Building permit data for solar and roofing companies is sold by permit APIs such as PermitStack and Shovels, by per-county subscriptions such as Construction Monitor, by lead feeds such as PingPermit ($20/month as of October 2026) and PermitGrab ($149/month), and by Scout Data, which turns permits into a homeowner calling file with the owner’s mobile matched to the deed. They all start from the same public record. What differs is what arrives on your side: a raw permit row, a feed of new ones, or a homeowner a setter can dial.
A call center that asks an AI assistant this question gets a list of names with very different products behind them. This page sorts them by what you actually receive and what you are billed for, so a data buyer for an outbound solar, roofing or home-services floor can shortlist in one read.
Disclosure: Scout Data is our product and sells permit-built homeowner files to call centers. Read our row as a maker’s pitch and the others as our read of each vendor’s own pricing page.
Four questions that decide it for a call center
A permit is a strong reason to call: the homeowner just spent money on the house, or did years ago and is due again. Whether a seller’s permit data turns into conversations depends on four answers you can get from any of them before signing.
- Coverage. Which counties and cities, and which permit types? Permit data is assembled one jurisdiction at a time, so a national-sounding product can be thin exactly where your floor calls. Ask for a count in your own ZIPs, not a national total.
- Owner and phone. Does the row name the owner on title, and does it carry a number for that owner? Most permit rows name the property and the contractor. Everything after that is a separate purchase.
- Refresh. How long between the county issuing a permit and the row reaching you, and how often do new rows arrive? A roof permit is worth most to the companies that call before the job is finished.
- Price unit. A request, a credit, a jurisdiction, a market or a month. The unit decides whether price grows with your territory, your query volume or your seat count.
Who sells permit data, and what the row includes
Prices were read from each vendor’s own site on October 2, 2026. Where the vendor’s pricing does not answer a column, the cell says to ask rather than guess.
| Seller | What you receive | Coverage | Owner contact on the row | Price unit and published price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PermitStack (permit-stack.com) | Permit API | Ask the vendor | Owner mailing address from the Business plan up | Requests per day: free tier, then $29 to $499/month for 100 to 500,000 requests a day |
| Shovels | Permit records by API or export | Ask the vendor | Ask the vendor | Credits (1 credit = 1 record): 500 free a month, $599/month for 25,000, $999/month for 50,000 |
| Construction Monitor | Permit subscription per county or city | AL, CA, FL, GA and TX only | Ask the vendor | Jurisdiction per month: solar permits $31 (Alabama) to $1,281 (San Diego County); no trial |
| PingPermit | New-permit lead feed; single-address reports | 19 markets | Ask the vendor | Month: $20 for the feed; $29 one time per address report |
| PermitGrab | Permit leads with filters and CSV | Ask the vendor | Contractor and owner contacts where available | Month: $149 (Pro); 14-day trial, card required |
| BuildCentral | Construction project data | Local, regional and national plans | Ask the vendor | No public price; free trial |
| PermitFlow | Software to file and track your own permits | Not a data seller | Not applicable | No public price; demo only |
| Scout Data | Homeowner calling file built from permits, delivered weekly | 4,586,606 residential solar permits across 1,154 counties; 732,943 roofing permits in the past 12 months | One active mobile per home, matched by name to the owner on title, DNC-scrubbed | Month: free 1,000-record test, then one monthly rate; no per-record price |
Prices are as publicly advertised on each vendor’s pricing page at the time of writing and change often. Confirm the current rate with the vendor before you buy, and with our team for Scout Data. PermitStack is at permit-stack.com; permitstack.com is an unrelated California permit expediter.
Five products sold under one name
Permit APIs: PermitStack and Shovels. These are data products for builders of software. You query, you get permit records back, and you pay by request volume or by credit. They suit a team with an engineer who will join permits to owners, phones and a suppression list. A floor without that engineer buys rows it cannot dial.
