PermitGrab organizes public building-permit records by market. Each city page identifies the publishing jurisdiction, newest displayed record, and fields currently available so a team can evaluate its own coverage needs. Shovels offers both a self-serve web app (Shovels Online) and an enterprise API. PermitGrab is a city-by-city research subscription. The products differ in covered markets, available fields, and workflow — review each on its own terms before choosing.
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Permit records dated in the last 7 days. Available contractor, owner, and contact fields vary by public source and market.
| Date | City | Trade | Contractor | Phone | Value |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2026-09-09 | Yuba City, CA | Roofing | P••••• D••••••• INC | (916) •••-••63 | $119,500 |
| 2026-09-09 | Yuba City, CA | General Construction | T••• & C•••••• H•••••• & A•• C••••••• INC | (530) •••-••65 | $7,000 |
| 2026-09-09 | Yuba City, CA | General Construction | G••••••• C••••••• LLC | (707) •••-••70 | $10,000 |
| 2026-09-09 | Bethany, DE | Roofing | C•••••• H••• R••••••• | (410) •••-••07 | $19,723 |
| 2026-09-09 | Bethany, DE | General Construction | C•••••• H••• R••••••• | (410) •••-••07 | $19,868 |
| 2026-09-09 | Bethany, DE | Demolition | S•••• H••••••• E••••••• LLC | (302) •••-••43 | $22,850 |
Review the source date and available fields for each market before subscribing.
Each Shovels statement below is quoted from Shovels’ own published pages, not from our summary of them. Each PermitGrab statement describes the shipped product.
| What you are comparing | Shovels, as they publish it | PermitGrab |
|---|---|---|
| Where the records come from | Shovels publishes: “Permits come from jurisdiction portals online and public records requests offline. We source directly from cities and counties, not third-party aggregators.” | PermitGrab collects from the jurisdiction’s own published permit source. Each city page names the publishing source for that market. |
| Refresh cadence | Shovels publishes a fixed cadence: “Updated twice monthly” — “Millions of new permits and status updates each cycle, documented in our release notes.” | PermitGrab publishes no fleet-wide cadence, because collection runs differ by source. Each city page shows the newest record currently displayed for that market, so you check the markets you serve instead of trusting an average. |
| History depth | Shovels publishes a depth: “Generally back to 2010, further in some jurisdictions. Depth depends on how far back each jurisdiction’s records are digitized.” | PermitGrab publishes no fleet-wide history depth. Depth follows whatever the jurisdiction publishes, and differs market by market. |
| Headline coverage figure | Shovels states “2,770+ jurisdictions covering roughly 85% of the US population, including all major metros.” That is their figure; PermitGrab has not verified it. | PermitGrab displays coverage totals on some pages, but a total does not establish source freshness or field availability for your market. Open the city directory and check the specific markets you serve. |
| Field documentation | Shovels publishes a public data dictionary — “Complete field definitions for Shovels datasets including permits, contractors, residents, decisions, and property data” — and labels each field “Provided by jurisdiction”, “Enhanced by Shovels” or “Created by Shovels”. | PermitGrab explains its common record fields and dates in the methodology dictionary. City pages add market-specific source context and available fields; the documentation has a different scope from the Shovels dataset dictionary. |
| Derived vs. source fields | Shovels creates fields the jurisdiction did not publish — for example FIRST_SEEN_DATE, “The date Shovels first saw the permit in the jurisdiction’s portal” — and states “Our models tag every permit by type of work.” | PermitGrab derives its trade grouping from the source’s own permit type and description text. A permit may also be matched to separately sourced property-owner or contractor contact information. Those matches are distinct from permit-source fields, depend on supporting evidence, and are not guaranteed. |
| Published price | Neither Shovels page cited here publishes a price. Check their site for current terms before you compare cost. | Pro is $149/mo flat after a 14-day trial. The price is on the pricing page, not behind a quote. |
PermitGrab record field and date dictionary
Sources: Shovels — Permits Data · Shovels — Data Dictionary. Read on 9 September 2026. These are Shovels’ own published claims about their product; PermitGrab has not independently audited them, and Shovels may have changed them since. Verify anything you plan to buy on against their current pages.
Ask four questions. (1) Do you need an enterprise API or a data-platform pipeline, or an in-browser research workflow by city and trade? (2) Can you work from the public contractor-of-record fields a city publishes, accepting that no phone is guaranteed on every row? (3) Will you open each city page and check its publishing source and newest displayed record before you subscribe? (4) Is Pro $149/mo flat acceptable against whatever Shovels charges today — verify their current terms on their own site. Answering "enterprise API" to (1) points away from PermitGrab; answering "city-by-city research UI" points toward it.
Both offer web-based permit tools. Shovels has a self-serve app (Shovels Online) plus an enterprise API. PermitGrab is a city-by-city research subscription that shows source jurisdiction, newest record date, and available fields per market. Compare covered markets, fields, and pricing on each site.
Coverage differs by jurisdiction. Review the city page for your market to see the publishing source, newest displayed record, and fields currently available.
No. Building permits are public records and other people may be able to access the underlying publishing source.
No. Those fields vary by source and record. PermitGrab shows only the available fields for the relevant market.
Start with the jurisdiction, source date, record types, and available fields for the markets you serve, then assess the workflow using your own outreach and revenue data.
They are different products with some overlap. PermitGrab is a Pro $149/mo research subscription for browsing and filtering public permits by market. Shovels offers both a self-serve web app and an enterprise API with their own coverage and pricing. Evaluate each on its current terms.
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