Speed

Why does speed matter to a buyer?

Speed and quantity together decide the shape of the curve, which is the part a human viewer notices. An order of 50,000 at 10,000 per day produces five days of steady growth; the same order on an unthrottled service can land in an afternoon and is far more legible as a purchase.

It also sets expectations for disputes. A 100,000-unit order on a 10,000-per-day service is a ten-day order, and complaints filed on day two are about misreading the speed rather than the panel failing.

How does speed show up in a price list?

Speed is usually embedded in the service name — “Max 50K | 10K/Day | Instant” — rather than given its own column, which is why cross-panel comparison requires parsing names rather than reading fields.

Advertised speed is a ceiling. Real throughput depends on the upstream source’s capacity that day, and on cheap high-volume rows it varies far more than the name implies.

Which terms should you read next?

Speed only makes sense alongside the terms it interacts with — most confusion in this market comes from reading one word without the one that qualifies it.

• Start timeAdvertised lag before delivery begins; an average, not a guarantee.
• Drip-feedDelivery split into repeated batches; quantity is per run, so total = quantity × runs.
• InstantNear-immediate start — a claim about when delivery begins, not how fast it finishes.
• Min and max orderThe order size bounds — and max order is a strong proxy for inventory quality.

Also referenced from: Runs and interval, Subscription.