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What is First Contentful Paint?
First Contentful Paint (FCP) measures how long it takes for the first piece of content to appear after a visitor lands on your page. That content can be text or an image. It’s the moment the page stops looking blank.
The difference between FCP and Largest Contentful Paint (LCP) is that LCP marks the main content finishing loading. A good FCP is generally under 1.8 seconds, and LCP’s “good” threshold is under 2.5 seconds.
What makes FCP matter is perception. Visitors don’t read your load-time logs, they just feel whether a page is fast or slow. A blank screen for two seconds reads as broken, even when everything is technically working.
What this means for revenue
FCP is the first impression your site makes on a visitor, and oftentimes - the moment they decide to stay or leave. When content appears quickly, people start reading, scrolling, and clicking. When the screen stays blank, they assume the site is broken and leave before it finishes loading. Slow FCP inflates bounce rate and affects every other metric further down the funnel: pageviews, add-to-cart rate, and conversions. Speeding up that first paint keeps sessions alive long enough to drive a conversion event.
How Uxify helps
Uxify’s Reality module measures FCP from real visitors, not lab simulations, so you see the paint times your actual audience experiences across every browser and device. When first paint is slow, Uxify’s performance agents work to bring content forward, with predictive preloading speeding up eligible sessions on Chromium browsers. You fix the first impression where it’s actually failing.
Frequently asked questions
What’s a good First Contentful Paint score?
Google considers an FCP under 1.8 seconds “good,” between 1.8 and 3 seconds “needs improvement,” and above 3 seconds “poor.” These thresholds come from field data from real users, not lab tests. Measure at the 75th percentile, meaning three out of four visitors should hit that mark or better.
Is First Contentful Paint a Core Web Vital?
No. The three Core Web Vitals are Largest Contentful Paint, Interaction to Next Paint, and Cumulative Layout Shift. FCP is a supporting diagnostic metric that helps explain a slow Largest Contentful Paint. It still shows up in tools like PageSpeed Insights, and it still shapes how fast a page feels.
What’s the difference between FCP and Time to First Byte?
Time to First Byte measures how long the server takes to send the first byte of data. FCP measures when the browser actually paints something visible. TTFB happens first and feeds into FCP: a slow server response delays every paint that follows, so the two move together.