How it works
Track records proven by real permits
Most contractor sites rank by who pays the most or who collects the most reviews. We do something simpler and harder to game: we show what contractors have actually built, according to the public record.
We collect public building permits
When work is done legally, a building department issues a permit. Those permits are public records. We collect them across thousands of jurisdictions, including the trade, the project value, the date, and the address.
We link each permit to the contractor who pulled it
Each permit names a contractor. We normalize that name and match it, within the same state, to a contractor entity. We keep matches high-precision: when a name is ambiguous, we leave the permit unlinked rather than attribute it to the wrong company.
We turn that into a verified track record
A contractor's profile is the sum of their linked permits: how many jobs, in which trades, in which towns, at what typical value, and how recently. Nothing here is self-reported. Contractors can claim their profile to add details like a bio and photos, but they can never edit the permit record itself.
Common questions
- What does permit-verified mean?
- A permit-verified track record is built only from public building-permit records that name the contractor who did the work. We do not use self-reported job counts, paid placements, or reviews. If a contractor has 40 permit-verified jobs, that means 40 public permits on file are linked to them.
- Where does the data come from?
- From the building departments themselves. Every permit is a public record filed when work is done legally. We collect those records across thousands of jurisdictions and match each permit to the contractor named on it.
- How do you match a permit to a contractor?
- We normalize the contractor name on each permit (dropping suffixes like LLC and Inc and standardizing punctuation) and match it, within the same state, to a contractor record. Matches are high-precision by design; when a name is ambiguous, we leave it unlinked rather than guess.
- Are the cost figures quotes?
- No. Cost ranges are the typical permitted project value for a trade in a place, drawn from the same public permit records. They describe what work like this has typically cost, not a quote for your project.
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