As of October 2026, Shovels advertises a $599 per month subscription for its Shovels Online web application, and a separate $599 per month plan for its API. Unlike enterprise property data vendors that hide behind a “Contact Sales” wall, Shovels publishes its standard pricing and operates on a month-to-month model.
Disclosure: Scout Data is our product. We also ingest permit data, but we process it specifically for outbound sales teams. Treat the Scout Data section as our pitch, and the rest as an honest breakdown of the Shovels pricing structure.
The Shovels pricing model
Shovels divides its product into two main offerings, both priced at $599 a month for their standard tiers:
- Shovels Online ($599/mo). This is their web interface, designed for users who want to search and filter building permits, contractors, and jurisdictions manually. It allows you to query their nationwide coverage without writing code.
- Shovels API ($599/mo). This is the developer route. If you are building an internal tool or integrating contractor activity into your own software, this subscription provides programmatic access to their database.
They also offer a Free API Tier that includes 500 requests, allowing developers to test the endpoints and examine the JSON payloads before buying. For enterprise buyers needing bulk Snowflake delivery or massive API volume, they negotiate custom annual contracts.
API access versus the web app
The split between the app and the API determines who Shovels is for. Because they maintain a modern, developer-first API, they are an excellent choice for engineering teams building products on top of contractor data (like risk modeling or market share analysis).
However, if you are a sales manager trying to build a list of homes that just pulled a roof or solar permit, buying API access means you still have to build the infrastructure to pull, store, and deduplicate those records. Buying the web app gives you a CSV, but it is just the permit record—you still have to send that CSV to a skip-tracing vendor to get homeowner phone numbers.
The alternative for sales teams
If your goal is to find active contractors or build software, Shovels is a strong contender. You can compare them against the rest of the market in our guide to building permit data providers.
If your goal is to load a list into a dialer and call homeowners who just pulled a specific permit, you are better off buying the finished list. With Scout Data, you can target homes by permit type, permit age, or roof age, and we deliver the records with owner-matched, DNC-scrubbed phone numbers.
You do not pay a $599 monthly subscription to access a search tool, and you do not have to stitch the permit data to a separate skip-tracing service. Instead, you pay one monthly rate quoted after a free test batch, and you receive a dial-ready file that actually connects you to the homeowner.
Pricing for Shovels is described as publicly advertised at the time of writing. Vendors routinely change packages, allowances, and prices; confirm current terms with Shovels directly, and with our sales team for Scout Data.
Frequently asked questions
How much does Shovels cost?
As of October 2026, Shovels advertises a $599 per month subscription for its Shovels Online web dashboard, and a separate $599 per month subscription for its API. Both are month-to-month plans.
Does Shovels offer a free API tier?
Yes. The Shovels API offers a free tier that includes 500 API pings, which is designed for developers to test the integration and verify data structure before committing to the paid subscription.
Does Shovels data include contact information?
Shovels provides building permit records and contractor intelligence, but it is not a direct-to-homeowner contact list provider. If you need to call homeowners based on recent permits, you will typically need to append phones to the addresses yourself.