1
Add a Wait Step
A Wait step is a flow-control action you drop between two other steps. It pauses the contact in the workflow for as long as you specify, then releases them to the next action.
- Open your workflow on the canvas — Go to Automation, open the workflow you want to edit, and find the point where you want to slow things down.
- Click the "+" between two steps — Each connector on the canvas has a plus icon. Click the one sitting between the action you just added and the one that should come next.
- Choose "Wait" from the action list — It lives with the other flow-control actions. Selecting it drops a Wait step right where you clicked.
- Set the duration — Tell the Wait step how long to hold the contact: a number of minutes, hours, or days. Save the step and the rest of the workflow shifts down below it.
- The contact pauses here, then continues — When a contact reaches the Wait step, they sit there until the time is up. Once it elapses, they move on to the next action automatically. You can add as many Wait steps as you need throughout a single workflow.
Tip: You can drag a Wait step up or down the canvas just like any other action. If a follow-up is landing too soon or too late, reorder or re-time the Wait instead of rebuilding the whole sequence.
2
Time Delay vs. Wait Until
A Wait step can work two ways: hold the contact for a fixed stretch of time, or hold them until a specific day and time arrives. Pick whichever matches the result you want.
- Time delay — a fixed amount of time — This is the simplest mode: wait 1 hour, wait 2 days, wait 15 minutes. The clock starts the moment the contact reaches the step. Use it when you just want breathing room between actions, like waiting a day before the second text in a sequence.
- Wait until — a specific day or time — Instead of counting from now, the contact waits until a set point arrives: a particular time of day, a day of the week, or a specific date. The contact holds at the step until that moment, then continues.
- Use a time delay for spacing — When all you care about is the gap between steps ("don't send these back to back"), a fixed delay is the right call. It's quick to set and easy to reason about.
- Use wait until for timing — When the message needs to land at a sensible hour, reach for wait until. It's perfect for holding overnight replies until business hours so a 2 a.m. lead doesn't get a text at 2 a.m.
- Both modes live in the same Wait step — You're not choosing a different action — you're choosing a setting inside the Wait step you already added. Switch between a fixed delay and a specific time right in its settings.
3
Why Waits Matter
Without Wait steps, every action in a workflow fires the instant the one before it finishes — so a new lead can get a text, an email, and a follow-up all within the same second. Waits are what make automation feel human.
- Don't fire everything at once — A burst of three messages in one second reads as a bot, not a person. Spacing your steps out is the single biggest thing that makes an automated sequence feel like it came from you.
- Space follow-ups so they feel natural — A real follow-up cadence has gaps: text now, wait a day, email the next morning, check in two days later. Wait steps build that rhythm into the workflow so you don't have to send anything by hand.
- Land messages at the right time — Combine waits with the wait-until mode to hold messages for business hours. Following up at 9 a.m. gets a far better response than the same message at midnight.
- Give people room to respond — Pausing between steps gives a contact time to reply before the next message goes out. That keeps your sequences from talking over the very people they're trying to reach.
- Thoughtful pacing protects your reputation — Sequences that drip at a human pace earn replies and keep your number in good standing. Sequences that blast everything instantly get ignored, marked as spam, or blocked.
Tip: Read your sequence out loud as if you were sending each message by hand. Wherever you'd naturally pause before the next one, that's where a Wait step belongs.