# What's the difference between MTTR and resolution time?

> They measure the same thing from different traditions. Resolution time is a support metric for how long tickets take to solve; MTTR is an engineering and incident metric for how long it takes to restore or fix a problem. Many teams use MTTR for escalated tickets and incidents, and resolution time for the whole queue.

Canonical: https://www.decimal.app/glossary/metrics/mttr-vs-resolution-time · Last reviewed: 2026-09-23

They measure the same thing from different traditions. Resolution time is a support metric for how long tickets take to solve; MTTR is an engineering and incident metric for how long it takes to restore or fix a problem. Many teams use MTTR for escalated tickets and incidents, and resolution time for the whole queue.

## How they're usually reported

- Resolution time: per ticket, often as a median and 90th percentile
- MTTR: per incident or per escalated issue, as a mean
- The R in MTTR can mean resolve, repair, recover, or respond, so define it

## Which to use

Use resolution time to manage the support queue and MTTR to manage how fast engineering-dependent issues close. Breaking MTTR into acknowledge, diagnose, fix, and verify shows which stage is slow.

Resilinc saw a 62% reduction in MTTR with Decimal. See [MTTR](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/mttr) and [resolution time](https://www.decimal.app/glossary/resolution-time).

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