Visits finish too quickly
A Visits Based project runs flat out until it reaches the target count — there is no pacing. To slow it down, reduce the thread count and increase Min and Max Stay Time, or switch to a Duration Based stop condition and control the rate instead.
You set 1,000 visits expecting them to spread across the day, and they finished before lunch. This is working as designed, and it catches almost everyone out once.
Why it happens
A Visits Based project has no concept of time. Each thread pauses only 0.5 to 2 seconds between visits before starting the next one. It runs close to full speed until the target is met, then stops.
Nothing slows it down except the two things that determine your rate:
visits per hour = threads × 3600 ÷ average visit length (seconds)Fix 1 — lengthen the stay times
Open Visit Behaviour → Timing Settings and raise Min Stay Time and Max Stay Time. The defaults are 45 and 300 seconds; going to 120 and 400 roughly doubles visit length and halves your rate.
This is the better lever, because longer visits also produce more realistic engagement times in your analytics. A 20-second visit looks like a bounce; a three-minute one looks like a reader.
Fix 2 — lower the thread count
Halving threads halves your rate. Two threads is a slow, steady trickle on most sites.
Fix 3 — use Duration Based instead
If what you actually want is “traffic across eight hours”, specify the eight hours. Set Duration Based to 08:00 and tune the threads and stay times so the volume lands where you want it.
The worked arithmetic is in Spread visits gradually over several hours.
Fix 4 — enable link clicking
Link clicking adds substantially to visit length. With the defaults — two clicks, 60 to 180 seconds on each clicked page, 60 to 120 seconds between — a visit can run several minutes longer.
Clicking only starts if at least Time Buffer for Clicks seconds remain, 180 by default. If your Max Stay Time is under that, clicking never triggers even though it is switched on. Raise the stay times or lower the buffer. See How link clicking works.
Worked example
1,000 visits over 8 hours is 125 per hour:
| Threads | Required average visit | Min / Max Stay Time |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 58 s | 40 / 75 |
| 3 | 86 s | 60 / 110 |
| 4 | 115 s | 85 / 145 |
| 5 | 144 s | 110 / 175 |
Check your rate early
Start the project, watch for fifteen minutes, and multiply by four. Adjust the stay times rather than the threads — stay time is the finer control and it improves realism at the same time.
Related: visits that are too slow
The opposite problem is usually one of:
- Referrer pages adding 15 to 60 seconds per visit
- Link clicking adding minutes per visit
- Slow proxies pushing every page load towards the timeout
- Failed visits consuming a thread for the full Page Load Wait before giving up
Check the success rate first. If it is low, you are not running slowly — you are failing, and each failure costs a thread up to 30 seconds.
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