The intelligence layer for the built world

Shovels captures the first signal of construction—using AI to turn fragmented permit data into Shovel-ready intelligence. Access via API, web app, or direct data warehouse integration.

Pearl Schneider Electric TopBuild Angi Beam Rewiring America PaintJet

Clean and useful building permit data that's easy to understand

Because you want to get insights from building permits, not wrangle with raw data.

Building permits in our database
185M+
Contractors in our database
3.3M+
US addresses covered
33M+
New permits added monthly
5M+

How we're different

Our data is Shovel-ready

We make building permits easy to understand and use for market research, go-to-market, and sales. No data engineering required.

Fanatical customer service
We're a small company with a big heart. We're here to help you succeed.
Constant innovation
We ship fast. We ship often. We ship quality. We use the latest technology to make your life easier.
Transparency
We're not afraid to show you exactly where our coverage gaps are. We're the only company that's fully transparent about our data.
Residents and employees
We go beyond just the properties and contractors. We also include residents and employees with contact information.
Helpful documentation
Our documentation is comprehensive and easy to understand. We keep our API documentation and data dictionary up to date.
AI-powered from the start
We run hundreds of millions of records through our AI to make sure our data is accurate.
Pricing for everyone
We work with all budgets. Our customers range from climate and proptech startups to publicly-traded companies.
Multiple interfaces
We're more than just a data provider. We're both a data platform and a software company.

Work with us

We offer three interfaces to interact with our building permit and building contractor data.

Shovels Online
Shovels Online

Purchase single or multiple seats to explore and download our building permit and contractor data.

Learn more

Shovels API
Shovels API

Automate access and integrate with other applications like CRMs, custom web apps, and more.

Learn more

Database Access
Database Access

Get parquet files or private table shares into Snowflake, Databricks, or Big Query.

Learn more

From the blog

We write about building permits, contractors, and the future of the built environment.

<p>Integrating Parcel and Permit Data in Partnership with Regrid</p>
Company

Integrating Parcel and Permit Data in Partnership with Regrid

Shovels announces a strategic partnership with Regrid to integrate parcel data with building permit information. This collaboration adds Regrid's unique parcel identifiers to Shovels' nationwide permit database, enabling customers to seamlessly join parcel and permit datasets for enhanced site selection, market analysis, and risk assessment. The partnership enhances location intelligence capabilities for mutual customers like ParGo AI, providing comprehensive property development insights.

Betty Wan

Betty Wan

VP of Growth

<p>Unlocking Shovels's Potential with Prolific</p>
Company

Unlocking Shovels's Potential with Prolific

The Shovels data engineering team partnered with Prolific to crowdsource data analysis experts. These experts helped to curate and categorize messy permit data into an organized sample. Shovels used this sample to train their LLM models to unlock their entire data pipeline.

Alex Brown

Alex Brown

Technical Support & Writer