How fast we find new listings, and why Facebook's listed time looks older

1. Two different times

When you get an alert and open the listing, you will see two times. They measure different things.

The gap between the two, usually about 7 minutes, is Facebook's review. During that time the listing cannot be found by searching Marketplace. The wait is the same for every buyer and every alert app, on every plan.

So when an alert says Found in 1 minute and Facebook says listed 8 minutes ago, you heard about the listing one minute after it could first be found. The other seven minutes happened before anyone could find it.

2. One listing, minute by minute

Here is an example, on a watchlist for “iPhone 13” that is searched every 3 minutes.

On a watchlist searched every 5 minutes, the same listing usually shows Found in 2 minutes, and Facebook says about 9. On Basic, which searches every 30 minutes, the wait for the next search is longer; section 4 has the numbers.

3. Why Facebook hides new listings

Facebook reviews new Marketplace listings to check they follow its rules before it shows them in search. For most listings this takes about 7 minutes. While it is happening, the listing does not come up in Marketplace search results, and there is no way for an outside service to see it early. Every alert app has the same wait.

Because Facebook's “listed” time starts at Publish, not at the end of the review, a listing that has only just become findable already reads “listed 7 minutes ago”. Add the minute or two it takes us to find it, and you get the 8 or 9 minutes you usually see on Facebook.

Some listings are held for much longer. Facebook keeps a share of new listings back for hours, and when they finally appear in search, Facebook already says “listed 5 hours ago”. We do not send those as alerts; section 6 explains why.

4. How fast on each plan

Each watchlist is searched on a fixed interval. How quickly we find a new listing depends mostly on how soon the next search comes round after the listing appears. Your plan sets the interval, and Standard and Pro also let you pick one watchlist to be searched faster than the rest. You choose it in the watchlist editor, under checked every.

These are the real numbers from every alert sent to every customer from 7 to 13 October 2026, a little over 5,000 alerts:

Across all plans together, half of all new listings were found within 2 minutes of appearing on Facebook, and three out of four within 3 minutes.

So on Standard and Pro, you hear about a new listing within a minute or two of the first moment it could be found. Basic is meant for items where those minutes do not decide the deal: it searches every 30 minutes, so a typical find takes about a quarter of an hour.

Which watchlist should be your fastest? The one where being first decides the deal. A reseller watching graphics cards, popular phones and a particular office chair would give the fast slot to the graphics cards, because a well-priced RTX 4090 is gone in minutes and the chair is not.

5. The Found in label

The Found in time is measured for each listing, from the moment it first appeared in Marketplace search to the moment we sent the alert. It never includes Facebook's review time. The same number appears in the dashboard, in the iPhone app's push notification and in Discord. Hover over or tap the small i next to it and the dashboard explains it too.

If one alert says Found in 4 minutes when most say 1, the listing most likely appeared just after a search and had to wait for the next one. That is normal on a watchlist searched every 5 minutes. If your watchlists are regularly slower than the table in section 4, tell us which ones and we will look.

Two cases show a listed time instead of a Found in time:

• Listings under Before your outpost started show Listed 9h ago, because no search found them new: they were already up when the watchlist began.
• If Facebook does not give a readable posting time for a listing, the alert shows how long ago it was listed instead.

6. Listings you will not be alerted to, and why

If you have seen a listing on Facebook and wondered why there was no alert, it is almost always one of these five.

1. Facebook held it for hours

   When a listing first appears in search already hours old, we do not send it. The exact rule: if a listing is older than 15 minutes plus twice your watchlist's search interval when we first see it, it is left out. On a 3-minute watchlist that is 21 minutes; on a 30-minute watchlist, 75 minutes. An alert that says “listed 5 hours ago” is not something you can be first to, so we treat it as not new.

   Example: a seller posts a PS5 at 2 pm. Facebook holds it and it only appears in search at 7 pm. Your 7:01 pm search finds it, but it is five hours old, so no alert is sent.

2. It was renewed or bumped

   Sellers can renew a listing so it floats back to the top of search results. Its original posting date does not change. Anything older than 24 hours is never alerted, however often it reappears.

3. It was already up when the watchlist started

   A new watchlist's first search reads the last 24 hours. Those listings are shown under Before your outpost started on the Alerts tab, but they are not pushed to your phone or posted to Discord.

4. It was posted during quiet hours

   Quiet hours pause searching. When they end, listings posted during the window are hours old and are not sent. See the next section.

5. The check decided it was not the item

   Every match is checked against what you asked for. A hallway console table found by a “console” watchlist, or a phone case found by an “iPhone 13” watchlist, goes to the Ignored tab with the reason, not to your alerts. If one you wanted is there, press Restore, and read the watchlists guide for how to avoid it.

If a listing fits none of these and still did not alert, send us the Facebook link and the watchlist name. We can see exactly what happened on each search.

7. Quiet hours

Quiet hours are in Settings, then Alerts. Between the start and end times you set, in your time zone, searching pauses. No alerts, no Discord posts, no sound.

Listings posted during quiet hours are not sent afterwards. If quiet hours run from 10 pm to 7 am and someone posts a bargain at 11:30 pm, you will not get an alert for it at 7 am, because by then it is over seven hours old and treated like any other old listing. Quiet hours are for times you would never buy anyway. If you would happily wake up for a bargain, leave them off.

Check your time zone under Settings, then Account. If it is wrong, quiet hours will pause your searches at the wrong time of day.

8. Getting alerts sooner

• Put your most competitive item on your fastest watchlist. Standard searches it every 3 minutes, Pro every minute. Set it in the watchlist editor under “checked every”.
• Turn on push notifications in the iPhone app. It is the quickest way to your pocket.
• If you use Discord, set the channel to All Messages. Otherwise Discord shows the alert but does not buzz. See Make Discord ping your phone.
• Keep the Alerts tab open when you are at a desk. The sound plays the moment an alert lands.
• Keep your search term specific. A specific term means fewer wrong listings to check, and fewer alerts to scroll past when the one that matters arrives.
• Have your first message ready. The alert tells you the price and location. A short message you can paste, with a pickup time, is faster than typing one from scratch.

Common questions