Freshness you can see—not a vague claim of “instant.”

Definitions

Creation time

The timestamp associated with when the Marketplace listing was created. Deal Shark uses this to calculate listing age.

Capture time

The point at which Deal Shark’s active discovery process captures a listing identifier for checking.

Alert time

The time the sanitised alert is delivered to Telegram.

Creation age at processing

The elapsed time between the listing’s creation timestamp and the point Deal Shark processes it for delivery.

Capture-to-Telegram time

The elapsed time between capture and Telegram delivery. This measures the Deal Shark processing path. It is not the time from seller submission to alert.

The under-15-minute gate

1. A new listing identifier enters the checking queue.
2. Deal Shark retrieves the listing’s creation timestamp.
3. The system calculates its current creation age.
4. If the age is 15 minutes or more, the listing is rejected.
5. If the age is under 15 minutes, the sanitised title, price, timestamps and original link are sent to Telegram.

If a timestamp cannot be read reliably, that listing should not be represented as timestamp-verified. The gate exists to protect the meaning of the promise, not merely to increase alert volume.

Performance snapshot

The following aggregate sample covers 18–22 August 2026:

• 4,742 of 4,749 timestamp lookups succeeded: 99.85%.
• 1,980 Telegram alerts were sent.
• 1,979 successfully checked alerts were under 15 minutes old.
• 923 alerts were under 10 minutes old.
• Typical capture-to-Telegram median was 14–17 seconds.
• Typical capture-to-Telegram p90 was 29–38 seconds.

What the methodology does not measure

It does not establish when every buyer first saw the listing, how many competing messages were sent, whether the seller responded, whether the item was accurately described or whether a buyer made a profit.

Deal Shark therefore does not guarantee availability, seller response, purchase, value or profit.

Why publish this?

Marketplace alert products often describe frequency: every minute, every five minutes or another schedule. Frequency is useful, but it is not the same measurement as the age of the delivered listing.

Publishing a methodology lets members compare like with like. Deal Shark’s promise is based on the creation age shown in the alert.

This methodology will be updated when the measurement or product rule changes. Historical results are not a guarantee of future system performance.