Construction Monitor sells permit-based leads to the trades. Shovels sells the permit data layer itself. We break down pricing models, delivery, enrichment, and which one fits your use case.
We get a lot of questions about how Shovels stacks up to similar services and platforms. Here, we try to answer your questions as honestly as we can.
Construction Monitor and Shovels both start from the same public records: building permits filed with city and county departments across the United States. Where they part company is who the data is packaged for.
Construction Monitor describes itself as "The Ultimate Lead Source." Its products are designed to put new projects and contact information in front of suppliers, subcontractors, and other building professionals. Customers can buy weekly permit editions, real-time alerts, search tools, and reports for specific markets and permit categories.
Shovels is built for teams that use permit data as infrastructure. It standardizes and enriches the records so platforms, insurers, suppliers, developers, and analytics teams can query them nationwide, join them to other data, run models, and incorporate them into their own products and workflows.
The simplest distinction is leads versus data. If you want a list of local prospects to call, Construction Monitor may be the better fit. If you need consistent permit and contractor records you can analyze or build on, Shovels is designed for that job.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Construction Monitor is a building permit lead provider founded in 1989 and based in Cedar City, Utah. It compiles permit information from city and county building departments and packages it primarily for suppliers, subcontractors, general contractors, and other building professionals.
Its products are organized around lead delivery rather than data access:
Data is also available programmatically through a REST API and automated weekly data dumps over secure FTP. Datasets are sold sliced by category: all permits, commercial, solar, and swimming pool.
The company has a particularly long history in solar lead generation and sells solar permits as a standalone subscription in many of its listed markets.
Shovels is the prediction engine for the built world. Shovels collects permit data first-party from jurisdictions nationwide, then uses AI and quality-control workflows to turn messy municipal records into standardized, searchable data.
Each permit is enriched with categories, contractor intelligence, and parcel links, and delivered through an API, a web application, a CLI, or a direct data warehouse share. Shovels also includes Decisions, a dataset of zoning, planning, and entitlement records that surfaces projects before permits are filed.
Every Shovels plan includes every interface (web app with Charlie, API, and CLI) sharing one monthly credit balance, where one credit is one record retrieved or exported.
| Dimension | Construction Monitor | Shovels |
|---|---|---|
| Core product | Permit-based sales leads for the building trades | Permit intelligence platform and data layer |
| Stated buyer | Suppliers, subcontractors, general contractors, and other building professionals | Platforms, insurers, suppliers, developers, and analytics teams |
| Pricing model | Per jurisdiction, per permit category, monthly | Per records used, nationwide on every plan |
| Published pricing | Online shop lists per-market subscriptions from $31 to $1,281/mo; no published API pricing | Free, Basic $599/mo, Pro $999/mo published; Enterprise by agreement |
| Self-serve scope | One market and one category at a time, across roughly six states | Nationwide from the free plan up |
| Refresh | Weekly editions; real-time lead tool adds leads hourly | Core permit data multiple times a month, documented in public release notes |
| Contractor data | Builder, owner, and contractor contact information | Full profiles: permit history, inspection pass rates, build speed, specialties, revenue estimates, contacts |
| Permit categorization | Datasets sold by category (all permits, commercial, solar, pool) | AI-standardized categories consistent across jurisdictions |
| Pre-permit signal | None; begins at the permit | Decisions: zoning, planning, and entitlement records before permits are filed |
| Delivery | REST API, weekly FTP data dumps, and web tools; no native warehouse shares | REST API, web app, CLI, and native Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks shares |
| Getting started | Buy a market in the online shop, or contact sales | Self-serve signup, explore the data the same day, contact sales for custom solutions |
Construction Monitor's online shop sells monthly subscriptions scoped to one market and one permit category. At the time of writing, the shop listed 148 subscriptions across 39 markets in roughly six states. Prices ranged from $31 per month for Alabama solar permits to $1,281 per month for San Diego County solar permits. All-permit subscriptions for individual markets ranged from $62 to $1,250 per month.
