Construction Monitor is a lead-generation platform for contractors who want qualified permit-based leads delivered weekly. PermitStack is a developer API for engineers who want to build their own workflows on top of permit data. They're aimed at different customers — here's how to figure out which one you are.
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Construction Monitor is built for contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers who want turnkey leads. PermitStack is built for software engineers integrating permit data into their own products. Different tools, different buyers.
Construction Monitor is a curated product: weekly leads edition, Powersearch web tool, optional API. PermitStack is a data API you build with: clean JSON endpoints, Python SDK, MCP server for AI agents, bulk exports.
PermitStack publishes all pricing: Free, $49, $149, $499 per month. Construction Monitor doesn't publish tiers — pricing is quoted after a trial based on geographies and products selected.
Side-by-side on the factors that typically come up in evaluation. All Construction Monitor data points are from their public product and marketing pages as of April 2026.
| Feature | PermitStack | Construction Monitor |
|---|---|---|
| Primary audience | Software developers | Contractors, subs, suppliers |
| Product type | REST API & SDKs | Lead-generation platform + API |
| Entry price | Free → $49/mo | Trial, then custom quote |
| Public pricing tiers | ✓$0 / $49 / $149 / $499 | —Not published |
| Free tier | ✓1,000 requests/day permanent | ✓No-obligation trial |
| REST API | ✓OpenAPI / Swagger UI | ✓Elasticsearch-backed JSON API |
| Official Python SDK | ✓pip install permitstack |
—No official SDK |
| MCP server (Claude / AI agents) | ✓npx permitstack-mcp |
—None |
| Weekly leads digest | —Not a product we sell | ✓Flagship product |
| Web-based search tool | —API-first, no UI tool | ✓Powersearch |
| Data refresh | Daily (3 AM UTC) | Daily / hourly for some data |
| Bulk data delivery | ✓Parquet, weekly from $149 | ✓Weekly SFTP data dumps |
| Self-serve signup | ✓2 min, email verification | Trial request form |
| Self-serve cancellation | ✓Stripe Customer Portal | Contact account manager |
| U.S. jurisdiction coverage | 54 cities / 27 states | Nationwide (count not published) |
| Total permits indexed | 15.6M+ | Not publicly disclosed |
| AI enrichment | ✓Claude-based parsing | Proprietary classification |
Construction Monitor product details sourced from publicly available pages on constructionmonitor.com as of April 19, 2026. PermitStack is an independent company and is not affiliated with Construction Monitor. All trademarks belong to their respective owners.
Construction Monitor's core business is selling you leads. Their API exists, but it's an adjunct to their sales-lead product — the packaging, documentation, and developer experience reflect that. PermitStack is the other way around: the API is the product. Full OpenAPI spec, clean endpoints, interactive docs.
Published Python SDK on PyPI. Published MCP server on npm for Claude and other AI agents. Interactive Swagger UI. OpenAPI spec you can paste into Postman or any code generator. This is the level of dev tooling you'd expect from Stripe or Twilio — and it's free to use with a 1,000-request/day free tier.
You shouldn't have to request a quote to find out what something costs. PermitStack shows every tier price on the homepage. Developer: $49. Startup: $149. Growth: $499. Swipe a card, start integrating. Skip to the actual work.
Construction Monitor sells you a pre-packaged lead feed. PermitStack gives you the raw ingredients so you can build exactly the workflow your sales team needs — scoped to your service area, with your own scoring logic, piped straight into your CRM. More flexibility, more ownership, lower cost per lead.
Example: find solar permits over $20K issued in your service area in the last 7 days.
pip install permitstack
from permitstack import Permitstack
from datetime import date, timedelta
with Permitstack(api_key="pk_your_key") as client:
leads = client.permits.search_permits(
city="Phoenix",
state="AZ",
category="SOLAR",
min_value=20000,
issued_after=(date.today() - timedelta(days=7)).isoformat(),
)
# Pipe straight into HubSpot / Salesforce / your CRM
for permit in leads.results:
print(permit.address, permit.estimated_value, permit.contractor_name)You control the filters, the freshness, the destination, and the scoring — all on a transparent $49/month tier.
We'd genuinely recommend Construction Monitor if you're a contractor who wants a weekly list of leads in your inbox. PermitStack is for teams building their own products on top of permit data — different shape of need, different shape of solution.
Construction Monitor is a lead-generation platform built for contractors, subcontractors, and suppliers who want qualified construction leads delivered via weekly newsletter, web dashboard (Powersearch), or REST API. PermitStack is a developer-focused REST API built for engineers integrating permit data into their own applications. If you're a contractor looking for leads, Construction Monitor is built for you. If you're an engineer building a product that needs permit data, PermitStack is built for you.
Yes. Construction Monitor offers a REST API backed by Elasticsearch, with JSON responses and a simple authentication scheme. They also offer weekly data dumps via secure FTP for bulk users. The API is a secondary product — their primary business is selling construction leads via their Powersearch web tool and weekly editions.
Construction Monitor does not publish pricing tiers on their website. They offer a no-obligation trial, after which pricing is quoted based on your selected geographies, product tier (weekly edition, Powersearch tool, API access), and data volume. PermitStack publishes every tier publicly: Free, $49, $149, $499 per month.
Both platforms claim daily updates with some hourly data refresh. In practice, Construction Monitor's flagship product is a weekly leads edition (curated digest), suggesting their highest-value data flow is weekly. PermitStack's API ingests from city portals daily at 3 AM UTC, making every permit queryable as soon as it appears in the official source.
If you're a contractor who wants a curated list of qualified permit-based leads delivered to you weekly, Construction Monitor is purpose-built for that. Their Powersearch tool, mapping, and weekly editions are designed for sales workflows. PermitStack is built for developers who need programmatic access to permit data — not a turnkey lead-gen product.
PermitStack. We publish an official Python SDK (pip install permitstack), a Model Context Protocol server for AI agents (npx permitstack-mcp), interactive OpenAPI documentation at api.permit-stack.com/docs, and clean tier pricing that's self-serve via Stripe. Construction Monitor's API is available but positioned as an adjunct to their lead-generation platform rather than a primary developer product.
Absolutely. Many of our customers use PermitStack exactly that way — they build custom lead-gen workflows tailored to their sales process (e.g., filter for solar permits over $30K in their service area, issued in the last 7 days, pulled by specific contractors). You get more flexibility than a pre-packaged lead product, but you need the dev resources to build the workflow. Construction Monitor delivers the workflow turnkey; we deliver the data and you build the workflow.
Construction Monitor doesn't publish a specific jurisdiction count, but their lead-generation business has historically focused on providing coverage across U.S. markets through partnerships with local building departments. PermitStack currently covers 54 U.S. cities with 15.6M+ permits. We publish our coverage list transparently at permit-stack.com/coverage.html and add new cities regularly.
If you want raw permit data, a modern API, a published SDK, and transparent pricing, you're in the right place. Free tier gets you started in two minutes — no credit card, no sales call.