Shovels rents its parcels and republishes twice a month. We own 80.5M parcels and ship daily.
Shovels licenses its parcel layer from Regrid. Their data refreshes on a monthly cycle, released on the 1st and 15th, and their docs say the API can take up to another week to catch up. Our 80,546,715 parcels are owned outright, pre-joined to the permits, and refreshed daily. If freshness or the parcel layer matters to your use case, this is not a close call.
Every claim about Shovels on this page links to their own live public pages, verified as of July 2026. See the sources at the bottom. That is what lets us be this direct.
Read it in ten seconds.
| DataJackpot | Shovels | Winner | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parcel ownership | 80.5M parcels owned outright, pre-joined to permits in one database. | Licensed from Regrid, joined by Regrid ID, built for joint customers of both products.4 | We win |
| Refresh cadence | Daily. | Monthly cycle, released the 1st and 15th, plus up to a week before the API catches up.2 | We win |
| Violations & property events | 51.9M records, 90.9% parcel-linked. | Not an advertised dataset; their homepage sells permit, contractor, property, and resident data.1 | We win |
| Long-tail town coverage | 2,277 jurisdictions including clerk-sourced towns with no portal to scrape, plus Pennsylvania boroughs and townships. | Roughly 2,000 of about 20,000 US jurisdictions, with a strategic focus on population centers.3 | We win |
| Contracts required | One. Parcels are owned and included. | Custom enterprise pricing, and the parcel workflow is built for joint customers of Shovels and Regrid.4,7 | We win |
| Total permit volume | 45.5M+ permits. | 164M+ permits per their homepage. They have more. Full stop.1 | They win |
| Docs, content, and developer surface | API docs and a published methodology. | An extensive, well-run docs and content operation. It is why we can cite them this precisely.1,5 | They win |
The rows we lose are marked as plainly as the rows we win. That is the point of the table.
Their data ships on the 1st and 15th, then takes up to a week to reach the API. Ours shipped this morning.2
Refresh cadence per Shovels' own documentation.
Every row above, substantiated.
| DataJackpot | Shovels | |
|---|---|---|
| Refresh cadence | Daily. Automated pipelines pull from source portals and clerk feeds every day, and exports reflect the latest load. | Monthly refresh cycles, released on the 1st and 15th of each month; their docs note API availability can take up to a week after the database refresh.2 |
| Parcels | 80.5M parcels owned, not licensed. They live in the same database as the permits and arrive pre-joined. One vendor, one contract. | Parcel data comes through a partnership with Regrid, joined via the Regrid ID; the workflow is built for joint customers of both products.4 |
| Permit volume | 45.5M+ permits. Smaller headline number, and we say so plainly. | 164M+ permits per their homepage, a substantially larger corpus.1 |
| Coverage shape | Alongside portal-scraped metros, a large share of our records come directly from town and village clerks: the long tail that has no portal to scrape. | Their docs describe a strategic focus on population centers: roughly 2,000 of about 20,000 US jurisdictions, covering about 85% of the population.3 |
| Contractor counting | 3,309,148 license records, deduplicated to 2,888,145 unique contractors. We publish both numbers because they are different numbers. | 3.16M+ contractors per their homepage.1 |
| Project values | We report values as filed and cap obvious outliers. Ask us, or any vendor, how values are sourced in your specific market before you model on them. | Their own field guide says job_value and fees are infrequently required and even less often accurate, especially for non-contractor permits. Credit to them for publishing it.5 |
| Counts and metrics | Exports and API results return full record-level data; counts come from the database, not a search index cap. | Per their API reference, result counts are exact only up to 10,000; above that the API reports at least 10,000 rather than an exact total.6 |
| Numbers consistency | One canonical metrics sheet; the numbers on this page are the numbers in the product. | Their homepage says 2,450+ jurisdictions while their docs say approximately 2,000. Ask about it during evaluation.1,3 |
| Property events | 51.9M property events (violations, code enforcement, complaints) linked to the same property spine as permits, 90.9% parcel-linked. | Permit, contractor, property, and resident data are their advertised core datasets.1 |
| Published pricing | From $179/mo, all tiers public. Every self-serve plan and price is published on our pricing page, no sales call required to see a number. | From $599/mo, upper tiers hidden. Their entry pricing is published; Enterprise Data License pricing is custom and requires talking to sales.4,7 |
2,888,145 unique contractors. Counted the honest way: 3,309,148 license records, deduplicated to entities, methodology published.
