API pricing
Priced for the integration, not the row count
Start free, upgrade when the integration is real. Annual billing is ten months for twelve, and the only metered line on any invoice is Contractor Verify.
Free
$0
no card required
- 500 API calls per month
- 10 requests/minute
- Texas project search (TDLR statewide, 254 counties of public bids)
- Company resolve — canonical entity from a messy name or address
- Austin/Travis permit lookup
- MCP server access for AI agents
Developer
$49/mo
billed monthly
- 10,000 API calls per month
- 60 requests/minute
- Everything in Free
- 500 Contractor Verify lookups included, then $0.15 each
- Company work history — 888k+ project links
- TDLR license status, trade and registration dates
Most popular
Growth
$149/mo
billed monthly
- 100,000 API calls per month
- 300 requests/minute
- Everything in Developer
- 5,000 Contractor Verify lookups included, then $0.15 each
- SBA 8(a) / HUBZone / WOSB certification data
- Risk flags — dormant, name-churn, no-finaled-work, entity merges
Scale
$399/mo
billed monthly
- 500,000 API calls per month
- 600 requests/minute
- Everything in Growth
- 25,000 Contractor Verify lookups included, then $0.15 each
- Unlimited API keys
- 99.5% uptime target
Compare every plan
| Feature | Free | Developer | Growth | Scale |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Limits | ||||
| API calls per month | 500 | 10,000 | 100,000 | 500,000 |
| Rate limit | 10 req/min | 60 req/min | 300 req/min | 600 req/min |
| Contractor Verify included | 500 | 5,000 | 25,000 | |
| Verify overage | $0.15/lookup | $0.15/lookup | $0.15/lookup | |
| API keys | 1 | 3 | 5 | Unlimited |
| Data access | ||||
| TDLR projects (256 counties) | ||||
| Government bids (254 counties) | ||||
| Austin/Travis permits | ||||
| Company resolve | ||||
| Contractor work history | ||||
| TDLR license status & dates | ||||
| SBA 8(a) / HUBZone / WOSB data | ||||
| Derived risk flags | ||||
| Travis County property history | ||||
| Bulk export (CSV / NDJSON) | ||||
| Platform | ||||
| MCP server for AI agents | ||||
| Webhooks for saved queries | ||||
| Uptime target | — | — | — | 99.5% |
| Support | Community | Email, 1 business day | Email, 1 business day | Priority email |
| Named technical contact | ||||
How we compare
Published, third-party pricing as of August 2026. We don’t make a competitor claim we can’t source.
| Vendor | Published price (as of Aug 2026) | What Zabalist adds |
|---|---|---|
| Shovels.ai | From $599/mo intro tier (Online/API) | Scale is $399/mo and includes TDLR statewide license joins and the entity work-history graph — Shovels doesn't sell either at any price. |
| PermitStack | Free (100 req/day) → $29 → $39 → $79 (most popular) → $149/mo (Business) → Enterprise custom | Growth ($149/mo) matches PermitStack Business dollar-for-dollar while adding TDLR license joins and the entity graph, which PermitStack has neither. |
| Construction Monitor | ~$200–800/mo, custom annual, by territory/volume | Territory Feed starts at $199/mo for a full Austin-metro delivery — permits, site plans, TDLR, ESBD, and the entity graph in one feed. |
| GovWin IQ (Deltek) | $12K/yr (1 seat) to $42K+/yr (enterprise); ~$29K/yr typical | TX Bid Intel starts at $39/mo. We're the overlay on public bid data — who's bidding against you, which certified sub fills a set-aside — not a system-of-record replacement at GovWin's scale. |
| CoreLogic / Cotality | Unpublished; sample per-call rates ~$0.005 (address lookup) to $11.50 (lien data) | The same enrichment-depth logic sets our Contractor Verify overage at $0.15/lookup — an entity-resolved join is priced like an enriched endpoint, not a flat lookup. |
Source: internal API-market landscape research, Aug 2026. Prices are vendor-published list prices and may change.
How Contractor Verify billing works
A verify call resolves a messy name, address, or license number to a canonical entity across 142,781 deduplicated companies, then returns its TDLR license status, work history summary, and risk flags. It is a join, not a row lookup, and it is the only endpoint that carries its own allowance.
Each paid plan includes a number of lookups. Beyond that, additional lookups bill at $0.15 each, metered daily and settled on your normal invoice. Every other endpoint counts only against your monthly call quota, so there is exactly one variable line to reason about.
You can read your consumption at any time from the usage endpoint, which is free and never counts against either limit. It reports calls used, verify lookups used, and overage accrued so far this period.
Worked example · Growth plan
- Plan
- $149.00
- Verify lookups included
- 5,000
- Verify lookups used
- 5,310
- Billable overage
- 310 lookups
- Overage charge
- $46.50
- Invoice total
- $195.50
Not building an integration?
The API is one way to buy this data. If you want it delivered rather than queried, two of these are probably a better fit — and both are sold with a person attached, not a signup form.
Territory Feed
from $199/mo
Permits, TDLR projects, and bids filtered to your trade and your territory, delivered daily as CSV plus an email digest. Built for distributors and trade contractors who want leads, not endpoints. Statewide single-trade coverage runs $499/mo.
Talk to us →TX Bid Intel
$39 / $99 / $249 per mo
Government bid alerts with the overlay the incumbents don’t have: who is bidding against you, and which certified sub can fill a set-aside. Starter covers one category and one region; Team adds certified-sub search and API access.
Browse Texas bids →Data lists & licensing
One-time or annual
Static CSV exports for a one-off campaign, or a full statewide license delivered into your own warehouse. Quoted on request — tell us the shape you need and the refresh cadence.
See data lists →Pricing questions
- How much does the Zabalist construction data API cost?
- Four plans: Free at $0 for 500 calls per month, Developer at $49/month for 10,000 calls, Growth at $149/month for 100,000 calls, and Scale at $399/month for 500,000 calls. Annual billing costs ten months for twelve.
- What happens if I exceed my monthly API call quota?
- Calls beyond your monthly quota return HTTP 409 with the code quota_exceeded until the next billing period begins. There is no surprise overage on API calls — the only metered line on the invoice is Contractor Verify, and you can read your consumption at any time from the free /usage endpoint.
- Why do Contractor Verify lookups cost extra?
- A verify call is an entity-resolution join across a deduplicated graph of 142,781 companies and 888,179 work-history links, not a row lookup. Each paid plan includes an allowance and additional lookups bill at $0.15 each. For comparison, enriched-record providers in adjacent markets charge from a fraction of a cent for a plain address lookup up to roughly $11.50 for a single enriched lien call.
- Can I change or cancel my API plan at any time?
- Yes. Upgrades and downgrades take effect immediately with prorated billing. Cancelling keeps your paid quota until the end of the period you already paid for, after which the account drops to the Free plan — your API keys keep working at Free limits rather than being revoked.
- Do I need a credit card to try the Zabalist API?
- No. The Free plan issues a key instantly with no payment method on file and includes 500 calls per month at 10 requests per minute.
Try it before you pay for it
The Free plan is a real plan, not a trial. 500 calls a month, indefinitely, with no card on file.