What exactly is an intelligence feed?

A feed is a continuously updated data product configured around your business: which entities to track (projects, permits, companies, products…), which changes matter (permit filed, bid opened, contract awarded, price dropped…), where, above what value, how fresh, and how it's delivered. Ballast generates the formal specification and field schema from a guided questionnaire — you never configure scrapers or write schemas.

Where does the data come from?

From approved sources only: public government portals and registries, permitted commercial websites, licensed data partners, and data you provide. Every source carries an explicit permission and licensing status, and collection never runs against a source that hasn't been approved — that rule is enforced inside the pipeline, not just in the interface.

How do I know a record is accurate?

Every record and event carries source evidence (where it came from, the URL, when it was retrieved, and the raw payload), a confidence score, and an explicit verification status — from unverified through machine verified, multi-source verified, and human reviewed. Records corroborated by independent sources are upgraded automatically, low-confidence records route to a review queue, and nothing model-generated is silently presented as fact.

What are data credits?

Credits meter what you consume, not what we monitor: a basic record costs 1 credit, an enriched record 5, an intelligence event 3 (10 once verified), and a record's full change history 20. Every plan includes a monthly credit and API-request allowance, and every API response tells you exactly what it consumed. Overages are priced per 100 credits and per 1,000 requests — no surprise invoices.

Can I use Ballast purely through the API?

Yes — Ballast is API-first. Scoped keys (blst_live_… / blst_test_…) pull records, events, and change streams over a stable versioned REST API with cursor pagination, and signed webhooks push new intelligence into your systems as it's detected. Test-environment keys are sandboxed to synthetic demo data so you can integrate before you buy.

Will Ballast collect personal or sensitive data?

No. A data-category safety layer screens every request: standard commercial categories (companies, projects, permits, products, properties…) approve automatically, ambiguous ones (like professional or litigation data) require a human sourcing review, and sensitive personal data — health, biometrics, minors, precise location of individuals, credentials, breached data, private communications — is refused outright.

Ballast vertical intelligence

Find commercial roofing demand before your competitors do.

Ballast for Roofing continuously monitors projects, permits, bids, contractor activity, and market signals to help roofing suppliers identify near-term material purchasing opportunities — with source evidence on every record.

Build your territory feed View example opportunities

For roofing suppliers & distributors · guided setup · evidence on every record

ballast consoleconsole.ballastos.comlive · pass 1/6

Overview
Feeds
Explorer
Events
Sources
Verification

Usage

credits6.1k / 25k

Central Florida Commercial Constructionactivevalue ≥ $500k128 records · 34 sources

Record	Stage	Value	Contractor	Conf	Verified
Colonial Corridor Warehouse Development Orlando, FL	bidding	$8,750,000	open	0.97	multi-source
Lakeview Medical Office Expansion Orlando, FL	permit_approved	$2,400,000	open	0.95	multi-source
Maitland Commons Multifamily Phase II Maitland, FL	permit_filed	$14,200,000	open	0.93	machine
Osceola STEM Academy Classroom Wing Kissimmee, FL	awarded	$5,300,000	Meridian Builders	0.96	multi-source

Evidence

Maitland Commons Multifamily Phase II

machine verifiedopportunity 87

Orange County Building Permits

BLD-2026-040112 · 2h ago

City of Orlando Development Portal

checking…

confidence0.80

History

v2 declared_value: — → $14,200,000
v1 first observed · permit registry

sr_4e21 · collect orange-county-permits · 14 records · 12 unchanged (checksum)

permit_approvedLakeview Medical Office · $2.4M · Orlando FLbid_openedColonial Corridor Warehouse · $8.75Mcontractor_identifiedOsceola STEM Academy · Meridian Buildersentity.updatedMaitland Commons · v3 · conf 0.96price_reducedSKU 88-1042 · $159 → $141bid_postedFDOT District 5 · roadway lightingpermit_filedRiverside Medical Pavilion · $3.15Msource.recoveredorlando-dev-portal · reliability 0.98regulation_publishedFL Building Code · roofing amendmentcontract_awardedOsceola County Schools · $5.3M

synthetic wire

Built for teams that sell into commercial activity · illustrative placeholders, not current customers

VantageMeridianCorelineNorthbeamHeliosRidgeline

of records carry source evidence

verification states, unverified → human reviewed

monitored event stages, permit filed → construction started

0 min

monitoring intervals on the Scale plan

The pipeline

Deterministic where it counts. AI where it helps.

Every monitoring pass runs the same inspectable pipeline. Repeatable connectors and parsers do the routine work; AI is consulted only for ambiguity — and validated before its output touches your data.

01–02

Collect & extract

Approved sources are checked on cadence, deduplicated by checksum, and mapped into your field schema — raw payloads kept as evidence.

Resolve

Records match to canonical entities by identifier, then normalized name and alias. Every attribute change is versioned.

Verify

Independent-source corroboration and human review move a numeric confidence. Low-confidence items branch to the review queue.

05–06

Score & deliver

Changes become typed events with relevance and opportunity scores, pushed over signed webhooks and the versioned API.

Platform

Everything between a public record and a closed deal.

One system to specify, monitor, verify, and deliver commercial intelligence — replacing scrapers, spreadsheets, and stale list vendors.

