What does a territory scan do, and does it use my monthly searches?

What one scan does

1. It runs a fresh live search for the territory's keywords and location, with the problems you picked as filters, and audits every business it finds. It is the same live search and audit pass you get from New Search, not a cached copy of last week's results.
2. It matches each business to the previous scan by business name. Capitals, punctuation and endings like llc, inc and dds are ignored, so a business that writes its name slightly differently this week is not mistaken for a new one.
3. It raises an alert for each change it can prove: a business that was not there before, a site that stopped responding, a broken certificate, a rating that fell, ads that started. See Which buying-window alerts can a territory raise?
4. It saves the whole thing as a search in your Search History under the territory's keywords and location. View Leads on the card opens the most recent scan that completed. A scan that failed or was cut off does not move it, so the button still opens the one before. Earlier scans open from Search History.

The very first scan has nothing to compare against, so it sets the baseline and raises no alerts. The note under the claim form says the same: Each weekly scan is a full live search + audit pass. The first scan sets the baseline; alerts start from the second.

The openers it drafts for you

After the comparison, the first 3 alerts from that scan get an AI-drafted first email, written about the change that was just found and saved on the affected lead as its day 0 draft. A lead only gets one if it has an email address and no email sequence yet, so a lead you are already working is left alone.

The draft ends with a P.S. linking to that lead's live proof page, so the prospect can check the findings for themselves. The drafts wait for you in the Outreach Queue and nothing is sent without your approval. See What is a fresh wound draft in my Outreach Queue?

Does a scan use my monthly searches?

Yes, one search per scan. The baseline scan, each weekly scan and every Re-Scan Now or Run Baseline Scan you click counts the same as a search you ran yourself, and moves the searches meter at the bottom of the sidebar, which reads 12 of 50 searches this month.

The subtitle on the Monitored Markets page says so, and the plans table lists Monitored Markets with buying-window alerts (each scan uses a search).

Searches you start yourself count in the same pot: New Search, a search built by the AI Agent, a list brought in with Resurrect a List, and the first search the setup wizard ran for you. See What counts as a search, and how many do I get each month?

Openers drafted from a scan's alerts also count as AI emails on your usage.

When your searches run out

A scan needs a spare search to run, so a territory stops scanning once you have used the month's allowance.

• A scan you click is refused. Re-Scan Now does not start anything, and Legiit Leads gives the same answer a search gets: You've used all 50 searches on your plan this month. Upgrade in Settings to keep hunting., with your own plan's number in place of 50. The card is unchanged, and Last scan keeps the date it already had.
• A scheduled scan is skipped and tried again later. Nothing is lost: the territory is not paused, its alerts and history stay, and Last scan simply stays where it was until a scan can run again. A skipped attempt counts like a failed one, so the territory waits at least 6 hours before it is tried again, and longer if it keeps being skipped.

Scanning picks itself up again once your allowance resets on the 1st of the month, or as soon as you move to a plan with more searches. To spend fewer searches in the meantime, Pause the territories you are not working right now. See How do I pause, resume or abandon a territory?