PermitCore vs Shovels — honest comparison.
Shovels.ai is the broadest permit-data competitor in the market — and the closest to PermitCore in positioning. Below: their real strengths named plainly, our axes substantiated, and an explicit section on when Shovels is the better choice for your use case. Every competitor claim on this page cites the underlying public source and the dated scan that verified it.
Comparison last reviewed: June 2026 · Re-verified quarterly against the next scheduled scan (~August 2026).
Shovels' real strengths.
Shovels.ai is well-funded, broad, and shipping enterprise integrations at speed. A comparison page that fails to name a competitor's strengths isn't calibrated honesty — it's marketing wearing a costume. Here's what they're genuinely strong at.
- Coverage breadth: ~1,800–2,000 jurisdictions. Shovels indexes far more jurisdictions than PermitCore. If your workflow needs national or near-national coverage, Shovels is structurally ahead. Source: Shovels' public coverage page; verified in our 2026-05-09 baseline competitive scan.
- Precisely partnership for address-resolved property data. Shovels has a partnership with Precisely (a major property-data + geocoding vendor), making their property-data depth story credible for buyers who need joined permit + parcel + address attribution at scale. Source: Shovels' announcement; verified in our 2026-06-02 refresh competitive scan.
- Charlie AI agent for natural-language querying. Shovels shipped "Charlie" — an AI assistant for permit queries and natural-language-to-API. For teams building AI-agent integrations, Charlie is a shipped product surface today. Source: Shovels' public product surface (Charlie AI agent listed on shovels.ai); verified in our 2026-05-09 baseline competitive scan and our 2026-06-02 refresh scan.
- Entity-extraction beta on permit scope text. Shovels announced entity extraction in February 2026 — surfacing structured fields (sqft, building_type, tags) from permit descriptions. Their public example in February 2026 used a single-family home with a garage. Source: Shovels' February 2026 newsletter (public); verified in our 2026-05-09 baseline competitive scan.
- Snowflake / BigQuery / Databricks data shares. Shovels' Enterprise Data License delivers permit data into customer data warehouses as Parquet or via direct warehouse shares (Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks). For teams whose primary consumption pattern is warehouse-native, the integration surface is shipped. Source: Shovels' Enterprise Data License product page; verified in our 2026-05-09 baseline competitive scan.
- SOC 2 Type 2 attested 2026-04-16. Shovels confirmed SOC 2 Type 2 audit completion on 2026-04-16. For enterprise procurement that gates on compliance posture, this is table stakes already cleared. Source: Shovels' April 2026 newsletter (public); verified in our 2026-05-19 refresh competitive scan.
- Red Tag agentic-enforcement product launched 2026-04-01. Shovels launched "Red Tag," an agentic permit-enforcement product line — signaling continued investment in AI-agent product surfaces beyond core data delivery. Source: Shovels' public product announcement; verified in our 2026-05-19 refresh competitive scan.
Per-axis comparison.
Each cell on PermitCore's side is substantiated by a shipped surface on this site. Each cell on Shovels' side cites the underlying public source and the date of the scan that verified it. Claims without a dated source don't appear.
| Axis | PermitCore | Shovels.ai |
|---|---|---|
| Jurisdiction breadth | 34 US metros (curated commercial-construction footprint) | ~1,800–2,000 jurisdictions (national scale) Source: Shovels' coverage page; verified 2026-05-09 scan. |
| Refresh cadence | Nightly (24–48h from source-portal publish) | 1st-and-15th monthly per public API documentation as of Q1 2026 Source: Shovels' public API documentation; verified 2026-05-09 scan. |
| Self-serve pricing | $89/mo Pro tier, self-serve checkout, no sales call required | $599/mo floor, sales-gated (no self-serve checkout) Source: Shovels' pricing surface; verified 2026-05-09 scan. |
| Commercial-construction segment depth | 8 commercial segments (alteration · MEP · HVAC · new · shell-only · demolition · signage · pool) — every permit lands in exactly one | Entity extraction (sqft / building_type / tags) on permit scope text; Shovels' published February 2026 entity- extraction example used a single-family home. Shovels' Q1 2026 CRE Permit Index is a market-analytics publication (per-quarter aggregate analysis), distinct from per-permit segment classification. Source: Shovels' February 2026 newsletter and Q1 2026 CRE Index publication; verified 2026-05-09 scan. |
| Field-level data-quality transparency | 12 DQ flags per row, rendered inline on every detail page; per-field measured-vs-placeholder distinction | Coverage maps + methodology pages as marketing surfaces (transparency-marketing pivot 2026-06-02). We haven't observed per-field DQ flags in their published customer surfaces as of the most recent scan. Source: Shovels' methodology + coverage marketing pages; verified 2026-06-02 refresh scan. |
| NYC property-level depth | PLUTO geometry joined on NYC detail pages | Property-data depth via Precisely partnership (vendor-joined; not jurisdiction-native PLUTO) Source: Shovels' Precisely partnership announcement; verified 2026-06-02 refresh scan. |
| AI-agent integration | JSON API | Charlie AI agent (shipped); Red Tag agentic-enforcement product launched 2026-04-01 Source: Shovels' public product surfaces; verified 2026-05-09 + 2026-05-19 + 2026-06-02 scans. |
| SOC 2 attestation | Not currently held | SOC 2 Type 2 attested 2026-04-16 Source: Shovels' April 2026 newsletter; verified 2026-05-19 refresh scan. |
| Warehouse-native delivery | JSON / CSV / Parquet via API + bulk export | Snowflake / BigQuery / Databricks shares via Enterprise Data License Source: Shovels' Enterprise Data License product page; verified 2026-05-09 scan. |
When Shovels is the right call for your team.
