Delivery controls
Start time
Last updated by The PanelCompare editorial team
Why does start time matter to a buyer?
Start time is the number buyers use to judge a panel and one of the easiest to game. Panels publish an average computed from recent completed orders, so a service that quietly stopped delivering can keep showing a flattering average until enough new orders age into the window.
It is also structurally longer at the end of a reseller chain. A panel cannot start faster than its provider, and every hop adds queueing, which is why the same nominal service shows a 0–1 hour band on one panel and 12–24 hours on another selling identical inventory.
How does start time show up in a price list?
It appears as a column or badge in the catalogue and often as a per-service average time on the service page. It is not part of the standard API services response, so a comparison index has to measure it by observation rather than read it.
Treat a band as a distribution, not a promise. The honest reading of “0–6 hours” is that recent orders mostly started inside six hours, and that yours may not.
Think this definition is wrong?
Terminology in this market is set by the panels that use it, and it moves. If a panel uses start time to mean something other than what is written here, send us the listing and we will either correct the definition or record the variant. The process is on the about page.