Concepts

Scrape modes (Fast / Advanced / Ultra)

The three Google Maps scrape modes control adaptive subdivision depth — the trade-off between speed, cost (EF) and contact completeness.

The Google Maps scrape offers three modes that tune a single knob: adaptive subdivision depth. They trade off speed, cost and completeness.

Mode	For	In one line
Fast (default)	Most cases	Fast, cheaper, already captures the bulk of contacts.
Advanced	When you want to enrich	Balanced: more contacts in dense areas, moderate cost.
Ultra	Maximum coverage	Subdivides as deep as possible: near-exhaustive recall, slower and costlier.

Why three modes: the 120-result cap

Google Maps caps any search at ~120 results ("you've reached the end of the list"). To go further, outsend splits a saturated tile into 4 more-zoomed sub-tiles and re-scans each (dedup by Google Maps link). This is adaptive subdivision.

But subdividing only pays off if the sub-tile brings new contacts: in a low-density area Google widens its radius beyond the tile and often returns the same 120 places → subdividing means 4× the work for 0 new leads.

So each mode sets a threshold: a saturated tile is only subdivided if it brought at least N new unique contacts.

Mode	Threshold (new uniques required to subdivide)	Effect
Fast	15	Only subdivides genuinely rich areas → few tiles.
Advanced	7	Subdivides more readily → more coverage.
Ultra	1	Subdivides whenever anything new remains → maximum coverage.

Subdivision depth is bounded (zoom 13 → 17, i.e. 4 levels: a tile is then ~300 m across, ≈ one city block), so even Ultra stays finite.

Modes only diverge in dense areas

Key point: a mode only changes anything where tiles saturate (≥ 120 results).

Dense area (city center, a common query like "plumber" or "restaurant"): tiles saturate, subdivision kicks in → Fast / Advanced / Ultra yield markedly different contact volumes.
Sparse area (rural, niche query): nothing saturates, no subdivision → all three modes return the exact same result. Picking Ultra there buys nothing (same result, same cost).

That's why the mode is a per-scrape choice, not a global setting: it depends on how dense what you're searching for is.

Cost (EF) and duration

EF (France-equivalent) is the cost unit of a scrape. The baseline is simple:

1 EF = scraping the whole of France, once, in Fast mode.

So a city or a département costs a small fraction of an EF. Because deeper modes fire many more Google Maps requests (they re-subdivide saturated tiles), they cost proportionally more:

Mode	Relative cost	Relative duration
Fast	×1 (base)	×1
Advanced	≈ ×2	≈ ×2
Ultra	≈ ×6	≈ ×6

These factors are measured averages (ratio of tiles processed vs Fast, 2026-06-05 campaign). Real cost depends on the actual density of the zone: - Sparse area: nothing saturates → no subdivision → all three modes cost the same (the factor barely applies). - Dense area: the gap widens (Ultra can reach ×14 in a very dense city center).

The pre-scrape estimate applies these factors (the EF shown rises when you switch to Advanced/Ultra). During the scrape, the ETA accounts for upcoming subdivisions, and elapsed time is shown live.

Measurements

Methodology. 3 queries of differing density — "plumber" (clusters), "pharmacy" (numerous and spread out), "cobbler" (niche) — all categories that display a phone (consumer categories like restaurant/hairdresser show ~0 phones → wrongly filtered by the anti-bot, untestable). 3 zones (dense / medium / rural), all 3 modes each, every scrape run to full completion (no timeout). We measure: unique contacts, tiles processed (≈ cost/requests), real duration. Percentages are vs Fast.

Full matrix (campaign 2026-06-05, "plumber", all to completion)

Zone	Density	Mode	Contacts	Tiles	Time	vs Fast	Contacts/tile
Lyon 6 km	dense	Fast	606	53	50 min	—	11.4
Lyon 6 km	dense	Advanced	627	89	84 min	+3.5 %	7.0
Lyon 6 km	dense	Ultra	647	193	180 min	+6.8 %	3.4
Tours 10 km	medium	Fast	311	14	8 min	—	22.2
Tours 10 km	medium	Advanced	351	42	20 min	+13 %	8.4
Tours 10 km	medium	Ultra	377	150	72 min	+21 %	2.5
Aurillac 12 km	rural	Fast	213	19	7 min	—	11.2
Aurillac 12 km	rural	Advanced	211	23	9 min	−1 %	9.2
Aurillac 12 km	rural	Ultra	215	83	40 min	+1 %	2.6

Rural → all three modes are identical (213 / 211 / 215). Ultra takes 40 min (vs 7 min for Fast) for +2 contacts. Going deeper is pointless when nothing saturates.
Medium → Ultra +21 % vs Fast, but at 9× the time (72 min vs 8 min); Advanced +13 % at 2.5×.
Dense → Ultra +6.8 % vs Fast, at 3.6× the time (3 h vs 50 min).
Efficiency: Fast is 3–9× more cost-effective per tile (i.e. per EF/time) than Ultra across all zones.

Two more queries ("pharmacy" = dense and numerous; "cobbler" = niche), Ultra gain vs Fast

Query	Lyon (dense)	Tours (medium)	Aurillac (rural)
plumber (clusters)	+6.8 %	+21 %	+1 %
pharmacy (numerous, spread out)	+50 %	+44 %	noise*
cobbler (niche)	+16 %	+3 %	+12 %

Pharmacy detail: Lyon Fast 411 / Ultra 617 (36→157 min); Tours Fast 253 / Ultra 364 (8→110 min). Cobbler Lyon Fast 173 / Ultra 200. *Rural pharmacy = noise: tiles don't saturate consistently (the 120 boundary), so mode order there is random.

Takeaway. Ultra's gain has no single value: from +1 % to +50 % depending on the category. Numerous, spread-out categories (pharmacies, regular shops) benefit hugely from Ultra (+44 to +50 % — Fast misses half because of the 120 cap). Categories that cluster (plumber) or are rare (cobbler) gain only +1 to +16 %. In all cases Ultra costs 3–14× the time of Fast, and in rural/low density all three modes converge.

Recommendation

Default: Fast. Best speed/cost ratio for a first pass and for categories that cluster (trades, specialized services).
Ultra when the target is dense AND numerous (pharmacies, shops, agencies…) and you want exhaustiveness: the gain is real, up to +50 % more contacts. Accept 3–14× the time.
Advanced = middle ground.
Niche or sparse area → Fast, period: modes converge, Ultra just wastes time.