Understanding Blocks
How Starlight's usage-based block system works.
Starlight uses a block-based system. Every AI-powered action costs a set number of blocks, and your plan determines how many blocks you get each month.
Block Costs
| Action | Blocks | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Search | 12 | Run a new lead or company search |
| Load more results | 10 | Fetch the next page of search results |
| Local search | 15 | Run a local-business search (includes automatic owner name + email enrichment) |
| Load more local results | 10 | Fetch the next page of local-business results (enrichment included) |
| AI search enhance | 2 | AI-powered query refinement |
| Draft with AI | 4 | AI-draft personalized outreach for a lead |
| Preview with AI | 4 | Preview a draft for a recipient in the Outbound builder |
| Enhance brief | 2 | AI-polish your campaign brief |
| Sequence email | Free | Send an email through a campaign |
| Email verification | 1 | Verify an address before sending |
| Phone number reveal | 15 | Reveal a contact's mobile number via Apollo; refunded if none is found |
| AI reply draft | 5 | Generate an AI response to a prospect's reply |
| AI LinkedIn reply | 5 | Generate an AI response to a LinkedIn reply |
| Meeting notes | 5 | Generate AI meeting notes |
| Meeting follow-up draft | 5 | AI-draft a follow-up email after a meeting |
| Website scan | 3 | Scan a prospect's website for context |
| LinkedIn scan | 3 | Scan a prospect's LinkedIn for context |
| Research scan | 2 | Per-recipient web research during drafting |
| LinkedIn DM | Free | Send a LinkedIn direct message via the extension |
| LinkedIn message | Free | Send a post-connection message or InMail via the extension |
| LinkedIn connection request | Free | Send a connection request via the extension |
| LinkedIn like | 1 | Like a prospect's post via the extension |
| LinkedIn comment | 2 | Comment on a prospect's post via the extension |
| Contact export | 5 | Export contacts to CSV or CRM — flat per export, any number of contacts |
| Sales intelligence | 4 | Get AI sales intelligence insights |
| Agent tool call | 1 | Each action the AI chat agent runs, added to that action's own cost |
| Signal tracking | 2 | Per tracked company, per weekly buying-signal scan (news, funding, hiring, job changes) |
| Signal discovery | 3 | Per discovery sweep for net-new companies matching your ICP, weekly |
| Social listening scan | 4 | Per watch, per daily social scan across X, Reddit, and LinkedIn — comment suggestions and poster lookup included; quiet watches automatically scan less often |
Sending is always free. Emails, LinkedIn DMs, InMails, and connection requests never cost blocks, no matter how many you send. Blocks pay for the work that goes into a message (finding the prospect, researching them, writing the draft), never for delivering it. You can always send what you have already drafted, even at zero blocks remaining.
Chatting with the AI agent is free — ask questions and plan as much as you like. You're only charged when the agent takes an action: each tool call costs 1 block plus that action's own cost (for example, a lead search the agent runs is 12 + 1).
Recurring Background Charges
Signals and Social listening work for you in the background, so their charges recur without you clicking anything: each tracked company is scanned for buying signals about once a week, and each social watch is scanned about once a day (backing off automatically when a watch stays quiet). You can pause tracking or remove watches/trackers at any time from the Signals and Social pages — pausing stops the scans and the charges. If you run out of blocks, background scans simply pause and retry after your blocks reset; they never overdraw you.
Checking Your Balance
Your current block usage is always visible in the sidebar at the bottom left. It shows a progress bar with blocks used out of your total allowance.
For a per-charge history of every block spent, open Settings → Blocks. It shows a running balance, your recent usage trend, and each transaction with the action that caused it. Plan-level usage lives in Settings → Plans & Billing.
Monthly Reset
Blocks reset every 30 days from when your billing cycle started. Unused blocks do not roll over to the next month.
Running Low on Blocks
When your blocks are running low, you'll receive a Blocks Low notification. You can:
- Upgrade your plan for more monthly blocks — see Plans & Pricing
- Wait for reset — blocks refresh at the start of your next billing cycle
What Happens When Blocks Run Out
When you're out of blocks:
- AI-powered actions (search, drafting, meeting notes) will show an upgrade prompt
- Your campaigns keep sending. Scheduled emails and LinkedIn messages go out on time, and follow-ups continue, because sending never costs blocks
- Manual actions (viewing contacts, reading inbox) continue to work normally