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Home11,670 searches / mo

Local permit lookup

What you need before you build.

Opportunity score

4,348 / 10k

Niche, but buildable. Small audience, low noise.

Rank

#119

Gap

C

  • Demand

    53

    11,670 contestable searches a month across 25 related keywords.

  • Momentum

    43

    Last three months ran down 8.3% against the three before, seasonality smoothed out.

  • Competition gap

    9

    28 real products rank on page one for this, ad competition 0.18.

  • Crowd

    38

    10 head-to-head rankings from builders, counted at partial weight until 20.

  • Willingness to pay

    59

    Advertisers pay $3.09 a click for this search — some money moves here.

What this score is based on

evidence checked 9/28/2026

  • Search demand verified against Google Ads data
  • 12 months of search history
  • 25 related keywords clustered
  • No firsthand pain signals collected yet
  • 28 competitors analyzed from page-one results
  • 10 crowd rankings from builders

Search demand comes from Google Ads data via DataForSEO and refreshes daily. Competitors come from a live scan of page-one results. Crowd input comes from builders ranking ideas 1-2-3 on the market.

Keyword cluster

25 keywords · 11,670 searches a month combined

Demand counts the whole cluster: 11,670 searches a month across every relevant way people look for this problem. The intent label on each keyword tells you how close that searcher is to wanting software.

KeywordIntentSearchesCPCAd comp.
ladbs permit lookupunclear4,400$3.880.03
building permit lookupunclear880$3.200.17
look up a permitunclear880$3.320.05
dob permit lookupunclear880$5.580.01
lookup building permitsunclear880$3.200.17
ca contractors licence lookupunclear720-0.04
ca contractor licence lookupunclear720-0.04
pprbd permit lookupunclear590$5.780.02
look up permits by addressunclear260$3.360.23
construction permit lookupunclear170$3.810.18
building permit search by addressunclear170$2.830.34
look up building permit by addressunclear140$2.930.28
search permits by addressunclear140$4.040.24
look up building permits by addressunclear140$2.930.28
property permit searchunclear110$3.030.36
search building permits by addressunclear110$2.700.22
roof permit lookupunclear90$5.180.35
ladbs permit look upunclear70-0.00
building blueprint lookupunclear70$3.930.35
mn builder license lookupunclear50-0.01
look up buildingunclear50$0.630.01
search online building recordswants a tool40$1.900.06
building permit look upunclear40$2.380.17
occupancy permit lookupunclear40$2.790.12
home inspector lookupunclear30$10.450.27

CPC is what an advertiser pays Google for one click on that phrase — a rough price tag on how valuable the visitor is. Ad comp. runs 0 to 1 and is how full the ad auction is: near 1 means advertisers are fighting over it (money is there, but ranking is hard), near 0 means almost nobody bids.

Who has the problem

Searching for building permits and contractor licenses across various local authorities like LADBS, DOB, and PPRBD requires specific, fragmented searches. Without a unified system, it's difficult to efficiently verify a property's permit history or a contractor's credentials, increasing risk in construction planning or property transactions.

Who experiences it
A contractor or property owner preparing for construction or property inspection.
When it happens
They need to determine if a specific property has an existing building permit or if a contractor holds a valid license before starting a project or making an offer.
How often
Potentially multiple times a month, given the consistent search volume for terms like 'building permit lookup' (880/mo) and 'look up a permit' (880/mo).
What they do today
Using general search engines with terms like 'ladbs permit lookup' (4,400/mo) or 'building permit search by address' (170/mo) to navigate to disparate local government websites, which often lack a centralized, consistent lookup function.

Read off 25 search phrases, 10/1/2026.

Why now

Real search volume, and no product owns it yet.

  • Searches are down 12% year over year

    981 a month twelve months ago → 864 now for "building permit lookup".

  • Cooling 8% over the last quarter

    Last three months of searches against the three before them.

  • Peaks in October

    Demand swings 39% across the year, so ship roughly two months before October.

  • Advertisers pay $3.09 a click here

    Buying this intent instead of ranking for it would run roughly $10,818 a month — money is already chasing these searches.

  • Nobody has shipped a product for this

    Page one is 24 articles and reference pages — people are reading workarounds because no tool owns the query.

