# Search

Find your ideal prospects from 250M+ contacts using natural language.

Starlight's search lets you describe your ideal customer in plain English. AI translates your query into precise filters and searches our B2B contact database of 250M+ business professionals.

## Search Modes

The Search page has four tabs:

- **Leads** — describe the people you want to reach and get matching prospects
- **Find Similar** — paste a LinkedIn profile URL or describe your best customer, and Starlight finds more prospects like them
- **Companies** — find target accounts directly, then open any company to see enriched data and search its employees
- **Local** — find local businesses (plumbers, dentists, HVAC contractors, and other services corporate databases don't index) on a live map

## How It Works

1. **Type a natural language query** — describe the role, industry, company size, location, or any other criteria

2. **AI parses your query**— Starlight's AI extracts structured filters (title, industry, location, employee count, keywords)

3. **Results are scored** — each lead gets a match score based on how well they fit your criteria

4. **Review and act** — add leads to your contacts, draft messages with AI, or export them

### Example Queries

- "CTOs at fintech startups with 20-100 employees in San Francisco"
- "HR directors at healthcare companies in the Midwest"
- "Founders of e-commerce brands doing over $5M revenue"

## Search Results

Each result shows:

- **Name and title** — the prospect's current role
- **Company** — employer name, industry, and size
- **Location** — city and state
- **Match score** — how well they fit your search criteria (0-100%)
- **Contact info** — email and LinkedIn profile when available

## Local Business Search

The **Local**tab searches the map instead of the contact database. Type something like "Plumbers in Austin TX" and Starlight finds matching businesses — shown in a synchronized list and map view, with each card carrying the business name, category, address, open/closed status, rating, and match tags. Clicking a business opens a detail panel with everything else: the owner's name and email, phone, website, full weekly hours, a Google Maps link, match highlights, plus the same Notes and Activity tabs as people search. Hovering a business in the list highlights its pin, and clicking a pin scrolls to its card. A dotted line traces the searched area's city limits so you can see which results fall inside it. You can also filter the list to just the area currently visible on the map.

After results load, Starlight automatically researches each business's website to find the owner or decision-maker's name and email, so results become actionable leads — Add to Contacts works immediately, and **Draft Messages with AI** unlocks once an email is found. Loading more results covers the search area progressively, so large metros can go well beyond the first page.

Local results are ranked by fit, just like people search. Qualifiers in your query beyond the category and location — "independent coffee shops, not chains" — become editable criteria chips in the search preview, and every business gets a **match score** against your query, criteria, and Ideal Customer Profile, with reason tags explaining the score (hover a tag for detail). The list sorts best-fit first (a toggle restores the original discovery order), and strong matches stand out on the map with a highlighted pin. Fit ranking is included in the search cost — no extra credits.

> **Info:** Map data and tiles for the Local tab are provided by [MapTiler](https://www.maptiler.com/copyright/) and [OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright) contributors.

## Loading More Results

Click **Load More** at the bottom of your results to fetch the next page of matching prospects.

## Sharing Results

You can share a search's results via a public link. This is useful for collaborating with team members who may not have a Starlight account.

## Saved Searches

Pin frequently-used searches to access them quickly from the Search page. Your recent searches are also saved automatically.

## Credit Costs

| Action | Credits |
| --- | --- |
| Search | 12 |
| Load more results | 8 |
| Local search | 15 |
| Load more local results | 10 |
| AI search enhance | 2 |