BuildZoom Scraper

Extract contractor profiles, license data, permit histories, and insurance details from BuildZoom — the largest database of licensed construction professionals in the U.S. Scrape general contractors, remodelers, and specialty trade leads with full contact info, surety bond status, and project portfolios in seconds.

Main Use Cases

• Construction Lead Generation — Build targeted lists of licensed contractors with phone, email, and license status for cold outreach and sales pipelines.
• Construction Market Intelligence — Analyze permit volumes, project values, and contractor activity to spot growth trends across U.S. markets.
• Contractor License Verification — Cross-reference license numbers, insurance coverage, and surety bond status for compliance checks.
• Real Estate Investment Research — Track remodeling and construction activity in target neighborhoods to gauge market heat.
• Competitive Analysis — Monitor competitor contractor portfolios, review counts, and project histories to benchmark performance.
• Bond & Insurance Underwriting — Pull contractor financial data (surety bonds, GL coverage, workers comp) for risk assessment.

How It Works

1. Provide one or more BuildZoom category or profile URLs as start points.
2. The actor crawls each URL, following pagination up to maxPagesPerCategory levels deep.
3. For each contractor profile found, it extracts contact details, license info, insurance status, bond data, and ratings.
4. If includePermits is enabled, it visits each contractor's permit history page and collects up to maxPermitsPerContractor permit records.
5. All data is pushed to a structured dataset. Pay-per-result billing: $0.0035 per contractor record.

Input Parameters

Field	Type	Required	Default	Notes
startUrls	array	Yes	—	Array of BuildZoom category or profile URLs to scrape
maxItems	integer	No	50	Maximum number of contractor profiles to return
maxPagesPerCategory	integer	No	2	Number of paginated listing pages to follow per category
includePermits	boolean	No	true	Whether to scrape permit and project history for each contractor
maxPermitsPerContractor	integer	No	20	Maximum permit records to collect per contractor profile
maxRequestsPerCrawl	integer	No	200	Hard cap on total HTTP requests for the entire run
maxConcurrency	integer	No	4	Number of concurrent browser pages; lower if hitting rate limits
proxyConfiguration	object	No	—	Apify proxy settings (residential recommended for large crawls)

Output

Each dataset item represents one contractor with the following fields:

Field	Description
name	Company or individual contractor name
url	BuildZoom profile URL
phone	Primary phone number
email	Contact email (if available)
licenseNumber	State-issued contractor license number
licenseState	State where the license is registered
licenseType	Classification (General Contractor, Remodeler, Specialty, etc.)
insurance	Object with generalLiability and workersComp booleans
suretyBond	Whether the contractor carries a surety bond
rating	Average review rating (0–5 scale)
reviewCount	Total number of customer reviews
yearsInBusiness	Years actively operating on BuildZoom
specialties	Array of specialty categories (e.g., "Kitchen Remodeling", "Roofing")
location	City, state of primary operations
permits	Array of permit records (if includePermits is true)
permits[].permitNumber	Unique permit identifier
permits[].address	Property address for the permit
permits[].permitType	Type of work permitted (Remodel, New Construction, etc.)
permits[].value	Estimated project value in USD
permits[].status	Permit status (Issued, Closed, Expired, etc.)
permits[].dateIssued	Date the permit was issued (ISO 8601)

Example Input JSON

{
  "startUrls": [
    "https://www.buildzoom.com/austin-tx/general-contractors",
    "https://www.buildzoom.com/dallas-tx/remodeling-contractors"
  ],
  "maxItems": 100,
  "maxPagesPerCategory": 3,
  "includePermits": true,
  "maxPermitsPerContractor": 15,
  "maxRequestsPerCrawl": 300,
  "maxConcurrency": 4,
  "proxyConfiguration": {
    "useApifyProxy": true,
    "apifyProxyGroups": ["RESIDENTIAL"]
  }
}

