How Subcontractors Can Use Permit Data to Find Work

Most subcontractor software is administrative: it helps you run the work you already won. The harder problem for most trades is the top of the funnel — knowing what is about to be built, early enough to get in front of it.

Building permits are the answer hiding in plain sight. Every new build and major remodel pulls one, they are public record, and they name the project before ground breaks. A new residential permit is a forward signal that framing, plumbing, electrical, HVAC, roofing, and a dozen other trades will be needed on that lot.

From permit to pipeline

The problem with permit data has never been access — it is workflow. A list of permits in a county portal is not a pipeline. The work is in triaging what is relevant, tracking who you contacted, and following the opportunity through to a bid.

onBuilds turns that into a loop: Find Work surfaces permit records from supported Phoenix-area sources — Phoenix, Scottsdale, Gilbert, Buckeye, Queen Creek, Peoria, and Maricopa County — and a permit you care about is saved as a lead (the builder) and an opportunity (the project). Mesa and Tempe contribute issued permits only. You raise your bid inside that opportunity, bids move pursuing → submitted → won → lost, and with the optional Jobs + Warranty add-on a won opportunity can become a job with phases, files, photos, and a client record already attached.

Keeping the builder as a lead is the part that compounds. Lose a bid and you still have the relationship, the contact, and the history — so the next permit that company pulls is a warm call, not a cold one.

Run the jobs in the same system

Because the bid pipeline and job management live together, nothing gets re-entered. The GC you bid becomes a client in your rolodex. The scope you priced becomes the job you schedule. Progress photos, phase tracking, and files stay on the job record where the next estimate can find them.

At $249 per organization per month including three users, a three-person shop runs $249 a month; additional users are $25/month — and unlike admin-only tools, part of what you are paying for is the top of the funnel, not just the paperwork after it.