Do you need construction data, or a bid pipeline? We break down how Shovels compares to the project leads platforms on coverage, timing, pricing, and more.
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.
Dodge Construction Network and ConstructConnect are two commercial project leads platforms. They help general contractors, subcontractors, and building product manufacturers find upcoming commercial projects, get bid documents, and win work.
Shovels is a permit intelligence platform. It delivers standardized permit, contractor, and pre-permit planning data for residential and commercial construction nationwide through an API, web app, or data warehouse.
If you are deciding between them, the real question is usually not "which is better" but "which job am I hiring for": winning bids, or analyzing construction activity as data. This page covers both, and how and when the tools work together.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Dodge Construction Network, formerly Dodge Data & Analytics, is the oldest name in commercial construction information, with over a century of project history. Its current platform, Dodge One, launched in 2026 as a rebuilt replacement for Dodge's legacy tools. It tracks commercial projects from early planning through bid day, backed by a human research team. The suite includes The Blue Book contractor network, Sweets building product listings, IMS public-sector project intelligence, and Principia market forecasting.
Much of Dodge's value is the network itself: general contractors upload and share plans, subcontractors subscribe to find them, and Dodge plays matchmaker between the two sides, sourcing plans by reaching out to municipalities and private companies directly. Pricing is custom and sold through a sales process.
ConstructConnect is a commercial preconstruction platform combining project leads with bidding and estimating software, including On-Screen Takeoff, PlanSwift, QuoteSoft, and SmartBid. Its Project Intelligence product publishes pricing openly, with entry plans priced per market and custom enterprise plans. Like Dodge, its research team tracks commercial projects and bid opportunities.
Shovels is the intelligence layer for the built world. It collects permits first-party from jurisdictions nationwide, then uses AI to standardize, deduplicate, and categorize them, linking each to contractor intelligence (permit history, inspection pass rates, build speed, contacts) and parcel data. Decisions adds zoning, planning, and entitlement records before permits are filed. We deliver our connected datasets through the Shovels API, the Shovels Online web app, or a direct warehouse share into Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks.
| Dimension | Dodge Construction Network | ConstructConnect | Shovels |
|---|---|---|---|
| Built for | Finding and winning commercial projects | Commercial bidding, takeoff, and estimating | Construction data for analytics, targeting, and products |
| Core data unit | Research-verified commercial projects | Research-verified commercial projects and bid documents | Individual permits, contractors, parcels, and planning decisions |
| Residential coverage | Limited (commercial-first) | Commercial focus | Full: residential and commercial permits |
| Pre-construction signal | Planning-stage projects from research team | Planning projects on Professional plan and above | Decisions: zoning and entitlement records across jurisdictions |
| Post-award visibility | Ends around bid/award | Awarded contractor information | Permits, inspections, and completions after the award |
| Contractor data | Blue Book network profiles | Company and contact info on tracked projects | Permit-derived profiles: history, pass rates, build speed, contacts |
| Delivery | Platform, CRM integrations, API | Platform, exports, integrations | REST API, web app, Snowflake / BigQuery / Databricks |
| Pricing | Custom, via sales | Published per-market plans | Self-serve plans, API tiers, enterprise data feeds |
| Getting started | Request a demo | Subscribe online | Free self-serve signup, same-day data access |
Dodge and ConstructConnect deliver curated opportunities: a research-verified project, its documents, and the contacts to pursue it. That is a workflow product, and it is what you want if your revenue depends on bid volume.
Shovels delivers records: every permit, every contractor, every planning decision, as structured data you can query, join, and build on. If the output you need is a dashboard, a model, a territory plan, or an enriched CRM rather than a bid pipeline, you need data, not just leads.
Dodge and ConstructConnect research teams focus on commercial projects worth bidding. That leaves out most of the built world: residential construction, remodels, solar, HVAC replacements, roofing, and the long tail of small commercial work that never goes to competitive bid.
Shovels captures all of it, because permits are required for all of it. For building product manufacturers and suppliers, that difference is the entire residential market.
Project leads platforms are strongest in the window between planning and award. Shovels Decisions sees earlier, at the zoning and entitlement stage, while building permit data sees later, tracking what actually gets built, by whom, and how it inspects.
For a leads platform, the permit is the finish line: it confirms a project started, and tracking ends there. For Shovels, the data shows the entire lifecycle. If you need to forecast or track market changes outside the scope of individual projects, the full timeline matters more than the bid window.
Sales teams using leads platforms describe the same need: what is about to start near me, how big is it, when does it start, and who is the builder. Shovels' permit categories let you scope the feed to exactly that, such as new construction and your trade-relevant permit types, and exclude the remodels, additions, and small residential work you do not care about.
Because coverage is collected first-party, if a market you serve has a gap, Shovels can add the jurisdiction on request, including rural areas where records only exist through public records requests.
Dodge and ConstructConnect update tracked projects continuously through their research teams, which fits daily bid workflows.
Shovels refreshes core permit data twice a month. If you need same-day alerts on new bid opportunities, the leads platforms fit better today. If you are analyzing activity, scoring contractors, or targeting demand signals, a regular permit refresh across full jurisdiction coverage is the stronger dataset.
