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Industry factsMay 8, 20264 min read
The 4-hour recovery myth: what the data actually shows
Brokers say recovery takes ~4 hours. The real distribution is much uglier.
The myth
Survey data has long pegged the average broker-led recovery scramble at 4–6 hours. That number is misleading because the average hides a fat tail.
The reality
Our pre-launch survey of 142 brokers showed:
- Median time to first vetted cap accept: 3h 50m
- 75th percentile: 7h 10m
- 95th percentile: 18+ hours
The 95th-percentile cases — the truly bad scrambles — are where lanes die. A shipper cancels, a relationship breaks, a contract is on the line.
Implication
The metric to drive isn't the median — it's the 95th percentile. Cutting the worst-case scramble to under 60 minutes is what builds shipper trust over time.