BuildZoom vs Shovels vs Construction Monitor vs PermitGrab

By Marcus Reeves, Head of Permit Research at PermitGrab · Updated daily from official city records · Last permit filed: today

BuildZoom, Shovels, Construction Monitor, ATTOM, and PermitGrab all pull from public building permit data — but each is built for a different buyer. BuildZoom is a homeowner marketplace. Shovels is a developer API. Construction Monitor is the old-guard daily-report service. ATTOM is enterprise data licensing. PermitGrab is a flat-rate SaaS for active prospecting. Here's how to pick the right one for your use case.

Quick comparison table

BuildZoom — best for homeowners, not contractors

BuildZoom is positioned as a homeowner marketplace. Type your project into the site and they curate a shortlist of 3-5 contractors. They take 2.5% of the project cost when one is hired. Their underlying dataset is huge — 350M+ permits, 25 years of history — and they expose a buildzoomdata.com data product for licensing.

When BuildZoom makes sense: You're a homeowner with a remodel project and want pre-vetted contractor shortlists without sifting through permit data yourself.

When BuildZoom doesn't make sense: You're a contractor trying to find leads. BuildZoom routes leads to homeowners; you have to compete on their platform for shortlist slots, and you're competing with 4 million other listed contractors. Reviews from contractors are mixed at best — the price-on-hire model is fairer than pay-per-shared-lead, but you only see the lead after BuildZoom has selected you.

Shovels — best for developers building data products

Shovels is the most data-engineering-friendly product in the space. They offer a web tool for ad-hoc exploration, a programmatic API for pipelines, and enterprise data licensing for bulk shares. Their tagline — "the intelligence layer for the built world" — describes the positioning accurately. 1,800+ jurisdictions, ~85% of US population, normalized data model.

When Shovels makes sense: You're a developer building a product on top of permit data, you want an API contract with rate limits and SLA, and you're comfortable doing your own UX around the data.

When Shovels doesn't make sense: You're a contractor or sales rep who wants leads, not a data feed. Without engineering resources, you're paying for raw data you can't immediately operationalize. The online search tool is useful for one-off lookups but lacks the contractor profile + phone enrichment that turns permits into outreach lists.

Construction Monitor — old-guard daily report

Construction Monitor has been delivering building-permit reports since 1992. They use field agents to collect data in selected metros (not full-US coverage like the others) and email daily PDFs or CSVs. Strong reputation among industrial suppliers (concrete, steel, roofing materials) where the customer is buying based on metro-level activity reports rather than per-contractor outreach.

When Construction Monitor makes sense: You're a regional supplier in a metro they cover, you want a daily report you can hand to your sales team, and you don't mind a custom-quote sales motion.

When Construction Monitor doesn't make sense: You need API access, you operate across many metros (their per-metro pricing adds up fast), or you want web-based search with filters rather than emailed PDFs.

ATTOM Data — enterprise license

ATTOM is a property-data conglomerate that includes building permits as one product in a broader catalog (deeds, mortgages, foreclosures, AVMs). They primarily sell to insurance carriers, mortgage technology companies, and large analytics teams via bulk data delivery, API, or cloud-warehouse share. Nationwide coverage with residential + commercial.

When ATTOM makes sense: You're an enterprise buyer with a 5-6 figure data budget, you need permits as one of many property datasets in a single delivery, and you want bulk delivery rather than per-lookup access.

When ATTOM doesn't make sense: You're an SMB contractor; the pricing and procurement process is built for enterprise procurement, not individual subscriptions.

PermitGrab — best for active outbound prospecting

We built PermitGrab for the gap none of the above filled: contractors, suppliers, insurance agents, real estate investors who want to actively prospect off permit data without an API integration project or enterprise procurement. Flat $149/month, daily email digest, contractor phone enrichment, 14-day Pro trial ($0 today).

1061 cities covered. 154,583 contractor profiles. 20,856 verified phone numbers. 271,357 code violations across 48 cities. 11,863,412 property owners from county assessor data.

When PermitGrab makes sense: You have a sales motion (or want to start one), you want exclusive non-shared leads, you want contractor phone numbers attached without doing the licensing-DB cross-reference yourself, and you want flat pricing instead of per-hire fees or per-lead costs.

When PermitGrab doesn't make sense: You're an enterprise buyer who needs raw bulk delivery (ATTOM or Shovels enterprise). You're a homeowner shopping for a contractor (BuildZoom). You need historical depth beyond 6 months (we focus on freshness over archival; ATTOM and BuildZoom go deeper historically).

Decision matrix by use case

Why we built PermitGrab differently

The three reasons we don't compete head-on with Shovels or ATTOM: (1) we ship a daily email digest of new permits in cities you follow, so you don't have to log in and check; (2) we cross-reference state licensing databases automatically to attach contractor phone numbers — which is the difference between "I have a contractor's name" and "I can call them today"; (3) we charge a flat $149/month so the cost is predictable.

If you want to see the actual data: browse all 1061 cities, Chicago permits, Phoenix permits, Miami permits, or try 10 free phone reveals on any city — no signup, no card.

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