Most permit-data providers won't show you a price — you fill out a form, book a call, and negotiate an annual contract. That works for enterprises, but it's overkill if you just need a county's worth of records. Here's how building permit data is actually priced, and how to estimate what your project should cost.
What drives the price
- Volume — how many records match your scope. This is the biggest single factor.
- Geography — a single county is inexpensive; nationwide coverage is not.
- History depth — the last 90 days costs far less than ten years of backfill.
- Refresh cadence — a one-time export is cheaper than a daily or weekly feed.
- Enrichment — geocoding, contractor matching, and deduplication add value.
The three pricing models
Per-record — you pay for the rows you actually get. Transparent and easy to budget for a defined scope; this is the model PermitData uses.
Subscription / seats — a recurring platform fee for API or dashboard access. Good for continuous, high-volume use; expensive for a one-off pull.
Enterprise license — a negotiated annual contract for broad or nationwide access. Powerful, but slow to buy and rarely cheap.
What PermitData costs
Per-record pricing that scales with volume, delivered as a fixed quote before you pay — no subscription, no seats, no minimum. Typical orders run from a few hundred dollars for a single-county snapshot up to enterprise feeds for continuous national delivery. Payment is via Stripe.
How to estimate your order
Start from the scope: which counties, which trades, and what date range. Our demo coverage pages show the permit volume for each Florida county and trade, so you can gauge how many records a scope will return before you ask. Then request a quote and you'll get a fixed price back, usually within one business day.
Free ways to evaluate first
Before you spend anything, explore the free live demo and the county and trade pages — they're built from the exact dataset we sell, so you can judge quality and coverage at no cost. More questions are answered in the FAQ.