About Buildermuse
Buildermuse is a construction intelligence platform built for working contractors, estimators, and project managers who need fast answers from public data.
Why Buildermuse Exists
Construction is a $2.1 trillion industry with terrible data access. Housing starts are buried in Census PDFs. Material prices require tracking 6 different BLS series. Federal bids are scattered across SAM.gov with no filtering by trade. State workforce data requires cross-referencing BLS QCEW, OSHA, and USAspending separately.
We built Buildermuse to put all of that in one place — updated, sourced, and formatted for someone checking their phone at 6am before the crew shows up.
Every number on this site comes from a government source or verified industry dataset. We don't estimate. We don't model. We report what the data says and cite where it came from.
How We Source Our Data
| Product | Sources |
|---|---|
| Material Prices | BLS Producer Price Index (PPI), FRED API, Random Lengths, industry dealer surveys |
| Federal Bids | SAM.gov API — refreshed daily, filtered to construction NAICS codes |
| State Dashboards | USAspending.gov (federal awards), BLS QCEW (employment), BLS OES (wages) |
| Contractor Directory | Google Places API — filtered to 4.0+ stars, 10+ reviews, verified operational status |
| Articles | Original reporting by staff writers, citing BLS, Census Bureau, NAHB, AGC, OSHA, ENR |
Our Writers
Combined 65 years in the field. Every article is written by someone who's held a hammer, pulled wire, or run a crew.
Mike Callahan
20-year GC, residential and commercial construction
Sarah Torres
Licensed electrician, OSHA safety consultant
Danny Reeves
Master plumber, 30-person shop owner
Lisa Chen
PE/PMP civil engineer, infrastructure and policy
What Buildermuse Is Not
We are not a contractor marketplace. We don't take referral fees. We don't sell leads. Contractors appear in our directory because they meet our quality threshold on Google Reviews — not because they paid us. Our revenue comes from advertising and featured placement, which is always labeled.
Contact
For media inquiries: press@buildermuse.com
For story leads: tips@buildermuse.com
For corrections: corrections@buildermuse.com
Buildermuse is built and operated from Massachusetts.
Scoring Methodology
Buildermuse calculates four proprietary market scores using publicly available data. All scores are computed at build time from federal award data (USAspending), active bid counts (SAM.gov), contractor density (Google Places), and material price trends (BLS PPI/FRED).
Market Heat Index (0–100)
Measures market activity per state using five normalized factors: construction employment (25%), federal award volume per worker (25%), active bid count (20%), average hourly wage vs. national average (15%), and contractor density per 1,000 workers (15%). Each factor is normalized 0–100 across all 51 states before weighting. States scoring 80+ are labeled "Hot," 60–79 "Warm," 40–59 "Moderate," 20–39 "Cool," and below 20 "Cold."
Trade Demand Score
Compares active bid demand (counted from SAM.gov NAICS codes) against contractor supply (from our directory) for each trade in each state. Both are normalized 0–100 across states. High demand with low supply indicates market opportunity; high demand with high supply indicates a competitive market; low demand with high supply indicates an oversaturated market.
Bid Competitiveness
Estimates competition level for individual federal solicitations based on four factors: set-aside type (restricted set-asides reduce eligible bidders), deadline proximity (bids with under 7 days remaining score lower), NAICS specialization (healthcare and data center NAICS codes indicate fewer qualified bidders), and state contractor density (high-density states have more potential bidders). Scores below 35 are labeled "Low competition," 35–64 "Moderate competition," and 65+ "Highly competitive."
Material Price Pressure
Calculates the average year-over-year price change across all materials within each category using BLS PPI and FRED data. Categories averaging more than +10% YoY are labeled "Rising fast" (red), +3 to +10% are "Rising" (orange), -3% to +3% are "Stable" (green), and below -3% are "Falling" (blue). Updated monthly when BLS releases new PPI figures.
Data Status Labels
Each data point on Buildermuse carries an implicit status based on its source and derivation method. This table documents what each category means so you can assess reliability before using a figure in a bid or financial decision.
| Label | Meaning | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| Aggregated | Summed or counted directly from a primary source with no modeling. | Federal award totals (USAspending), contractor counts (Google Places), bid counts (SAM.gov) |
| Computed | Derived from aggregated inputs using the documented formula in Scoring Methodology above. | Market Heat Index, Bid Competitiveness score, Material Price Pressure label |
| Survey-sourced | BLS survey estimates with sampling error — not a full census of the workforce. | Employment counts, average wages, material price indices |
| User-submitted | Provided by a contractor or business owner. Not independently verified. Featured listings only. | Contractor taglines and specialties on featured profiles |
| Google-sourced | Retrieved from Google Places API at last refresh. Not independently audited by Buildermuse. | Contractor names, addresses, star ratings, review counts in the directory |
| Data pending | Schema field exists but source not yet ingested for this record. Populates on next refresh cycle. | Employment figures for states with incomplete BLS QCEW coverage this quarter |