PermitCore is the right product for some use cases, not all. Here's when Shovels is genuinely the better choice — stated plainly, not as a strawman.
Breadth-first national coverage
If your workflow needs near-national jurisdiction coverage (1,000+ jurisdictions, secondary-and-tertiary markets included), Shovels' ~1,800–2,000 jurisdiction footprint is structurally ahead of PermitCore's curated 34-metro commercial-construction footprint. Climate-tech use cases tracking installs nationwide, residential-investor lead-gen at scale, or anything that needs every-zip-code visibility — Shovels is the right call.
Pre-permit research workflows
If your workflow centers on pre-permit phases — site selection, property research before a permit is filed, parcel-level property attribution at scale — Shovels' Precisely partnership and broader property-data depth serve that motion better than PermitCore's permit-event-issued focus does today.
Warehouse-native enterprise integration
If your team consumes permit data primarily via Snowflake, BigQuery, or Databricks shares (and not via API for application integration), Shovels' Enterprise Data License is shipped and proven. PermitCore delivers via API + bulk export today.
SOC 2-gated procurement
If your enterprise procurement gates on SOC 2 Type 2 attestation before evaluating a vendor, Shovels has theirs (attested 2026-04-16). PermitCore does not have a SOC 2 attestation today. For procurement that cannot move without it, Shovels clears the gate.
Shipped AI-agent product
If you need a shipped natural-language AI agent on permit data today, Shovels' Charlie is in market. PermitCore does not have an AI-agent surface today.
When PermitCore is the right call for your team.
Commercial-construction go-to-market
If you sell into commercial-construction (building-product manufacturers across roofing / HVAC / envelope / solar industries, or commercial-construction sales-ops), our 7 commercial segments and structured per-permit signal map directly to your buyer questions. Shovels' product surfaces have a residential focus (30M residential-property contacts in their dataset, per their public materials); PermitCore's segment taxonomy is built around the commercial vertical from day one. Source: Shovels' public Customers page + residential- property contact counts; verified 2026-05-09 scan.
Daily-cadence territory + lead enrichment
If you need permit data within 24–48h of source-portal publish (not the 1st-and-15th cadence published in Shovels' API documentation as of Q1 2026), PermitCore's nightly refresh is structurally ahead. Sales-ops territory planning and same-week lead enrichment work better on a daily cadence than a monthly one. Source: Shovels' public API documentation; verified 2026-05-09 scan.
Self-serve evaluation without a sales call
If you want to evaluate the actual API before paying — sign up, get a key, query within 60 seconds — PermitCore's $89/mo Pro tier is self-serve via Stripe with no sales call required. Shovels' $599/mo floor is sales-gated. Source: Shovels' pricing surface; verified 2026-05-09 scan.
Field-level data-quality honesty in the buyer surface
Shovels delivers transparency via coverage maps and methodology pages (per their transparency-marketing pivot surfaced in our 2026-06-02 scan); PermitCore renders 12 DQ flags per row in every permit detail page, with per-field measured-vs-placeholder distinction. Different surfaces; for buyer evaluations that include row-level data-quality scrutiny, PermitCore's surface is direct.
Sourcing + methodology.
Every Shovels claim on this page cites the underlying public source — Shovels' homepage, API documentation, marketing pages, blog posts, public newsletters, product-announcement releases — and the date of our competitive scan that verified it.
PermitCore runs a quarterly competitive-scan program. The scans this page draws on:
- 2026-05-09 baseline scan — coverage breadth, funding, refresh cadence per public docs, Charlie AI launch, entity-extraction announcement, Enterprise Data License surface, residential-coverage signals.
- 2026-05-19 refresh scan — SOC 2 Type 2 confirmation (2026-04-16), Industries-page expansion including "Building Materials & Equipment Suppliers," Red Tag product launch (2026-04-01).
- 2026-06-02 refresh scan — Precisely partnership announcement and transparency-marketing pivot.
This page is last reviewed: June 2026. The next scheduled competitive scan is approximately August 2026; on that scan landing, every cell on this page is re-verified or removed. A comparison page with a stale date is a lie with a timestamp.
Frequently asked about PermitCore vs Shovels.
- Is Shovels a better fit if we already use Snowflake / BigQuery?
- Often yes. Shovels' Enterprise Data License delivers via Snowflake / BigQuery / Databricks shares directly (per Shovels' Enterprise Data License product page; verified in our 2026-05-09 competitive scan). PermitCore today delivers via API + Parquet bulk export. If your consumption pattern is warehouse-native and not application-API-native, Shovels' shipped integration surface is the right call.
- How current is this comparison?
- Last reviewed June 2026 (visible at the top of this page). Next scheduled re-verification: approximately August 2026, on our next quarterly competitive scan. Every Shovels claim cites the specific public source and the scan date it was verified against. We re-verify every cell every quarter.
- Why doesn't this page mention Shovels' headcount or funding?
- Headcount and funding figures vary across public sources; we only ship numbers we can pin to a single sourced value.
- Has Shovels published roofing or HVAC manufacturer case studies?
- Not as of our 2026-06-02 refresh scan. Shovels' published case studies skew climate (Carbon Free Homes), advertising (61HAWK), and telecom (sourced from their public Customers page). Their Industries page lists 'Building Materials & Equipment Suppliers' as a target as of our 2026-05-19 scan, but no roofing or HVAC manufacturer logos have been published in their customer surface as of June 2026.