API access and coverage beyond the online catalogue require a conversation with the company's sales team; those prices are not published.
Shovels offers a free plan, Basic at $599 per month, Pro at $999 per month, and custom Enterprise plans. Every tier includes nationwide access. Usage is measured by the number of records retrieved rather than the number of markets included.
The less expensive option depends on the footprint. Construction Monitor can be very economical for a buyer who needs one permit category in one smaller market. Its costs rise as markets and categories are added, while Shovels' geographic access remains the same. Of the 37 markets sold as an all-permits subscription, 10 cost more than Shovels Basic on their own, and five subscriptions of any category cost more than Shovels Pro.
Prices observed in the Construction Monitor shop on September 2, 2026. It is a live storefront, so confirm current listings before relying on any figure here.
Construction Monitor is explicit about its purpose: help building professionals find projects and prospects. A weekly list of new permits with builder and contractor contact details is well suited to a salesperson working a defined territory.
Shovels is built for teams that need to do more with the record. It provides standardized fields, deduplicated permits, stable identifiers, linked contractor and property data, and delivery options designed for analysis and integration.
If the next step is calling the person named on the permit, a lead product may be all you need. If the next step is joining the record to a CRM, portfolio, model, or software product, data structure matters much more.
Construction Monitor's self-serve subscriptions are scoped to one geography and one permit category. That creates a low entry price for a focused local use case. A solar installer working in one metro, for example, can buy only that market's solar permits.
The model becomes more expensive as the footprint grows because each additional market or category may require another subscription. Shovels includes nationwide access on every plan and charges based on records used, so expanding into another geography does not create a separate subscription by itself.
When comparing costs, price the markets and categories you expect to need over the next year, not only the first territory you plan to test.
Construction Monitor's online shop covers a substantial catalogue of individual markets across roughly six states. Buyers seeking other markets or broader coverage must contact sales.
Shovels makes nationwide data available through every plan, including the free tier. That distinction matters most for companies operating across many territories or entering new markets frequently.
Both providers help identify who is doing the work, but at different levels of depth.
Construction Monitor supplies builder, owner, and contractor contact information, the fields a salesperson needs to reach a prospect. Shovels builds a broader profile around each contractor, including permit history, active markets, specialties, inspection pass rates, build speed, estimated revenue, and available contacts.
For straightforward outreach, contact information may be enough. For scoring, vetting, segmenting, or ranking contractors at scale, the surrounding performance history becomes more valuable.
Construction Monitor describes several update schedules across its products: weekly editions, real-time leads added hourly, and other daily updates. Those products operate on different clocks, so buyers should confirm the cadence of the specific product and market they are purchasing.
Shovels refreshes its core permit data multiple times a month and documents releases publicly. The relevant question for either provider is not simply "How often do you update?" but "How quickly will new permits and changes to existing permits reach the product I am buying?"
For a sales team trying to call a prospect immediately, Construction Monitor's real-time lead product may have the advantage. For nationwide analysis, contractor scoring, or product integration, a consistent documented refresh across markets may matter more.
A building permit is not always the earliest sign of a project.
Shovels Decisions tracks rezonings, planning applications, entitlements, demolitions, environmental reviews, and other local government activity before permitting. That gives teams an earlier view of where development may occur and how projects are moving through approval.
Construction Monitor's actionable signal begins once a permit exists. That is appropriate for a lead product focused on active work, but it is a meaningful limitation for teams trying to see demand or development activity forming earlier.
How Shovels fits. Shovels applies AI cleaning, standardization, and enrichment to permit, contractor, and property data from jurisdictions nationwide. Explore it through the Shovels Online web application, the Shovels API, or Shovels Enterprise warehouse delivery.
Construction Monitor is the stronger fit for a contractor, subcontractor, or local supplier that wants a steady list of new permits in one market, complete with names and contact information, without building a data workflow.
