How We Research

General information about our method. Not legal or professional advice.

What we do for every city page

1. Open official sources. We read the city's own permit pages, fee schedules, and official documents in full — not snippets, not third-party summaries. We also check the state licensing board, Census data, and reputable national cost studies.

2. Link every number. Every fee, date, rule, and figure on a city page links to the source that states it, with the date we checked it.

3. Never invent. If a city does not publish a fee or a price range, we say so plainly instead of guessing. If a source is undated, we say so.

4. Say what we could not verify. Every city page has a section listing what we looked for and could not confirm.

5. Independent audit. Before publishing, a separate review session opens every cited source and checks every claim. Any failed check blocks publishing until it is fixed or the claim is removed.

6. Corrections. Reader-reported errors are checked against the cited source and corrected promptly if verified.

What we do not do

• We do not copy text from other websites.
• We do not publish fake reviews, testimonials, or expert quotes.
• We do not use other cost-guide sites, forums, or anonymous blogs as a sole source.
• We do not state what a project "costs" based on a fee schedule unless the city's own page says the fee applies to that project.
• We do not cite code section numbers from outdated documents.

Data years

Census figures on city pages come from a single data year for all cities: the 2020–2024 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, via data.census.gov (tables ACSDT5Y2024.B25035, ACSDT5Y2024.B25003, ACSDT5Y2024.B25077).

A note on verification: the Census Bureau's data tables are interactive web pages. Our figures were cross-checked against the Census Bureau's published API for the same 2020–2024 5-year release, and a live browser session confirmed the table pages display the cited values. An automated text-fetch audit could not render these pages, so the figures carry this disclosure.

[NEEDS REVIEW: Confirm the Census data year is correct before publishing.]

Last updated: October 13, 2026