DataForSEO Brain

Live vs Standard vs Priority

3 min read

Live vs Standard vs Priority

The single biggest cost lever: pay for synchronous Live, or queue Standard at Normal or High priority. Sits under DataForSEO Brain → Decisions.

Overview

DataForSEO offers two execution methods and, within Standard, two priority levels. Live is synchronous (results in the same request); Standard is asynchronous (task_post → tasks_ready/webhook → task_get). The choice trades latency for cost and is the dominant variable in any spend model. Mechanics are detailed in cap-task-vs-live-execution and cap-queue-priority-cost-model.

The matrix (official Google Organic, base 10 results)

Mode / PriorityPrice per SERPPer 1M SERPsTurnaround
Standard, Normal (priority 1)$0.0006$600~5 min
Standard, High (priority 2)$0.0012$1,200~1 min
Live$0.002$2,000~6 sec

Net: Live costs ~3.3x Standard-Normal; High priority is ~2x Normal.

Decision rules

  • Need instant/real-time results (per-user lookup, interactive UI) → Live, and pay the premium.
  • Scaling large volumes → Standard, ideally High priority: DataForSEO explicitly recommends it because it avoids holding a persistent open connection per request and collects asynchronously. “Large-scale companies working with SERP API usually find the Standard mode with High priority a better fit.”
  • Planned, non-urgent bulk collection → Standard Normal for the cheapest rate.
  • Do NOT engineer concurrency to beat the 30-simultaneous Live cap; prefer the Standard queue “whenever available.”

Mode availability by API

  • SERP, Merchant, Business Data support both Live and Standard (with priority options).
  • DataForSEO Labs is Live-only.
  • OnPage is Standard-based, with cost/speed set by crawl parameters.

When to use / how it fits

Gotchas / limits

  • Accidental Live usage is the classic footgun: ~3.3x the Standard-Normal rate for data you did not need in real time.
  • Live results are not stored (capture from the response); Standard results are retained 30 days, re-collectable at no extra charge (cap-task-vs-live-execution).
  • Live SERP has a 120-second timeout (set your client timeout to 120s) and a 30-simultaneous-request ceiling on database/Live APIs (cap-rate-limits-throughput).
  • Raising depth above the default ~doubles price per extra 100 results, independent of mode.

Worked sizing

  • 10,000 SERPs, not time-critical: Standard Normal ~20 - prefer Standard.
  • 10,000 SERPs needed within the hour: Standard High (~1 min turnaround, ~$12) beats holding 10,000 open Live connections.
  • A single per-user lookup in a UI: Live is correct despite the premium, because latency is the product.

Collection cadence

  • Up to ~100,000 tasks/day: Standard + tasks_ready polled ~once/minute.
  • Above 100,000/day: postback/pingback architecture, which “enables you to work with more than 1000 tasks per minute or 100,000 tasks a day.”

Sources

Graph View

Backlinks