Where time is spent
A typical extraction breaks down as:| Phase | Duration |
|---|---|
| SocialRouter routing + auth | 5-20 ms |
| Provider extraction | 1-30 s (depends on provider and type) |
| Response normalization | < 5 ms |
Performance considerations
Provider selection matters
Different providers have very different response times for the same extraction type. For example, aprofile.info extraction might take 1.5s on one provider and 8s on another.
The provider slug pins the exact service. If latency matters, pick the faster one — compare providers on the providers page.
Credit balance checks
When your credit balance is low, SocialRouter performs additional checks to ensure proper billing. This can add a few milliseconds of latency. To avoid this:- Keep your balance above $5
- Set up top-ups from the dashboard before running large extraction jobs
Failover adds latency
When the primary provider fails, SocialRouter retries with a fallback provider. This means the request takes at least twice as long — the failed attempt plus the successful retry. If you’re latency-sensitive and prefer a fast failure over a slow success, sendfallback: false on the request. The router will then attempt only the requested provider and surface its error directly (see the failover guide). Pinning the provider slug alone still allows the chain to walk — fallback: false is the opt-out.
Best practices
Maintain a healthy credit balance
Keep at least $5-10 in your account. Low balances trigger more aggressive cache invalidation and additional billing checks.
Use the right provider for your use case
If you need speed, test providers individually and pin to the fastest one. If you need reliability, let SocialRouter handle failover automatically.
Set reasonable limits
Use the
limit parameter to cap the number of records. Extracting 50 records is much faster than extracting 1000.