# Delays: pause a workflow for minutes, hours, or days

**Category:** [Orchestration](https://help.totalctrl.app/hc/totalctrl/totalctrl-help-center/en-US/categories/orchestration)
**Updated:** 2026-08-19

## Wait before continuing

A **delay** pauses the workflow for a set amount of time, then resumes the remaining steps automatically. Pick an amount and a unit — minutes, hours, or days.
### When to use it

- Wait a day after a contact signs up, then send a follow-up.
- Give a customer time to respond before escalating.
- Space out a sequence of messages so they don't all arrive at once.

### Durable by design

Delays are **durable**: a paused workflow is checkpointed and resumes on schedule even across deploys or restarts — it isn't holding anything open while it waits. When the delay is up, the workflow continues from exactly where it left off.
### Good to know

- A top-level delay is the durable kind described above.
- For long waits (days), the run simply sleeps and picks back up — you don't need to keep anything running.

---

## Related Articles

- [Orchestration Overview](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/orchestration-overview)
- [Connect an app](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/connect-an-app-1)
- [Build your first workflow](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/build-your-first-workflow)
- [Filters: stop a run when conditions aren't met](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/flow-control-filters)
- [Connect an app](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/articles/connect-an-app)

---
[← Back to TotalCtrl Help Center](https://help.totalctrl.app/en-US/)