Shovels
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Building permit and contractor insights

Shovels analyzes millions of new commercial and residential building permits each month. We use AI to clean, classify, and connect building permits to addresses, properties, contractors, residents, and building owners so you can sell more products.

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We building permit data
-- so you don't have to

Before Shovels, gathering up all the building permits and contractors active in a particular region was painful. Now it's easy. That's the problem we're solving.

Built for data teams
Shovels is designed to make it easy to integrate our contractor, permit, and market databases and APIs. Our terms of use allow for resale and derivative works. Integrate Shovels quickly and do great things!
Electrify everything
We see all permit activity, but right now, it's especially important that building electrification is done right. We see where these permits get pulled and which contractors do the best electrification work!
KYC: Know your contractors
Shovels is like a background check and a credit check on contractors, rolled up in one. We calculate inspection pass rate and project completion timing that nobody else has. We're always on the lookout for other interesting ways to use building permits!
Unbiased contractor recommendations
It's hard to find good, available contractors anywhere in the country. We tell you who's available, who's done good work, who's passing inspections, and how to contact them. If you need more than that... tell us!

Shovels is built for building permit analysis

We've gone out of our way to make our data easy to use across jurisdictions. A lot happens behind the scenes: cleaning, associating, normalizing, interpreting, and deriving new metrics. We do the heavy lifting so you can build products and get them to market.

Fast response times
We are compressed and optimized and ready for whatever load you need.
RESTful API
Our API works exactly the way you'd expect it to. No surprises, please!
Data feeds
If you'd rather do CSV than API, we got you covered. We can run monthly reports using custom SQL for the same cost as our API product.
{
    "property_address": "18491 Davis Ave",
    "property_city": "Los Gatos",
    "property_zip_code": "95030",
    "property_county": "Santa Clara",
    "property_state": "CA",
    "permits": [
      {
        "project_id": "DEV20-0118",
        "status": "Finaled",
        "start_date": "2020-01-21",
        "end_date": "2021-04-12",
        "duration_days": 447,
        "inspection_pass_rate": 0.67,
        "type": "Battery Storage System",
        "details": "Install (1) 13.5kwh energy storage system and (n) 200amp main breaker and load center",
        "address": "18491 Davis Ave",
        "city": "Los Gatos",
        "county": "Santa Clara",
        "state": "CA"
      },
      {...}
    ]
  }
{
    "contractor_name": "TESLA ENERGY OPERATIONS INC",
    "contractor_address": "901 Page Ave",
    "contractor_city": "Fremont",
    "contractor_zip_code": "94538",
    "contractor_county": "Alameda",
    "contractor_state": "CA",
    "contractor_phone": "(844) 837 5201",
    "contractor_license_no": "888104",
    "permits": [
      {
        "project_id": "DEV20-0118",
        "status": "Finaled",
        "start_date": "2020-01-21",
        "end_date": "2021-04-12",
        "duration_days": 447,
        "inspection_pass_rate": 0.67,
        "type": "Battery Storage System",
        "details": "Install (1) 13.5kwh energy storage system and (n) 200amp main breaker and load center",
        "address": "18491 Davis Ave",
        "city": "Los Gatos",
        "county": "Santa Clara",
        "state": "CA"
      },
      {...}
    ]
  }
{
    "contractor_name": "TESLA ENERGY OPERATIONS INC",
    "contractor_address": "901 Page Ave",
    "contractor_city": "Fremont",
    "contractor_zip_code": "94538",
    "contractor_county": "Alameda",
    "contractor_state": "CA",
    "contractor_phone": "(844) 837 5201",
    "contractor_license_no": "888104",
    "all_permits": 700,
    "active_permits": 162,
    "expired_permits": 55,
    "avg_project_duration_days": 198.98,
    "avg_inspection_pass_rate": 0.76,
    "permit_types": [
      "Battery Storage System",
      "Solar Photovoltaic System",
      "Electrical"
    ]
  }