Frequently asked questions

Directly from official government permit systems, collected nightly by us: modern county-scale platforms, city portals, open-data programs, and even a legacy 1990s-era system or two where that is what a city runs. Every jurisdiction listed on our coverage page served a live, working system on our last probe, and the nightly pipeline logs every collection run, so a broken source is flagged the same night. We do not buy, rent, or resell third-party lead lists. If it is in PermitFeed, it came off a public record we collected ourselves, and on most leads you can click through to the source portal and verify it.

Portals are pulled every night. A permit filed Tuesday is typically scored and in your Wednesday morning digest. Most sources publish same-day or next-day; a few open-data layers refresh on the publisher's schedule, and where that is true we say so in the coverage notes rather than pretend otherwise. For context: the same project usually reaches trade press, bid boards, or purchased lists weeks to months later, after every competitor has seen it too. Permit data is the earliest public record most projects ever produce. That is the whole point.

Eighteen, each with its own scoring rubric: HVAC and mechanical, electrical, security and low-voltage, fire protection, signage, plumbing, roofing, solar and battery, demolition, glass and glazing, concrete and paving, landscaping, commercial painting, flooring, grading and earthwork, structural and seismic, and waterproofing and decks. Every filing gets a verdict for every trade in one pass, so the same permit that is noise for a sign company can be the week's best fire protection lead. AV integration is the eighteenth, and access is invitation-only for now. Email [email protected] if that is your trade.

Every filing's actual scope text is read against a rubric written for each trade: what makes a permit a lead for that specific business, not how big the construction is. A $2M hotel ballroom outranks a $20M warehouse for an AV integrator, and the warehouse wins for fire protection. Obvious residential maintenance is filtered by rule before the AI ever runs, so the model's attention goes to filings that could matter. Scores run 0 to 1. Your feed leads with 0.7 and up; the digest floor is 0.5. We would rather show you eight real leads than forty maybes.

A short written brief on why this specific permit is worth your specific call: what the scope implies for your trade, what the timing supports, and what the record does not say yet, like no specialty sub named. It reads the way a sharp colleague would brief you, with the facts from the filing, not generic urgency filler. Angles are written by a stronger model than the scorer, on the leads that earn it. If a lead in your feed has no angle yet, opening it writes one on the spot.

On portals that expose it, we sweep the plan-review queue too: tenant improvements at plan check, entitlements, site plan reviews. Those carry an EARLY badge and typically run weeks to months ahead of the building permit, before any bidder is attached. For trades that live or die on timing, fire protection above all, EARLY is the whole game: it is your window to shape the spec instead of chasing it.

A one-click field file on any hot lead. It combines live web research on the applicant with everything already in our database: their full permit history, contractor license record, prior intel we have written, and related filings at the same address. The result is a long-form dossier you can read before the first call, download, and keep. Plans include a monthly allotment of runs (5 on Starter Pro, 15 on Pro, 45 on Team), and purchased research credits never expire.

The Analysis page carries THE COOKBOOK: six one-tap briefs like The Call Sheet (who to call first and why), Big Money (the month's largest projects and your slice), and Who's Expanding (companies raising their filing tempo). One tap, one analysis credit, a written brief with the records cited. Re-running the same recipe within six hours serves from your File Cabinet free. Every brief files itself in the cabinet automatically, where you can reopen it, email it to yourself, or delete it. The STANDING ORDER puts a written brief in your inbox every Monday morning, built from your trade's last seven days. Quiet weeks send nothing.

Yes. Put any GC, developer, or owner on your watchlist and you get an email the night they file anything new, anywhere we cover, with their license standing and filing history attached. It is a tripwire for the relationships you already have and the competitors you wish you knew better. Watch slots scale with plan: 2 on Digest, 3 on Starter Pro, 5 on Pro, 10 on Team.

On Pro and Team, yes: the trade lens in Browse re-reads the whole workbench through any trade's scoring for as long as you keep it on. Your own trade stays the anchor. Exports and email products always run on your home trade, so the guardrails never widen.

Free is a 7-day look around with real scored leads and no card. Digest ($59/mo) delivers the nightly scored-lead email and standing alerts; run the whole play from your inbox. Starter Pro ($99/mo) is the solo rep's rung: the pipeline board, 30 searches and 15 written analyses a day, 5 exports, 5 Deep Research files a month, all six recipe briefs, and 3 watchlist scouts. Pro ($179/mo) is the full research workbench, and Team ($499/mo) runs one shared pipeline across three seats. Every plan has defined daily limits, so the bill is never a surprise. Month to month, or prepay six months or a year for a discount, no contracts either way.

Analysis Pro ($29/mo, included with Pro and Team) upgrades your briefs to a deeper model with an inline citation on every claim. Research Credits ($35 per 10) buy extra Deep Research files. Analysis top-ups ($12 per 20) add written briefs past your daily allowance. Purchased credits never expire.

Purchased credits, never. They are yours outright, shown in gold on your account page, and they sit untouched until your plan's included allowances run out. What resets is the included stuff: daily search, analysis, and export allowances reset each day, and monthly Deep Research runs reset on the 1st. Included first, purchased last, nothing wasted.

The counter tells you plainly, and nothing is charged. Analyses fall back to your purchased top-ups if you have them; otherwise the allowance is back tomorrow. There is also a weekly fair-use meter on assistive AI features, shown as a simple percentage dial on your account page. It resets every Monday and does not touch your daily allowances or purchased credits.

Only what you turn on: the nightly digest of your trade's best new leads, saved-search alerts, company watch alerts, the Monday STANDING ORDER brief, and follow-up reminders you set yourself. Each one deep-links into the lead, and each can be switched off independently. No drip campaigns, no partner offers, ever.

Yes. Exports come as a styled Excel workbook or import-ready CSVs mapped for HubSpot and Salesforce, carrying exactly what you filtered. Qualified exports cover your trade's last seven days; anything you starred or bought exports without limits, because it is yours.

What the public record carries, we show: applicant and contractor names, license numbers with standing pulled from the state contractor board, and phone numbers where the portal or the license record publishes them. Where a record names no contractor yet, we say so, because for most trades that blank line IS the opportunity.

Yes. Building permits are public records, published by governments precisely so the public can see them. We collect them from official sources, add analysis, and present them. Your outreach still has to follow the normal rules, CAN-SPAM for email and TCPA for calls, same as any prospecting.

We collect from 50-plus SoCal cities nightly across six counties, with every covered and pending city listed on the coverage page. Pending cities show the honest reason they are pending, usually a portal our collectors do not speak yet. The request button on any pending city's page genuinely moves it up the build queue; enough requests have already re-ordered it.

Month to month, cancel any time from your account page. Paid plans run to the end of the period already paid, then simply stop. Card checkout runs through Stripe, so you're live the moment payment clears. Prices are posted right on this site: no demo call, no quote, no contract to sign. Stay month to month, or prepay six months or a year for a lower rate.