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Shovels vs Hubexo

Two sources of early construction data with different scopes. Shovels sells U.S. building permit, contractor, property, resident and land-use decision records through a web app, API, CLI and data shares, with an AI agent called Charlie and published credit-based prices. Hubexo North America is a family of construction data and bidding products, including ConstructionWire planned-project leads and Construction Monitor permit data, sold by quote. Partly like-for-like (our reading). Desk research from vendor sites read Nov 2, 2026; no winner.

DESK RESEARCH FROM VENDOR SITES. Compiled from vendors' public websites (accessed Nov 2, 2026). Vendor claims are not verified by Means & Methods Lab. No scores or rankings.

In short: Shovels (Building permit & contractor data; vendor publishes prices) vs Hubexo (North America) (Construction leads, bidding & specs; no public prices (quote / sales)). Facts last checked Nov 2, 2026. No winner declared; desk research from vendor sites.

Side by side

Shovels vs Hubexo: vendor-published facts side by side
Sheet rowShovelsHubexo (North America)
CategoryBuilding permit & contractor dataConstruction leads, bidding & specs
AI role (our label)AI features added to established productNot AI-first
What it doesU.S. building permit, contractor, property and zoning/land-use decision data that the vendor says is gathered directly from each jurisdiction rather than licensed or brokered, with permits AI-classified into structured records; Shovels calls itself the prediction engine for the built world. It says land-use decisions can be public as much as 18 months before a permit is filed. Datasets on the plan table: Permits, Contractors, Decisions, Properties and Residents on every plan, plus Employees on Basic and Pro. Delivered through the Shovels Online web app, a REST API, a CLI, a Google Sheets add-on, hosted Esri ArcGIS feature layers, and bulk parquet files or table shares in Snowflake, Databricks or BigQuery. Charlie, the AI agent inside Shovels Online and included on every plan, answers plain-English questions about permits, contractors and city decisions, filters false positives, builds charts, saves chats and shows the SQL behind each answer. The vendor says Shovels is SOC 2 Type II certified. Record, contractor, jurisdiction and coverage figures are vendor claims not used here.Construction data and bid products under the Hubexo brand: planned-project leads, permit data, specs, e-purchasing, a plan room and public bidding. The product list is Bid Ocean (underground construction and pipe rehabilitation bidding), ConstructionWire, Construction Monitor, NBS Canada (specs), NAPC (e-purchasing), Lattira US, Pantera and Quest. ConstructionWire tracks planned projects from proposal through completion with decision-maker contacts and company relationships, in datasets for energy and mining, hotels, infrastructure, medical, residential and retail, with an API, a CRM tie-in (LeadManager) and saved-search alerts. Construction Monitor tracks residential, solar and pool permits nationwide with alerts. Pantera describes branded bid invites, a white-labeled plan room and unlimited users. QuestCDN describes public owners posting projects, prequalifying and inviting suppliers, comparing submissions and automatic audit trails. None of the pages read describes AI features. Customer quotes and testimonials are not used.
Who it's forBuilding materials and equipment companies, construction technology firms, energy and climate, home services, real estate, insurance, telecom, and research teams (Shovels's industry list).Contractors, manufacturers, specifiers and public agencies.
Pricing (as publicly stated)Credit-based (a credit is one record retrieved; the web app, API, CLI and Charlie share one balance, and credits reset monthly). Free $0/mo (500 credits, 1 year of history, 1 seat, up to 10 results per query); Basic $599/mo (25,000 credits, full history, 1 seat); Pro $999/mo (50,000 credits, up to 2 seats); Enterprise custom. Bulk Enterprise Data License by quote.No public prices. The vendor site has no pricing or plans link in its navigation or footer, and na.hubexo.com/pricing/ returns a not-found page; calls to action are "Contact us" and "Book a demo". Pantera's page says plans start at less than the price of a cup of coffee per day, with no figure, and the rebrand FAQ says the rebrand brings no pricing or service level changes. Confirm pricing with the vendor.
User reviewsNo reviews yet. Read or writeNo reviews yet. Read or write
Vendor links
Sources

Facts last checked: Nov 2, 2026. Prices change; check the vendor page before relying on them.

Where the vendor descriptions differ

  • Where they overlap: both sell building permit data. Shovels says its permits are gathered directly from every jurisdiction it covers and AI-classified into structured records, alongside contractor, property and zoning and land-use decision data. Hubexo's Construction Monitor tracks residential, solar and swimming pool permits nationwide, with search, alerts and market and company analysis.
  • What else each sells: Hubexo's ConstructionWire tracks planned projects from proposal through completion with decision-maker contacts and company relationships, in datasets for energy and mining, hotels, infrastructure, medical, residential and retail, with saved-search alerts, an API and a CRM tie-in (LeadManager). Hubexo also lists Bid Ocean, NBS Canada, NAPC, Lattira US, Pantera and QuestCDN (bidding, specs, e-purchasing and plan room products). Shovels sells permit, contractor, zoning and land-use decision, property and resident data, and says all its datasets are included on every paid plan.
  • How you get the data: Shovels delivers through the Shovels Online web app, a REST API, a CLI, a Google Sheets add-on, hosted Esri ArcGIS layers, and bulk parquet files or table shares in Snowflake, Databricks or BigQuery. Hubexo's pages describe web search with alerts, an API for planned-project data and a CRM link; they do not describe bulk data shares.
  • AI: Shovels includes Charlie, an AI agent in Shovels Online on every plan, which answers plain-English questions about permits, contractors and city decisions, builds charts and shows the SQL behind each answer; we tag Shovels AI features added to established product. None of the Hubexo pages we read describes AI features; we tag it Not AI-first.
  • Pricing (checked Nov 2, 2026): Shovels is credit-based (one credit is one record requested via the API or exported from Shovels Online; the web app, API, CLI and AI assistant share one balance, and credits reset monthly): Free $0 (500 credits a month, 1 year of record history, 1 seat), Basic $599/mo (25,000 credits, full history, 1 seat), Pro $999/mo (50,000 credits, full history, up to 2 seats), Enterprise custom, plus a bulk Enterprise Data License by quote. Hubexo publishes no prices (calls to action are Contact us and Book a demo), and its rebrand FAQ says the rebrand brought no pricing or service level changes.
  • Not used here: Shovels's record, contractor, jurisdiction and coverage counts and Hubexo's customer testimonials (vendor material). Facts for both tools come from vendor websites (desk research).

Paraphrased from the sources listed above. Vendor claims are reported as claims.

What users say

The facts above come from vendor websites. Whether either tool is any good for your work is something only people who use them can say. These are member reviews, all ratings shown, never edited or removed for being negative.

Used either of these? Share your take

Good or bad, an honest review from an estimator, PM or super helps the next team more than another vendor demo. You post under a handle; your email is never shown.

Questions to ask in your review

  • Whether you need permit records you can query and export in bulk (Shovels) or planned-project leads with decision-maker contacts (Hubexo ConstructionWire)
  • How Construction Monitor's permit coverage compares with Shovels's in the markets you sell into
  • What Hubexo charges for the datasets and products you would use
  • What did you use it for, on what kind of work and project size?
  • How long did setup and training take, and who on your team did it?
  • What does it cost you in practice, compared with what the sales call said?

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