Search data

verified · dataforseo:us · refreshed 9/28/2026

Lead keyword
building permit lookup
Cluster volume
11,670 / mo
across 25 related keywords; lead phrase is 880 / mo
CPC
$3.09
what an advertiser pays for one click here
Ad competition
0.18
0-1 scale: barely any advertisers bidding

Opportunity score 4,348 = 40% contestable search demand (11,670 a month across 25 keywords) + 25% how open the competition still is (28 products on page one) + 15% momentum (last three months vs the three before, capped so one bucketed month can't swing it) + 10% willingness to pay ($3.09 a click) + 10% crowd rankings (Elo 1444, 10 head-to-heads, weighted by how many votes exist). Anything we can't measure is dropped and the rest re-weighted, so a blank signal never counts as an average one. Search data refreshes daily from Google Ads via DataForSEO.

Monthly searches for "building permit lookup"

10 votes · demand from dataforseo:us, updated 9/28/2026

981
Sep 25
864
Oct 25
864
Nov 25
707
Dec 25
864
Jan 26
864
Feb 26
981
Mar 26
981
Apr 26
864
May 26
864
Jun 26
864
Jul 26
864
Aug 26

Peak 981 · latest 864 · low 707 searches a month

Google reports monthly volume in fixed buckets (…27,100 · 33,100 · 40,500 · 49,500), so steady months land on the exact same number. Weekly data isn't published.

This chart tracks the single lead phrase. The demand score uses the whole cluster of 25 related phrases (11,670 searches a month), listed below.

Revenue potential

estimate, not a promise

Priced and converted as a freemium consumer app — the funnel below changes with that model, because a freemium consumer app and a B2B tool convert nothing alike.

MRR by month 12

$62 – $380

3–21 paying users · +0–3 new a month at 7% churn

Year-one run rate

$746 – $4,563

the month-12 number annualised — you earn less than this during the ramp

Price

$18/mo

same price as the business model below

24-month projection

log scale

Month 24 · hover to scrub

Slow build $71Good execution $467Breakout $7,387

The two solid lines are the range above: a slow build and good execution on a slice of this demand. The dashed line is the breakout — you become the default answer for this problem, take roughly a quarter of the intent, convert far better because people arrive already sold, and churn halves. That's the outcome worth chasing, and it's about $7,387 a month by month 24 (800 paying users). Most ideas land on the bottom line; the point of the chart is that the ceiling isn't the estimate.

How we got there

  • 11,670 cluster searches a month, 1.6x for app stores and word of mouth.
  • You reach 0.9-5.7% of that, scaled by ad competition 0.18.
  • 12% of visitors sign up, 2% of those pay. Freemium consumer: roughly 1-3% of free users ever pay, so this needs volume.
  • That wins 0-3 new subscribers a month. Stack 12 months of that against 7% monthly churn and you're holding 3-21 paying users by month 12.
  • Price $18/mo, taken from the business model below.

Who already builds this

0 real products · 24 articles, explainers and store pages · scanned daily on Google for "building permit lookup"

Every page-one result here is an article, explainer or store page — nobody has shipped a tool for this.

    Also ranking, but not products (24)

    Roundups, review posts, explainers and store pages. They compete for the search, not for the job — they don't count against the competition gap.

    Likely business model

    willingness to pay 24/100

    Freemium consumer app

    Broad consumer intent: get them using it free, charge for volume and polish.

    Price to test · from ad click value

    $7–$29/mo

    No competitor pricing page was readable, so this band comes from what a click on this intent costs advertisers ($3.09) — a starting price to test, not a proven one.

    What to charge for

    Free core, paid depth. Gate history, exports and power features rather than the first-run experience — the exact free limit is something you tune after launch, not something this data can tell you.

    What this data can't tell you

    • · Nobody's published price backs this band yet — treat the number as a test, and put a price up in week one to find out.

    Willingness-to-pay evidence

    • Advertisers pay $3.09 a click for this intent — real money already chases it.
    • 4% of the 25-keyword cluster is commercial-intent wording (best, app, pricing, alternative).
    • Ad competition 0.18 — few advertisers fighting for it.

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