Already using Dodge or ConstructConnect? Keep them for bids. Teams add Shovels to answer the questions a bid board cannot answer: which markets are heating up, which contractors are worth partnering with, where residential demand is moving, and what happened after the award. The Shovels data feed drops straight into your warehouse alongside your existing tools.
If you are a general contractor or subcontractor whose pipeline depends on finding commercial projects to bid, a leads platform is the right tool. You get research-verified projects, plans and specs, bidder lists, and contacts, organized for a bidding workflow. ConstructConnect adds takeoff and estimating software on top. Shovels does not do this.
Shovels is the better choice when the job is analytical or product-driven: market intelligence, contractor scoring, lead generation from permit signals (a new roof, a solar install, a remodel), CRM and territory enrichment, or building permit-backed features into your own product. It is also the only option of the three for residential construction at national scale.
Yes, they absolutely do. The most common pattern is simple: the leads platform stays the system of action for estimators and bid teams, and Shovels becomes the data layer underneath everything else. A few combinations come up repeatedly.
Territory and market planning. Building permits show total construction activity in a market, including all the residential and small commercial work that never reaches a bid board. Teams use Shovels to size markets, set territories, and decide where to expand, then work the individual opportunities inside Dodge or ConstructConnect.
Getting in before the bid. Decisions data surfaces zoning and entitlement approvals months before a project reaches a bid board. Sales teams use it to start relationships while a project is still moving through local government, then track the formal opportunity in their leads platform once it appears. It's much easier to influence a project before construction begins than after the bid process is underway.
Vetting who is building. A bidder list tells you who wants the work. Shovels contractor profiles show who actually does it: permit history, project volume, build speed, and inspection outcomes. General contractors use this to vet subcontractors, while building product manufacturers use it to identify the contractors actually installing their products, not just the ones bidding.
Warehouse and CRM enrichment. Shovels Enterprise delivers data straight to Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks alongside your leads platform exports. Joining the datasets by address or company enriches CRM accounts with permit history, shows how much of a market your pipeline actually covers, and lets you follow projects from entitlement through permits, inspections, and completion.
We know vendor evaluation is complex. But a simple way to get started is to write down the last five questions your team tried to answer with construction data. "Which projects should we bid this week?" points to Dodge or ConstructConnect.
"Which ZIP codes had the most kitchen remodels last quarter," "which HVAC contractors in Texas are growing fastest," or "how many data center permits were filed in Phoenix this year" point to Shovels.
If your list splits both ways, you might be a two-tool team, and the question shifts from either-or to how much of each. Bid-driven questions justify leads platform seats for estimators. Market and account questions justify a data license.
Whichever way the list points, evaluate against your own markets rather than national claims. Ask each vendor for coverage in the specific cities and counties you serve, then spot-check projects you already know about: a development underway near your office, a competitor's job, a permit you pulled yourself. A missing record tells you more than any coverage map.
Also, check the fields your workflow depends on such as contacts, dates, project values, and category tags. A record that exists but lacks the field you need is not much better than no record at all.
Compare cost structures like for like. Leads platforms price by seat and market, so growing the team or the footprint means more licenses. Shovels offers monthly subscriptions to the web app or API and data licenses as a contracted fee scoped by geography and permit categories, so the cost conversation is more about which markets and which signals.
Finally, test with real geography. ConstructConnect can be evaluated from its published plans. Dodge requires a demo. Shovels Online offers free self-serve access, so you can check your markets today.
Have questions about fit? Explore the Shovels permit database for free, or talk to us about your use case.
Sign up free, pull the permits and contractors in a market you already know, and judge the coverage, deduplication, and enrichment for yourself.
Dodge does not publish pricing. Plans are scoped through its sales team based on geography, users, and product configuration. Industry sources generally place Dodge subscriptions at enterprise price points. ConstructConnect publishes its pricing openly, and Shovels offers tiered self-serve plans alongside custom enterprise solutions.
Both track commercial construction projects with research teams and serve the bidding workflow. Dodge has the longest project history and the Blue Book contractor network. ConstructConnect pairs its project database with takeoff and estimating software and publishes its pricing. They compete directly; ConstructConnect even maintains a Dodge comparison page, and adjacent products like BuildCentral sit in the same pre-bid commercial leads category.
Dodge is commercial-first, with limited residential solutions. ConstructConnect is also commercial-focused. Shovels covers residential and commercial permits across jurisdictions nationwide, which is why building product manufacturers and home services companies typically use permit data rather than project leads platforms for residential demand.
It happens, especially outside major metros. Research teams prioritize larger commercial projects and covered markets, so hospitals, schools, and developments in smaller or rural jurisdictions can be absent entirely. Permits are the more complete record because every project needs one. Shovels also fills coverage gaps on request through direct jurisdiction relationships and public records requests, including areas that never publish permits online.
Yes, they cover different ground. Your leads platform handles the bid pipeline. Shovels adds what it cannot see: residential activity, post-award reality (permits, inspections, completions), contractor performance metrics, pre-permit zoning signals, and raw data delivery into your warehouse for analytics. The common pattern is leads platform for winning work, Shovels for understanding the market.
Shovels delivers permit and pre-permit records that many teams use as leads, such as new solar, roofing, HVAC, or remodel permits matched to properties and contractors. It is not a bid-opportunity service. You query the signals that fit your business through the API or web app instead of receiving a curated bid board.