We study the rate of growth of \(\Vert AT(t)\Vert \) as \(t \downarrow 0\) for an immediately differentiable \(C_0\) -semigroup \((T(t))_{t \ge 0}\) with generator A. We assume that the resolvent of the semigroup generator decays on the imaginary axis at rates described by functions of positive increase, which enable estimates on scales finer than polynomial ones. First, we present lower and upper bounds for the rates of growth of Banach space semigroups. Next, we improve the upper estimate for Hilbert space semigroups. Finally, for semigroups of normal operators on Hilbert spaces and multiplication \(C_0\) -semigroups on \(L^p\) -spaces, we establish an estimate that exactly captures the asymptotic behavior of \(\Vert AT(t)\Vert \) as \(t \downarrow 0\) .