Guided specification

Business answers become a formal monitoring spec: entities, signals, coverage, thresholds, field schema, verification rules.

Canonical entity graph

Records resolve into one entity per real-world thing — aliases captured, identifiers preserved, every change versioned.

Verification & confidence

Machine checks, multi-source corroboration, and human review move a numeric confidence score. Every check is recorded.

Opportunity scoring

Events score 0–100 against your specification — an approved $8.7M permit with no contractor attached sorts above the noise.

Governed source network

Every source carries permission and license status, reliability, and health. Unapproved sources are never collected.

API-first delivery

Scoped keys, cursor pagination, a stable envelope with credits consumed, and HMAC-signed webhooks with retries.

Specify

A formal specification, from plain answers.

The guided onboarding turns your objective into a Monitoring Specification — entities, signals, coverage, value thresholds, a field schema, verification rules — plus synthetic sample records and an itemized pricing proposal. Every requested data category passes a safety review before anything activates.

Ten guided steps, no technical input
Sample records before you commit
Itemized proposal with allowances and overages

Data specification · draft

Entities: projectspermitscompaniesproperties
Signals: permit_filedpermit_approvedbid_openedawarded
Coverage: FL · Orlando metro
Value floor: ≥ $500,000
Freshness: daily
Verification: multi-source

Monitor

Every pass is a transcript, not a black box.

Each monitoring run is recorded end to end — what was collected, what changed by checksum, how records resolved, which sources corroborated, and what was delivered. When something fails, you read the run; when it succeeds, you can prove it.

Compliance gate before any network call
Checksum change-detection — nothing reprocessed twice
Source health and reliability scored per run

monitoring pass · sr_4e21exit 0

Verify

Records that show their work.

Every record links to the sources it came from — URL, retrieval time, raw payload — and carries a numeric confidence that only moves through recorded checks: machine validation, multi-source corroboration, human review. Nothing model-generated is silently presented as fact.

Six explicit verification states
Attribute-level change history on every record
Low-confidence items route to a review queue

Record · evidence & verification

Lakeview Medical Office Expansion

multi-source verifiedopportunity 87v3

Orange County Building Permits

BLD-2026-041877 · retrieved 2h ago

view raw

City of Orlando Development Portal

case DEV-24-1180 · retrieved 5h ago

view raw

confidence after corroboration0.80 → 0.95

v3 project_stage: permit_filed → permit_approved
v2 source added · confidence 0.80 → 0.88

API-first

A data product, not a dashboard export.

Everything in the console is a REST call away — records, events, change streams, exports. Scoped keys, a stable versioned envelope, transparent credit metering, and HMAC-signed webhooks.

GET/v1/entitiesrecords, cursor pagination
GET/v1/changesattribute-level change stream
GET/v1/eventsscored intelligence events
POST/v1/exportsJSON / CSV, up to 10k rows
POST/v1/webhookssigned push delivery

Read the API reference

requestblst_live_…

curl "https://api.ballastos.com/v1/events?feed_id=fd_9c1&event_type=permit_approved" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer blst_live_..."

response200 · 41 ms

{
  "data": [{
    "event_type": "permit_approved",
    "summary": "Permit approved: Lakeview Medical Office
      Expansion in Orlando, FL ($2,400,000)",
    "opportunity_score": 87.5,
    "confidence": 0.95,
    "verification_status": "multi_source_verified",
    "source_evidence": [{ "source_name": "Orange County
      Building Permits", "retrieved_at": "…" }]
  }],
  "pagination": { "next_cursor": null },
  "meta": { "schema_version": "2026-07-01",
            "credits_consumed": 10 }
}

Example feeds

Configured around your business, not a generic dataset.

These are the specifications the guided onboarding builds. Every new account includes a working synthetic example feed to explore.

Who Ballast for Roofing is for

Built for the people who sell roofing materials — not for homeowners.

Roofing distributors

Every qualifying commercial project and reroof permit in your branches' territories, before the roofing award.

Material suppliers

Projects at the stage where TPO, PVC, insulation, and edge metal get specified — with likely categories inferred.

Manufacturers

Specification-stage visibility across the regions your certified contractors cover.

Manufacturer reps

Contractor activity, certifications, and project associations across your line's territory.

Outside sales teams

Scored opportunities routed by territory, matched against your existing and lapsed accounts.

Build your territory feed →

Ballast's vertical intelligence platform is designed to support additional fragmented commercial markets over time.

Trust & governance

Enterprise controls, in the architecture.

Source permissions, restricted-category rules, and organization isolation are enforced where the data flows — not documented after the fact.

Review the security posture

SSO (OIDC)

SCIM 2.0

Role-based access

Tamper-evident audit log

Encrypted secrets

Organization isolation

IP allowlists

Restricted-category refusal

Source permission gates

SOC 2 Type II — planned

“The companies that win commercial markets hear about the permit, the bid, or the price move first. That data is public, scattered, and constantly changing — nobody should need a data-engineering team to see it.”

Why we built Ballast

FAQ

Questions, answered.

Build your roofing opportunity feed.

Configure your territory, project criteria, and materials in a guided setup, review the generated specification and proposal, and watch opportunities arrive — evidence, confidence, and all.

Build your territory feed Talk to sales

Free plan · no credit card · synthetic example feed included