Its per-market subscriptions can be inexpensive for a narrowly defined territory. A solar installer serving one metro, for example, can purchase that market's solar permits and begin prospecting. Construction Monitor has also served this audience since 1989, giving it decades of experience packaging permits for local sales teams.
Shovels is the better fit when permit data is an input to a broader system or analysis: enriching a platform, underwriting risk, scoring contractors, tracking markets nationally, feeding a CRM, or building a product on top of construction activity. It also becomes more compelling as the number of markets grows, because nationwide access is included rather than purchased territory by territory.
Start with what happens after you receive the record. If the next step is calling the builder, owner, or contractor, you are primarily buying leads. If the next step is joining the permit to another dataset, running it through a model, or integrating it into a product, you are buying data. In that case, standardization, deduplication, stable identifiers, field completeness, and delivery architecture matter more.
Then price the full footprint you expect to need. Add up the markets and permit categories required under a territory-based subscription, and compare that total with a nationwide usage-based plan.
Finally, evaluate both providers in a market you know. Shovels offers self-serve signup, so you can inspect permits, contractors, properties, and Decisions directly. For Construction Monitor, purchase or request a sample for the same geography and compare:
The better choice depends on what you need to do next: contact a local prospect or put construction data to work at scale.
Have questions about fit? Explore the Shovels permit database for free, or talk to us about your data needs.
Sign up free, pull the permits and contractors in a market you already know, and judge the coverage, deduplication, and enrichment for yourself.
Construction Monitor sells monthly subscriptions scoped to a single market and permit category through its online shop. As of September 2026 its shop listed 148 subscriptions across 39 markets, priced from $31 to $1,281 a month depending on the market and category. Broader coverage and API access are quoted by its sales team; API pricing is not published. Shovels publishes its plans: a free tier, Basic at $599 a month, and Pro at $999 a month, each with nationwide access, plus Enterprise by agreement.
For permit and contractor data, yes. Teams evaluating Construction Monitor typically choose Shovels when they need more than one market, standardized categories across jurisdictions, contractor performance data rather than contact details alone, or delivery into a data warehouse. If what you want is a weekly lead list for a single territory, Construction Monitor is the more direct fit.
A lead is a record packaged for outreach: a new project, an address, and someone to contact. Permit data is the underlying record, standardized so it can be analyzed or integrated. Every lead product is built on permit data; not every permit dataset is shaped to be sold as leads. Construction Monitor sells the first, Shovels sells the second.
Yes. Construction Monitor offers a REST API for synchronization and ad hoc searches, with delta arguments for retrieving updates, plus automated weekly data dumps over secure FTP. It does not publish API pricing. Shovels offers a REST API, a CLI, a web application, and native shares into Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks.
With Construction Monitor's online shop, purchases are scoped to one market and one category at a time, across roughly six states; wider coverage goes through sales. Every Shovels plan is nationwide, including the free plan, with usage metered by records retrieved rather than by geography.
Yes. Builder, owner, and contractor contact information is part of what it sells, which is what makes it usable as a lead list. Shovels goes further on the same names, building contractor profiles with permit history, inspection pass rates, build speed, specialties, revenue estimates, and contacts, and offering contractors as a dataset in their own right.
It depends which product you buy, on both sides. Construction Monitor describes a weekly edition, a real-time tool that adds leads hourly, and daily updates across its product line. Shovels refreshes core permit data multiple times a month and publishes release notes for every release. Rather than comparing brochure cadences, ask each provider what your specific configuration receives and how updates to existing permits are delivered.
Yes, and it has focused on solar for a long time, selling solar permits as a standalone product per market. Shovels also classifies solar permits, along with roofing, HVAC, EV, and other categories, using AI classification applied consistently across jurisdictions, and covers solar within nationwide plans rather than as a per-market purchase.
Building permits are public records filed with local building departments. Every provider starts from the same municipal sources. The differences are which jurisdictions are covered, how often they are refreshed, and how much cleaning, standardization, and enrichment happens before the data reaches you.