Does internet speed matter when you click at the opening second?
Written 2026-11-01 · Updated 2026-11-01
How long a click takes to arrive
Your click travels across the internet to the site's server. The round trip there and back (RTT) is usually tens of milliseconds within the same country, and 100 to 300 ms between continents. The trip there is roughly half of that. A click made in the same country typically reaches the server 0.01 to 0.02 s later.
Compared with everything else
| What | Typical size |
|---|---|
| Your click reaching the server (same country) | 0.01 to 0.02 s |
| Your click reaching the server (another continent) | 0.05 to 0.15 s |
| Reacting to something you see | about 0.2 s |
| Server clocks we've measured | a few ms up to more than 1 s off |
Within a country, network delay is about ten times smaller than your reaction time, and far smaller than a clock that's a second off. So check the server clock first, practise clicking on the beat, and only then worry about the connection.
How we account for it
When you open a site's page, we measure the round trip from your device to that site and to our own time server, and move the click time earlier by half of the smaller one. The page shows how much, for example "That's 12 ms early, the time your click takes to reach the server."
We never move it more than 0.03 s. Arriving a little late costs a little; arriving early gets you turned away. And the extra wait when a crowd hits the site at once can't be measured in advance, so we don't add a guess for it.
When the connection does matter
- Buying from a site on another continent, where the trip alone can take a tenth of a second.
- Crowded public Wi-Fi, where delays can jump to hundreds of milliseconds.
In those cases a wired connection or mobile data is often steadier. Under "More details" on a site's page you can measure your own delay to that site. If it keeps coming out high, try another connection.
Server time guides
- What is server time? Why a website's clock differs from your phoneTicket sales, sneaker drops and class registration open by the website's server clock, not your phone. What server time is, why it can be off, and how to measure it to the millisecond.
- When exactly should you click for a ticket sale, drop or class registration?A step-by-step plan from the day before to the opening second: how to find the exact click time from the server clock, why reacting to the clock makes you late, and why clicking a few seconds early is a gamble.
- Waiting rooms, draws and first-come sales: when click timing mattersNot every sale rewards the fastest click. How first-come sales, virtual waiting rooms and draws decide who gets in, and where the exact server time still helps.