What "59 seconds" means
Ready for SSH in under 59 seconds from a confirmed payment: what the clock covers, how we measured it on our hardware, and what isn't measured yet.
The old plans page said "59 second Activation" next to every plan. For the relaunch we kept the number and gave it a definition:
A new server is ready for SSH in under 59 seconds, counted from the moment your payment is confirmed.
The clock starts when the payment confirms, which is when the platform creates the server. It stops when the server answers on port 22 with your SSH key in place.
Where it stands
Updated 1 November 2026. This is the current status; the history of the post is at the end.
- Measured: one run on our New York hardware on 30 October 2026, described below. Every server in it was ready within 20 seconds.
- Not measured yet: paid orders. Server orders aren't open, so the servers we timed were created by our staff. The platform does the same work for both from the moment the server is created.
- Known to take longer: the first build of a system on a host, and apps or setup scripts, which keep installing after SSH answers.
How we measured it
Our staff created four servers at once through the production panel: the Extreme plan (4 vCPU, 8 GB of memory, 160 GB NVMe), Ubuntu 24.04, no app and no setup script. Times run from each server's creation time in the panel's database to its own boot log. The guests take their clock from the host, which keeps time with NTP.
| Server | Port 22 listening | Key in place (cloud-init finished) |
|---|---|---|
| proof-1 | 12.4 s | 14.8 s |
| proof-2 | 12.2 s | 14.0 s |
| proof-3 | 12.2 s | 19.5 s |
| proof-4 | 12.7 s | 18.8 s |
Two different moments are in that table. "Port 22 listening" is when SSH would accept a connection. "Key in place" is when a login with your key would work, and that's the one the claim counts. We also logged in from outside, between 23.8 and 28.9 seconds after creation: that's when we tried, not the first moment it would have worked.
Since 30 October the platform records the first moment SSH answers on every new server, from outside, whether or not anyone has the server's page open. Watch your server build explains what that check does and doesn't test.
What the clock doesn't cover
- Payment time. You can pay with Bitcoin or PayPal. A Bitcoin payment isn't confirmed the moment you send it, and how long that takes depends on the network, not on us. We could start the clock when you click "pay" and blame block times for the rest, but then the number wouldn't mean anything.
- A system's first build on a host. Each base image is downloaded and checked once per host, then reused for every server after it. In our 30 October hardware test, the first Rocky Linux 9 server on the host started after 119 seconds because of that download. Ubuntu 24.04, the system in the table, was already on the host.
- Apps and setup scripts. They run after SSH answers. Coolify, for example, took about 1 minute 42 seconds more.
- You. The time between the server being ready and you typing
sshisn't ours to count.
What happens in those seconds
The platform reserves the server's CPU and memory, creates its NVMe disk from the image, writes the first-boot settings (hostname, your SSH keys, any app or script), assigns its address and starts it. On the first boot, cloud-init sets the system up and installs your key, and the system generates its SSH host keys.
This is one of the quieter reasons we're building our own billing and panel. Every timestamp comes from systems we run, so there's no gap between a billing product and a provisioning product for time to fall into.
What we'll publish next
Once real orders run, we'll publish their times from payment to SSH, slow ones included, and not only the best run.
Why it matters to us
When you've decided you need a machine, you should be on it while you still remember what for. That was the idea in 2011 and it hasn't changed.
What happens when you order a server covers the rest of the order, and when your server arrives, Connect to your server with SSH is where to go next.
History of this post
- 9 October 2026: published with 59 seconds as a target, before anything was measured. The home page showed an animation of the steps on a 59-second clock; it was an illustration.
- 29 October 2026: the animation was replaced by an example SSH session, and the post said 59 seconds was still a target.
- 30 October 2026: measured on our hardware, as above.
- 1 November 2026: rewritten as one current explanation, with the method, the figures and what isn't covered in one place.