# Using the appropriate polling mode in Amazon SQS
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+ Long polling lets you consume messages from your Amazon SQS queue as soon as they become available. 
  + To reduce the cost of using Amazon SQS and to decrease the number of empty receives to an empty queue (responses to the `ReceiveMessage` action which return no messages), enable long polling. For more information, see [Amazon SQS Long Polling](sqs-short-and-long-polling.md).
  + To increase efficiency when polling for multiple threads with multiple receives, decrease the number of threads.
  + Long polling is preferable over short polling in most cases.
+ Short polling returns responses immediately, even if the polled Amazon SQS queue is empty. 
  + To satisfy the requirements of an application that expects immediate responses to the `ReceiveMessage` request, use short polling.
  + Short polling is billed the same as long polling.