Blog / Provisioning speed

How fast is a new natbox server? We timed 108 real orders

10 November 2026 · Update · By Mohammad AlSaraf

"Instant setup" is on every hosting site. We wanted a real number, so we went through our own logs for every server customers ordered between 30 October and 9 November 2026: 108 servers, 92 free trials and 16 paid plans.

What we measured

Start: the moment you order a free trial, or the moment your payment arrives for a paid plan.
End: the moment we send the "Service activated" email with your login details. By then your server is running, its password is set, it has its own fresh SSH host keys and SSH has been restarted, so you can log in straight away.
Everything in between comes from timestamps our billing system and our servers already write down. Nothing was run again for this post.

Results

Order or payment to ready: median 38 seconds, 90 percent within 77 seconds, slowest 121 seconds. Queue median 7 seconds, build median 28 seconds.

The typical server is ready 38 seconds after you order or pay, 9 in 10 within 77 seconds, and every one of the 108 within about 2 minutes. Paid orders came in at a median of 35 seconds from payment, free trials at 38.

The time splits into two parts. First the order waits in our billing queue, usually 7 seconds. Then the server is built: the container is created from a fresh image, given its IPv4 ports and IPv6 addresses, started, and set up with your password and SSH keys. That takes a median of 28 seconds, a little less on Debian (26) than on Ubuntu (29).

What makes it slower

Busy moments. All of the slowest cases happened when many orders arrived together, for example when new free trial slots opened. Servers are built one after another, so the fifth order in a burst waits for the four before it. That is where the longer queue times, up to 86 seconds, come from.
Doing more for you. Our very first servers in late October were ready in 3 to 15 seconds. Since then every new server also gets its IPv6 addresses configured, its own SSH host keys, its hostname and faster package installs. We think that is worth the extra 20 seconds.

What's next

The obvious improvement is building more than one server at a time, so a burst of orders doesn't queue up. When we change that, we'll measure again and publish the new numbers next to these.

Want to see it yourself? Start a free trial when slots are open, or pick a plan and watch the clock.

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