Find and sell to the right contractors

Shovels helps you identify qualified contractors, understand their work history, and connect with decision makers. Access rich permit data to power your contractor sales and marketing.

Oracle Pearl Schneider Electric TopBuild Angi BuilderTrend Beam Houzz 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
170M+
Contractors in our database
3M+
US addresses covered
30M+
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>June 2025 Newsletter</p>
Company

June 2025 Newsletter

Shovels June 25 Newsletter: Announcing our $5M raise led by Base10 and the launch of Project Wolverine, our self-healing scraper infrastructure for nationwide daily permit updates.

<p>Shovels Raises $5M Seed Round to Scale AI-Powered Building Permit Platform</p>
Company

Shovels Raises $5M Seed Round to Scale AI-Powered Building Permit Platform

Shovels announces a $5M seed round led by Base10 Partners, bringing total funding to $6.5M. The company has built an AI-powered platform that processes 170M+ building permits across 20,000+ jurisdictions, serving customers from startups to public companies. The funding will accelerate expansion of their government data infrastructure, enhance AI capabilities, and extend coverage into additional datasets beyond building permits.

Betty Wan

Betty Wan

VP of Growth

<p>How to supercharge lead generation with Shovels API and Clay</p>
Company

How to supercharge lead generation with Shovels API and Clay

This article provides a practical guide on integrating Shovels API with Clay to automate construction industry lead generation. It demonstrates how to combine Shovels' database of 170M+ building permits and 3M+ contractors with Clay's no-code platform to create efficient prospecting workflows. The guide includes three real-world examples: finding active HVAC contractors, enriching contractor profiles, and building solar company mailing lists, showing how to reduce manual research costs by 87% while significantly increasing prospect volume.