Questions to ask any permit data vendor.
Each question below exists because a vendor's own published pages made it necessary. Ask them of everyone you evaluate, including us.
Shovels' parcel layer comes from a Regrid partnership, joined by Regrid ID and built for joint customers of both products. Ask who you will actually be contracting with, and what happens to the join if either contract lapses.4
Continuously collected is not the same as continuously delivered. Shovels documents monthly refresh cycles released on the 1st and 15th, plus up to a week before the API reflects them. Ask for the dates the last three releases hit the API.2
Shovels' API reference reports counts above 10,000 as at least, not exact. If you are sizing a market or paying per record, ask which counts in the product are exact.6
One contractor holds licenses in multiple states. We publish both numbers: 3,309,148 license records and 2,888,145 unique contractors. Ask any vendor which of the two their homepage number is.1
Shovels' own field guide says job_value and fees are infrequently required and even less often accurate. Test fill rates in your market, from any vendor, before you build a model on them.5
Where Shovels beats us today
Conceding this plainly is the point of the page. These are real advantages, and if they are your first requirements, buy Shovels.
164M+ permits on their homepage against our 45.5M+. If maximum historical depth in major metros is your first requirement, their headline number is bigger than ours.
Native delivery via Snowflake, BigQuery, Databricks, and parquet, plus a CLI and their Charlie AI natural-language interface. Their developer surface area is broad and well documented.
Their docs, knowledge base, and blog are extensive, and that same candor is why we can cite them. It is a well-run content operation and a real strength.
Shovels pricing vs DataJackpot pricing
Per Shovels' documentation, intro tiers for Shovels Online and the API start at $599/month, with custom pricing for their Enterprise Data License. The full parcel workflow is built for joint customers of Shovels and Regrid.
Self-serve plans start at $179/month for Online or the API, published in full on our pricing page, month-to-month, cancel anytime. Bulk and warehouse delivery is quoted per use case, and we will beat any Shovels quote by 70%. See pricing →
Put a daily feed against a biweekly one.
Pick a state and a signal. We will pull a real sample file so you can compare freshness, fill rates, and coverage against whatever you are evaluating, before you sign anything.
- Shovels' homepage states 164M+ permits, 3.16M+ contractors, and 2,450+ jurisdictions. shovels.ai, as of July 2026.
- Shovels' documentation states data is refreshed monthly (5-10M new records per cycle), releases land on the 1st and 15th, and API availability can take up to a week after the database refresh. docs.shovels.ai refresh frequency, as of July 2026.
- Shovels' documentation states it covers approximately 2,000 jurisdictions representing about 85% of the US population, of roughly 20,000 US jurisdictions, with a strategic focus on population centers. docs.shovels.ai coverage areas, as of July 2026.
- Shovels announced a parcel partnership with Regrid: parcel data is provided by Regrid, joined to Shovels permits via the Regrid ID, for joint customers of both products. shovels.ai Regrid partnership post, as of July 2026.
- Shovels' own guide notes that commonly unfilled fields like job_value or fees are infrequently required and even less often accurate, especially for non-contractor permits. shovels.ai permit data fields guide, as of July 2026.
- Shovels' API reference states result counts are exact only up to 10,000; above that the relation is reported as gte (at least). docs.shovels.ai search-contractors, as of July 2026.
- Shovels' documentation states Online and API intro pricing tiers start at $599/month, with custom Enterprise Data License pricing above that. docs.shovels.ai pricing structure, as of July 2026.
Shovels is a trademark of its owner; DataJackpot is not affiliated with or endorsed by Shovels. Competitor details change; if anything above is out of date, email henry@datajackpot.net and we will correct it.