---
id: provider-latency/2026-10
series: provider-latency
title: Time to first token by provider, October 2026
period: 2026-10
period_start: 2026-10-01
period_end: 2026-10-31
updated: 2026-11-11
license: CC BY 4.0
canonical: https://www.requesty.ai/data/provider-latency/2026-10
latest: https://www.requesty.ai/data/provider-latency
---

# Time to first token by provider, October 2026

> Melious had the fastest median time to first token among major providers in October 2026 at 603 ms. The median major provider took 1.71 s.

Question: Which LLM provider returns the first token fastest?

## Key findings

1. Fastest median TTFT: Melious at 603 ms, then Sference at 685 ms.
2. Highest median output speed: Lyceum at 193 tokens per second.
3. Fastest median full streamed response: Mistral at 1.89 s.
4. Vertex (Gemini) moved the most since September 2026: median TTFT went from 2.06 s to 3.62 s (+1.56 s).

## Data

| Provider | Median TTFT | p90 TTFT | Median total | Median tokens/s | Streamed share | Organizations (band) |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Melious | 603 ms | 2.25 s | 2.98 s | 75.500 | 71.46% | 500+ |
| Sference | 685 ms | 3.27 s | 2.17 s | 186.200 | 37.77% | 500+ |
| Mistral | 1.11 s | 6.49 s | 1.89 s | 141.700 | 37.56% | 500+ |
| DeepSeek | 1.22 s | 1.94 s | 3.39 s | 120.800 | 31.29% | 500+ |
| Fireworks | 1.28 s | 3.14 s | 4.66 s | 65.000 | 44.70% | 500+ |
| TensorX | 1.35 s | 5.71 s | 3.93 s | 82.100 | 19.74% | 500+ |
| DeepInfra | 1.47 s | 4.29 s | 5.32 s | 61.000 | 9.62% | 500+ |
| Lyceum | 1.59 s | 5.21 s | 3.92 s | 192.800 | 43.26% | 500+ |
| xAI | 1.71 s | 3.48 s | 3.64 s | 29.100 | 7.77% | 100-499 |
| Azure | 1.75 s | 7.39 s | 2.65 s | 97.700 | 36.97% | 500+ |
| Vertex (Claude) | 1.81 s | 9.65 s | 4.18 s | 154.700 | 47.60% | 500+ |
| NVIDIA | 1.82 s | 6.86 s | 6.41 s | 54.900 | 63.26% | 500+ |
| OpenAI | 2.54 s | 11.0 s | 4.79 s | 87.500 | 12.06% | 500+ |
| Anthropic | 2.98 s | 11.8 s | 7.61 s | 142.600 | 43.48% | 500+ |
| Bedrock | 3.04 s | 7.88 s | 5.36 s | 135.900 | 27.82% | 500+ |
| Novita | 3.17 s | 11.6 s | 8.29 s | 96.100 | 11.60% | 500+ |
| Vertex (Gemini) | 3.62 s | 15.3 s | 6.01 s | 117.500 | 13.84% | 500+ |

## Method

- Time to first token and tokens per second are measured on streamed, successful requests only, with the same formulas /rankings uses. Tokens per second counts visible output tokens after the first token, with a 250 ms floor on decode time and at least 20 output tokens.
- A provider needs at least 500 streamed successes in the month for latency to be published. Only providers with at least 0.5% of published traffic are shown.
- A row is published only when it has at least 20 requests, at least 5 distinct organizations, and no single organization above 80% of its traffic. These are the same floors /rankings uses. Rows below the floors are withheld, not estimated.
- Only shares, rates, medians and organization bands are published. Absolute request, token and spend totals stay private.

## Caveats

- Latency depends on the model mix. A provider serving mostly small models will look faster than one serving large reasoning models.
- Reasoning models think before the first visible token, which raises TTFT.

## Cite as

Requesty (2026). Time to first token by provider, October 2026. Requesty Data. https://www.requesty.ai/data/provider-latency/2026-10

```bibtex
@misc{requesty_provider_latency_2026_10,
  author       = {{Requesty}},
  title        = {Time to first token by provider, October 2026},
  year         = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://www.requesty.ai/data/provider-latency/2026-10}},
  note         = {Requesty Data}
}
```

Source: Requesty production gateway. License: CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
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