> ## Documentation Index
> Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.surfais.com/llms.txt
> Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.
# Scan schedule & cadence
> When automatic scans run on each plan, how the trial schedule works, and why scan days follow UTC.
Once your brand has a baseline (see [your free baseline scan](#your-free-baseline-scan) below), Surfais scans it automatically on a schedule set by your plan — you don't need to trigger anything to stay current. This page covers when those automatic scans run, how the trial period differs, and why the exact time a scan lands can shift depending on where you are in the world.
## Cadence per plan
Automatic scans run on fixed weekdays, more frequently on higher plans:
| Plan | Automatic scan days |
| ---------- | --------------------------------- |
| Starter | Monday, Wednesday, Friday |
| Growth | Monday, Wednesday, Friday |
| Scale | Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Sunday |
| Enterprise | Every day |
On each scan day, every active prompt runs across the platforms and countries it's set to run in (all five platforms by default) — see [What happens in a scan](/scans/how-scans-work) for what a single scan actually does. Plan details and current limits live on [Plans & limits](/billing/plans-limits) and [surfais.com/pricing](https://surfais.com/pricing).
Cadence is per organisation, not per brand. Once your account has activated — you've run your first baseline scan — scheduled scans cover every brand you track on the same schedule, including brands you add later (a new brand's own [free baseline](#your-free-baseline-scan) is still there to get its first reading immediately rather than waiting for the next scan day).
## Scan days follow UTC
Automatic scans fire early in the UTC day. If you're located west of the UK, your scan can land the evening before your local calendar date; if you're east of the UK, it can land later in your local day than the weekday label suggests. In practice this only matters near the day boundary — most users simply see their scan appear "this morning" — but if you're ever checking "did Wednesday's scan run yet?" against the clock, UTC is the calendar that decides it, not your local timezone.
This is a deliberate, consistent choice — every organisation is scanned against the same UTC calendar, regardless of where its team is based, so cadence stays predictable and comparable across accounts.
## Trial scan schedule
While your organisation is on a trial, the weekday cadence above doesn't apply yet. Instead, Surfais runs scans on a fixed drip tied to the trial itself, aiming for readings around **days 1, 4, and 7** — near the start, middle, and end of your trial.
The drip starts once you've activated: your first reading is the [free baseline scan](#your-free-baseline-scan) you trigger yourself, and the remaining drip scans then run automatically. If you never run the baseline, no automatic scans fire — Surfais deliberately doesn't scan a brand whose setup you haven't confirmed. Once you convert to a paid plan, scanning switches over to your plan's weekday cadence from the table above.
## Your free baseline scan
Every new brand gets **one free scan** the first time you set it up — it doesn't draw from your monthly manual-scan allowance, and it doesn't wait for the next scheduled cadence day. This first scan is deliberately a moment you choose to trigger yourself, because it becomes your **baseline**: the number every later reading is measured against. Your dashboard walks you through a short "get scan-ready" checklist first — adding competitors and confirming your brand aliases materially change what that first scan finds, so we ask you to complete them (or explicitly confirm you want to run without) before kicking it off.
Once you run it, automatic scanning takes over from there — on the trial drip if you're still trialling, or your plan's weekday cadence if you've already converted. See [Quickstart: your first scan](/getting-started/quickstart) for the full walkthrough of onboarding through to that first scan, and [Manual scans & allowances](/scans/manual-scans) for how the ongoing monthly allowance works after your baseline is in.
## What if I add a new brand later?
If you're tracking multiple brands, each new brand gets its own free baseline scan the same way — set it up, work through its checklist, and run its first scan. One nuance worth knowing: cadence scans run for the whole organisation at once, so if your organisation is already active and scanning automatically, a brand you add can occasionally get swept up in the next scheduled cadence run before you've clicked its own baseline button. Either way, that first scan is free — you're never charged a manual scan for a brand's baseline.
## Related pages
The full pipeline behind every scan, automatic or manual.
Running a scan on demand between automatic runs.
Full comparison of what each plan includes.
How the trial period works end to end.