What Is INP (Interaction to Next Paint)?
Updated 5 October 2026
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Interaction to Next Paint (INP) measures how quickly a page responds when a visitor taps, clicks, or presses a key. It is one of the three Core Web Vitals and it replaced First Input Delay in March 2024. Google rates an INP of 200 milliseconds or less as good, and anything over 500 milliseconds as poor, measured at the 75th percentile of real visits.
What does INP actually measure?
INP measures the delay between a visitor's action and the moment the screen updates in response. The clock starts on the tap, click, or key press and stops when the next frame paints the visible result.
It watches every click, tap, and key press across the whole visit, not just the first one. The final INP is the slowest interaction observed, setting aside rare outliers.
That matters because a page can feel fast on load and then stall on the third tap. A menu that opens instantly but a "Add to cart" button that hangs for half a second both count, and INP reports the worst of them.
What counts as a good INP score?
A good INP is 200 milliseconds or less, and Google treats anything over 500 milliseconds as poor. The band in between needs improvement. All three are read at the 75th percentile, so three quarters of your visits must hit the mark.
| Rating | INP (75th percentile) |
|---|---|
| Good | 200 ms or less |
| Needs improvement | 200 ms to 500 ms |
| Poor | Over 500 ms |
Source: web.dev, Interaction to Next Paint (Google, 2026).
Under 200 milliseconds feels instant to a person. By half a second the delay is noticeable, and the visitor often taps again, which only adds more work for the browser.
Why is my INP slow?
A slow INP almost always traces to JavaScript tying up the browser's main thread. The main thread can do only one thing at a time, so a long script blocks the response to a tap.
- Heavy JavaScript running on interaction. Analytics, chat widgets, and tracking scripts often fire on every click and delay the visible result.
- Long tasks that block the thread. One big script that runs for hundreds of milliseconds holds up any tap that lands during it.
- A large or complex page. A page with thousands of elements takes longer to update after each interaction.
- Third-party embeds. Booking tools, social feeds, and ad scripts add work the browser must finish before it can respond.
The usual fix is to do less on the main thread. Splitting big scripts into smaller pieces, loading non-essential code later, and removing plugins you no longer use all give the browser room to answer the visitor.
How does INP relate to the other Core Web Vitals?
INP is the interactivity metric of the three, and each of the others measures a different part of the experience. They are scored separately, so a page can pass one and fail another.
| Metric | What it measures |
|---|---|
| LCP | Loading: when the main content appears |
| INP | Interactivity: response to taps and clicks |
| CLS | Visual stability: unexpected layout shifts |
A page can paint its hero image quickly and still frustrate a visitor if every tap after that lags, or if the layout keeps shifting under them. That is why Google reports all three together, and PageSpeed Insights shows them side by side.
Frequently asked questions
Is INP a Google ranking factor?
Yes. Google says Core Web Vitals are used by its ranking systems, but it still shows the most relevant content first, even when page experience is weak. A good INP helps most when many pages answer the query equally well. It is no replacement for useful content, and a snappy page will not outrank a more relevant one on responsiveness alone.
How is INP different from the old FID metric?
INP replaced First Input Delay on 12 March 2024 because FID measured too little. FID timed only the delay before the browser began processing the very first interaction. INP measures the full response time of interactions across the whole visit, so it reflects how the page feels after the first tap, not just at it.
What is a good INP score?
A good INP is 200 milliseconds or less at the 75th percentile of visits. Between 200 and 500 milliseconds needs improvement, and over 500 milliseconds is poor. Aim comfortably under 200 milliseconds so normal variation between devices does not push you into the next band.
Why is my INP fine on my laptop but poor in the field?
Your laptop has a fast processor, so it clears heavy JavaScript quickly. Field data averages real visits, and a mid-range phone runs the same scripts far more slowly. INP problems show up worst on the lower-cost phones many of your visitors actually use.
Does INP only matter for interactive pages?
Mostly, but almost every page has interactions. A blog post still has a menu, a search box, and links, and a shop page has filters and buttons. A page records no INP only when a visitor never clicks, taps, or presses a key, for example if they just scroll and read.
Where INP fits your site
Storming Solutions builds and maintains websites for Malaysian businesses from Kuala Lumpur, and responsiveness is one of the things we check when a site feels sluggish on a phone. In our experience maintaining Malaysian SME sites, INP degrades as owners stack on plugins, chat widgets, and tracking scripts over the years, each one adding work to every tap.
Want to know why your pages feel slow to tap? Ask us on WhatsApp and we will run the check as part of a free website review, then tell you the one script that is costing you most.