Website Performance
What's a good Time to First Byte?
A good Time to First Byte for a local business is 800ms or lower. Time from request to first byte of response from the server. An excellent Time to First Byte — the top tier Karbon Agency grades client campaigns against — is 200ms or lower, while 1.8s marks the minimum acceptable tier.
The three tiers Karbon grades against
| Tier | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Minimum | 1.8s | The floor. Below this, something is broken. |
| Recommended | 800ms | The tier a healthy campaign should hit. |
| Excellent | 200ms | Top-tier performance worth defending. |
Lower is better for this metric.
Why Time to First Byte matters
TTFB is the baseline for all other performance metrics. A slow TTFB means everything downstream is delayed. Usually indicates server, CDN, or database issues.
Where does your Time to First Byte land?
Karbon Agency grades every client campaign against these exact tiers, live on a dashboard — no guessing, no quarterly PDFs.