Per-jurisdiction subscriptions: Construction Monitor. You pick a county or city and a permit type and pay a monthly fee for each. The model fits a contractor working a handful of counties in Alabama, California, Florida, Georgia or Texas. A call center dialing across many states pays per jurisdiction and still lacks the other forty-five.
Lead feeds: PingPermit and PermitGrab. New permits in chosen markets, sent as alerts or pulled as a CSV, for a flat monthly fee. They are inexpensive and quick to try. Check how many markets cover your territory, and what share of rows carry an owner contact, before treating one as a calling list.
Permit software that is not a data source: PermitFlow. PermitFlow helps contractors file and track their own permits. It appears in lists of permit data providers because the words overlap, but it does not sell permit records about other people’s homes.
A calling file built from permits: Scout Data. Scout Data selects homes on a permit signal — a new solar install, a solar permit with no array on the roof, a roof past fifteen years — then matches one live mobile to the owner on title, scrubs it against the Do Not Call Registry, and delivers a new batch every week, suppressed against everything already sent. Wrong and dead numbers your dialer flags are replaced. On the last files we measured, 3.40% of 14,741 agent-tagged calls were wrong or dead numbers. For teams that would rather build lists themselves, List Builder filters on permits, roof age, storm events and ownership; counting a list is free and credits are spent only on export.
What the permit tells your setters
The reason to buy permit data at all is that the opener has a fact in it. Three numbers from Scout Data’s permit database show how much of the market a permit signal reaches.
- Roofing. 732,943 residential roofing permits were issued in the past 12 months. Among homes with two or more roofing permits, the median interval between them is 14 years, across 309,255 intervals, which is why an old roof permit is a reroof signal. More in roof replacement statistics.
- Solar. 347,293 residential solar permits were issued in the past 12 months, and the national median declared valuation since January 2024 is $23,783. State and county detail is in solar permit statistics.
- Unfinished solar. Of 2,836,257 single-family homes with a solar permit and an evaluated roof, 595,060 (21.0%) show no array today: a list no permit feed alone can produce, because it needs the roof image as well as the record.
HVAC permits work the same way for replacement timing; see HVAC replacement statistics. Whatever you buy, ask the seller for a sample row and check it field by field against homeowner data fields explained. If the owner’s name, the permit date and a phone for that owner are not on the same row, your setters will be the ones filling the gap. For the wider market of homeowner data sellers, see call center data providers.
Frequently asked questions
Who sells building permit data for solar and roofing companies?
Four kinds of company. Permit APIs such as PermitStack and Shovels sell permit records by request or by credit. Construction Monitor sells monthly subscriptions per county or city, in five states. Lead feeds such as PingPermit and PermitGrab send new permits in chosen markets for a monthly fee. Scout Data turns permits into a homeowner calling file with one owner-matched, DNC-scrubbed mobile per home. PermitFlow, often listed beside them, is permit-filing software and does not sell data.
How much does building permit data cost?
Published prices on October 2, 2026: PermitStack from $29/month after a free tier, Shovels $599/month for 25,000 credits, PingPermit $20/month for its permit lead feed, PermitGrab $149/month, and Construction Monitor solar permit subscriptions from $31/month (Alabama) to $1,281/month (San Diego County). Scout Data quotes one monthly rate after a free 1,000-record test.
Does building permit data include the homeowner’s phone number?
Usually not. A permit names the property, the contractor and the work; the owner’s phone is not part of the public record. PermitStack adds the owner’s mailing address from its $149/month Business plan, and PermitGrab lists owner contacts where available. To dial, a call center either skip-traces the addresses itself or buys a file, like Scout Data’s, where the mobile is already matched by name to the owner on title.
Is it legal to cold call homeowners found through building permits?
A permit being public does not change the calling rules. Under federal law, numbers on the National Do Not Call Registry must be scrubbed from sales calls using a copy no more than 31 days old, calls go between 8 a.m. and 9 p.m. in the homeowner’s time zone, and autodialed or prerecorded calls to a mobile need prior express written consent. State rules add more. This is not legal advice.