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1build

The API for live, county-level U.S. construction cost data

GraphQL API (plus a companion self-serve web estimating tool) providing live pricing for 68 million construction material, labor, and equipment cost data points across 3,000+ US counties, refreshed daily from national retailers and local suppliers. Embedded by third-party construction estimating platforms including Buildxact, STACK Construction Technologies, and CostCertified rather than sold mainly as a standalone end-user app.

Pricing
contact the vendor
Alternatives
STACK Construction Technologies, PLAN0 AI, OpenDrawing
Who it's for
Construction, Construction Management, Software Development
$14.6M total raised across 4 rounds as of the Series A ($14.5M, announced Sept 22, 2021, led by Foundamental with Greycroft and Bossanova Investimentos; per Crunchbase/Tracxn aggregators, not a single official disclosure). Parent entity 1build, Inc. — which also operates the Handoff product — announced an additional ~$5.8M strategic round in 2025 under the Handoff brand (see separate Handoff listing); whether that round is company-wide or Handoff-specific funding is not publicly disclosed. raisedGrowth Stage
Founded 2019 · Cost data API embedded in several construction software platforms including Buildxact, STACK Construction Technologies, and CostCertified; direct customer/user counts for the API and estimating.1build.com are not publicly disclosed separately from sibling product Handoff (also operated by 1build, Inc.). Y Combinator-backed (Winter 2020 batch); featured by TechCrunch, Fortune, and Yahoo Finance.
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WHY IT EXISTS

Why This Tool Exists

The Problem

Software companies building construction estimating, procurement, or underwriting products need constantly updated, county-level pricing for tens of thousands of materials, labor rates, and equipment costs — data that is expensive and slow to collect and maintain in-house, and that goes stale within weeks without daily refreshes.

The Solution

1build's GraphQL API returns live unit-cost data for 68 million material, labor, and equipment price points across 3,000+ US counties, sourced daily from national retailers (e.g., Home Depot, Lowe's) and local lumber/building-material distributors, so partner platforms can pull current, localized pricing into their own workflows instead of maintaining their own cost database. A companion self-serve web app (estimating.1build.com) lets individual contractors generate estimates directly from the same dataset using pre-built assemblies and templates.

USAGE

How You Use It

Delivery Method
APISaaS (estimating.1build.com web app)Embeddable widget
Integrations
Buildxact (Pricing Assistant)STACK Construction Technologies (Material & Labor Estimates)CostCertified (AutoCost)
Disciplines
Construction
Workflows
Estimating & Cost
Project Phases
Pre-Design, Estimating, Bidding/Procurement
Project Types
Residential, Commercial, Institutional, Infrastructure
TRANSPARENCY

Data Transparency

Exactly what this tool uses and how

Input
What it needs
Required:Location (zip code, county, or state) for pricing lookup, API key (for API access) or project details (for web app)
Optional:CSI division/category filters, Custom assemblies or item lists, Blueprints or scope-of-work details (estimating.1build.com web flow)
Formats:GraphQL query (API), Web form input, PDF/image upload for blueprint-based estimates (estimating.1build.com)
Output
What you get
Format:GraphQL API responses (JSON) for developer integrations; interactive dashboard and exportable estimates for web app users
Fields:Material rates, Labor rates, Production rates, Equipment/rental costs, Calculated unit rates by state/county, Category and unit-of-measure metadata
Algorithm
How it works
Model:Proprietary data-aggregation pipeline rather than a single predictive model — daily ingestion of material, labor, and equipment prices from national retailers and local suppliers, normalized to county-level unit rates; per the shared 1build/Handoff privacy policy, submitted project data may also be used "to develop more accurate cost estimates and train...machine-learning models" for cost prediction
Accuracy:Not independently audited or published as a numeric accuracy/error-rate figure; vendor markets the data as sourced "in real-time" from local suppliers daily rather than claiming a specific accuracy percentage
Privacy
How your data is protected
Retention:Per the estimating.1build.com privacy policy: submitted information may be retained indefinitely "for backups, archiving, prevention of fraud and abuse, analytics, satisfaction of legal obligations" — no specific retention timeframe is disclosed
Training:Yes — privacy policy states information may be used "to develop more accurate cost estimates and train...machine-learning models"
Compliance:CCPA disclosures addressed in privacy policy for California residents, No SOC 2, ISO 27001, or GDPR certification publicly disclosed as of research date
API
Integration
Endpoint:https://gateway-external.1build.com/ (single GraphQL endpoint, POST requests only); documented at developer.1build.com
Method:GraphQL (queries and mutations)
USE CASES

Use Cases

  • ·Embedding live, county-level material/labor/equipment pricing into third-party estimating and takeoff software (e.g., Buildxact Pricing Assistant, STACK Material & Labor Estimates, CostCertified AutoCost)
  • ·Generating quick budgetary estimates from pre-built assemblies via the self-serve estimating.1build.com web app
  • ·Sourcing daily local construction cost benchmarks for loan and insurance underwriting workflows
  • ·Adding a one-line embeddable pricing widget to a contractor-facing website or app
  • ·Comparing submitted bids against localized county-level cost benchmarks for procurement review
PRICING

Pricing

Free
7-day free trial on the self-serve estimating web app (estimating.1build.com); no public free tier for API access
Pro
Not publicly listed — API access requires registering as a developer (app2.1build.com) and contacting [email protected] for a quote
Enterprise
Custom pricing for API/data-licensing partnerships (e.g., the Buildxact, STACK, and CostCertified integrations); contact sales
Sources & Research NotesResearch date: 2026-07-17
Data Sources (14)
Fields Checked (12)
problem, solution, deliveryMethod, integrations, yearFounded, fundingTotal (2021 Series A figure), algorithm-approach, privacy-training, api-endpoint, api-auth-method, useCases, customerBase (partner integrations)
Not Found (5)
exact current company-wide fundingTotal (post-2021 figure specific to the 1build API business), API self-serve pricing tiers/rate limits, SOC 2/ISO/GDPR certification status, independent data-accuracy audit, direct customer/user counts for the API or estimating.1build.com separate from Handoff
About this research: This record summarizes the cited sources and fields checked. A research date does not establish hands-on testing. Consult the original sources for current details and limitations.
ALTERNATIVES

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