diff --git a/tootbot.py b/tootbot.py
index c35aa41..3804f44 100755
--- a/tootbot.py
+++ b/tootbot.py
@@ -9,11 +9,16 @@ import requests
 import re
 import sqlite3
 from datetime import datetime, date, time, timedelta
+import time
+import random
 
 if len(sys.argv) < 4:
     print("Usage: python3 tootbot.py twitter_account mastodon_login mastodon_passwd mastodon_instance")
     sys.exit(1)
 
+sleep_time = random.randomin(0, 5 * 60)
+time.sleep(sleep_time)
+
 # sqlite db to store processed tweets (and corresponding toots ids)
 sql = sqlite3.connect('tootbot.db')
 db = sql.cursor()