Shovels
Shovels - Building permit and contractor intelligence
Company Documentation Careers Blog Privacy Terms & Conditions
Free trial
We’re hiring! See open positions

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.

Find contractors Find permits
Oracle Pearl Schneider Electric TopBuild Angi BuilderTrend Beam Houzz Rewiring America PaintJet

Read our case studies

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
160M+
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>2024 Shovels Year-End Recap</p>
Company

2024 Shovels Year-End Recap

In 2024, Shovels achieved significant growth across multiple fronts - growing revenue more than 10X, doubling the team size to six members, dramatically improving data processing capabilities, establishing strategic partnerships with industry leaders like Esri and Autodesk, and launching major improvements to the software platform including the V2 release.

Ryan Buckley

Ryan Buckley

CEO

<p>How to use the Shovels V2 API</p>
Customer Success

How to use the Shovels V2 API

The Shovels V2 REST API enables property, climate, and construction technology developers to access detailed building permit and contractor data. The API provides two primary resources: Permits (official construction documents from local authorities) and Contractors (skilled building trade professionals).

Ryan Buckley

Ryan Buckley

CEO