What locking a territory actually buys you, how the monthly rate and the holding cap work together, and why Solo Operator skips it entirely.
Short answer: locking a territory stops any other Scoutline subscriber claiming new leads from it while you hold it — it's separate from claiming, and most claiming never needs it. Anyone on any plan can claim an unclaimed business one at a time, by name, with no lock involved. Locking a whole area is available on Growing Agency (2 territories a month) and Full-time reselling (5 a month); Solo Operator has none.
Territory exclusivity is one of the more commonly misunderstood parts of how Scoutline works, mostly because it sounds like it should be the same thing as claiming a business. It isn't — they're two separate mechanics, and understanding the difference is what makes the plans actually make sense.
A territory is a named area — a town, roughly — that a subscriber can choose to lock exclusively to themselves. Once locked, nobody else on Scoutline can claim new leads scanned from that area for as long as the lock holds. It doesn't affect businesses someone else already claimed before the lock existed, and it doesn't retroactively undo anything.
This is the part that surprises people: claiming a single unclaimed business by name is available on every plan, including Solo Operator, and never locks anything. The lock only exists for bulk claiming across a whole area at once. If you've found one good lead and want it, you don't need to hold the territory it's in — you just claim it.
Every plan with territories has two figures, and they're easy to conflate:
They move differently on yearly billing, too: the monthly rate scales up for a year of billing (twelve months of territory claims), but the holding cap does not — paying annually doesn't let you stand on more ground at any single moment, only claim more of it over the course of the year as areas free up and get released.
A cap with no ceiling on total accumulation would eventually let one subscriber lock a large share of every territory that exists, permanently. The holding cap is what stops that: once you're at your limit, taking a new one means releasing an old one first.
Releasing gives up the right to claim new leads there — it does not un-assign businesses you've already claimed inside it. You keep what you've already claimed and paid a claim allowance for; you just stop holding exclusive rights to whatever's discovered there next.
Claiming a business one at a time, by name, is available on every plan. Locking a whole territory exclusively to you is available on Growing Agency (2 territories a month) and Full-time reselling (5 a month); Solo Operator has none, by design — it's built around claiming individual businesses rather than holding ground. See the plans for the full comparison.
No. Claiming a single unclaimed business by name is available on every plan and never locks anything. Locking a whole territory only matters for bulk-claiming across a wider area, and it's opt-in even then.
The holding cap is how many territories you can have locked at once, right now. The monthly rate is how many new locks you can take out in a given period. On yearly billing the monthly rate scales up for the year, but the holding cap doesn't — paying annually lets you claim more territories over time, not hold more of them simultaneously.
You give up the right to claim new leads from it — any business you'd already claimed there stays claimed. It frees up a slot in your holding cap so you can lock a different territory instead.