026 Is Going to Be Bigger

We're not slowing down.

AI Agents are just getting started. We're working on smarter conversation handling, better handoffs, and deeper integration with your CRM data.

International texting will expand to more carriers and more countries. We're also building tools to help you manage conversations across time zones more easily.

Our integrations will go deeper. We want Salesmsg to feel native to whatever platform you're already using.

And we'll keep doing what got us here. Listening to customers. Shipping every week. And making business texting better.

The way businesses communicate is changing. Phone calls are declining. Email is overcrowded. But everyone reads their texts.

We're building for that future. And we're just getting started.

Thank You

To our team, thank you for showing up every day and building something that matters.

To our customers, thank you for trusting us with your conversations.

To everyone who's ever sent a text through Salesmsg, this win is for you.

Here's to 2026.

Let us show you the power of Salesmsg to change your business. Book a free demo today or take advantage of the 14-day free trial.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the Stevie Award for Technology Excellence?

The Stevie Awards program has recognized business achievements since 2002. More than 12,000 nominations come in each year from over 70 countries. The Technology Excellence category honors companies building tools that change how people work.

Why did Salesmsg win?

We were recognized for AI Agents, international texting, CRM integrations, and our focus on deliverability and compliance.

Has Salesmsg won other awards?

Yes. Salesmsg has made the Inc. 5000  list four years in a row. We also won a 2024 Sammy Award for CRM Product of the Year from the Business Intelligence Group. And we regularly win G2 awards across multiple categories.

How do I try Salesmsg?

Click here to start a14-day free trial. No credit card required. Orbook a demo if you want a walkthrough of how Salesmsg can work for your specific use case.