# Address velocity

Address velocity is how many times one account has looked up one address inside a window: the seen_by_you field, kept under the premise digest and never anyone else's lookups.

Date: 2026-09-17

Address velocity is how often one account has looked up the same address inside a window — the signal that a signup flow which keeps seeing one address, or a checkout that receives the same delivery point under fifty names in an afternoon, is looking at one person or one script rather than fifty customers.

## What Spaw answers

`seen_by_you` is an object on every billed address lookup: `count`, how many times your own account looked the address up inside the window before this call, `first_seen_at`, when the first of those was, and `window_days`, seven by default. The first lookup answers zero; a repeat the seven-day marker serves free still counts, because velocity is about your traffic, not about what was charged. The counter is kept under the premise digest — the same key `premise_key` carries — or a hash of the folded input when the address names no building, never the address itself, and the window closes from its first sighting so a steady trickle cannot keep one alive for ever.

## What it does not mean

It is your account's own lookups and nothing else. An address seen a hundred times across other customers answers zero for you: a postal address is where somebody lives, and there is no cross-account address reputation at Spaw and never will be. The guest demo and the five test addresses answer null. It carries no weight; what a count of three in a day should mean is a rule for your shipping policy or your own code, not for the score.

Reference: https://spaw.co/glossary/address-velocity