Each day you fortify instead of collecting, your Castle climbs one step (one a day, however often you fortify). Six Orders, six buildings — you can see which one you are from across the map. Collect your coin and the multiplier resets to zero and you start again at Palisade.
Drag to see where a Castle lands if you fortify every day and never collect.
You can collect at most one day's accrual per 24 hours, bonus included, so the ladder is paid in full but never dumped in one block. That cap is why a big Order is worth less than it looks — and why the Orders are a reason to stay, not a way to get rich faster.
The whole ladder is worth 0.8 of a percentage point a day, top to bottom. That is deliberate. The Orders are not the reward — the reward is that coin you fortify never leaves the Treasury, which is what keeps the runway long enough for anyone to get paid at all.
Fortifying is a bet that the Realm is still paying later. Collecting is taking the money now. Neither is wrong. The runway at the top of this page is the number that tells you which bet you are making.