Example Output JSON

{
  "name": "ABC General Contractors",
  "url": "https://www.buildzoom.com/contractors/abc-general-contractors",
  "phone": "(512) 555-1234",
  "email": "info@abcgc.com",
  "licenseNumber": "ABC123456",
  "licenseState": "TX",
  "licenseType": "General Contractor",
  "insurance": {
    "generalLiability": true,
    "workersComp": true
  },
  "suretyBond": true,
  "rating": 4.8,
  "reviewCount": 127,
  "yearsInBusiness": 15,
  "specialties": ["Residential Remodeling", "Kitchen Remodeling"],
  "location": "Austin, TX",
  "permits": [
    {
      "permitNumber": "BP2024-001234",
      "address": "123 Main St, Austin, TX",
      "permitType": "Remodel",
      "value": 85000,
      "status": "Issued",
      "dateIssued": "2024-03-15"
    },
    {
      "permitNumber": "BP2023-098765",
      "address": "456 Oak Ave, Austin, TX",
      "permitType": "New Construction",
      "value": 250000,
      "status": "Closed",
      "dateIssued": "2023-11-02"
    }
  ]
}

Integrations & Automation

• Google Sheets — Push contractor leads directly into a shared spreadsheet for your sales team using Apify's Google Sheets integration.
• HubSpot / Salesforce — Export dataset items via webhooks or the Apify API to auto-create contacts in your CRM.
• Slack / Email Alerts — Set up webhooks to notify your team when a run completes with new leads.
• Scheduled Runs — Create a saved Actor task and schedule it weekly to monitor new contractors entering your target markets.
• Zapier / Make — Connect dataset output to 5,000+ apps for automated lead routing and follow-up sequences.
• Custom Pipelines — Use the Apify API (GET /v2/datasets/{datasetId}/items) to pull results into any data pipeline or warehouse.

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• HomeAdvisor Scraper — Scrape contractor listings from HomeAdvisor for cross-platform lead comparison.
• Yelp Scraper — Pull business listings, reviews, and ratings from Yelp by category and location.

FAQ

Why use this actor instead of the official API?

BuildZoom does not offer a public API for bulk contractor data extraction. This actor scrapes publicly available profile pages and permit records directly from the BuildZoom website, giving you structured data without API access restrictions, rate limits, or partnership requirements.

What are alternatives?

Alternatives include manually visiting each BuildZoom profile, using general-purpose web scrapers (which require custom configuration), or purchasing contractor data from third-party data brokers. This actor automates the entire process with pre-built extraction logic, proxy rotation, and structured output — saving hours of manual work.

Can I scrape contractors in specific cities or states?

Yes. Provide BuildZoom category URLs for any city or region (e.g., https://www.buildzoom.com/portland-or/general-contractors). You can include multiple URLs in startUrls to cover several markets in a single run.

How accurate is the permit data?

Permit data is scraped directly from BuildZoom's public permit records. Values and statuses reflect what BuildZoom has collected from municipal sources. For official verification, always cross-check with the issuing city or county building department.

Does this work for specialty contractors (electricians, plumbers, etc.)?

Yes. BuildZoom covers all licensed construction trades. Provide category URLs for the specific trade and location you need, and the actor will extract matching profiles and their permit histories.

SEO Keywords

BuildZoom scraper, contractor data, construction leads, contractor license data, permit data, building permits, general contractor leads, construction market data, contractor insurance data, surety bond data, construction intelligence, contractor lead generation, build permits analysis, construction company data, remodel contractor data, licensed contractor database, construction project leads, contractor contact information

For AI Agents & LLM Apps

Purpose: Scrape structured contractor profiles, license info, insurance status, and building permit histories from BuildZoom.

Minimal input:

{
  "startUrls": ["https://www.buildzoom.com/austin-tx/general-contractors"],
  "maxItems": 10
}

Output fields: name, url, phone, email, licenseNumber, licenseState, licenseType, insurance, suretyBond, rating, reviewCount, yearsInBusiness, specialties, location, permits (array of permit records with permitNumber, address, permitType, value, status, dateIssued).

Agent behaviors:

• Always provide at least one valid BuildZoom URL in startUrls or the run will fail.
• Set includePermits: false to skip permit scraping and reduce cost and run time.
• Lower maxConcurrency if encountering HTTP 429 rate limit errors.
• Use maxItems to cap spend; billing is $0.0035 per contractor record returned.

Billing: $0.0035 per result (per contractor record extracted).

Legal & Compliance Disclaimer

This Actor is an independent web scraping tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to BuildZoom, Inc. in any way. It accesses only publicly available web pages on buildzoom.com. Users are solely responsible for ensuring their use of this Actor complies with BuildZoom's Terms of Service, applicable laws, and regulations in their jurisdiction. The developer assumes no liability for misuse of scraped data. Always verify contractor license and insurance information through official state licensing boards before making business decisions.