useUploadthing hook is slow

Hi, I recently started using Uploadthing. My use case involves attaching images to messages in my chat component. I want to ensure that images/files are only uploaded to Uploadthing when the user actually sends the message. To achieve this, I call "startUpload" from the "useUploadthing" hook when the user clicks "Send." However, the upload process is slow, typically taking about 8 seconds for a 200 KB image. In contrast, when I use the predefined UploadButton, the upload is almost instant. Is there an explanation for this discrepancy? I have tested this in a blank project to ensure that the issue isn't related to my project but the upload from hook is still slow. There are no extensive computations or other operations that might slow down the upload request. Any feedback would be useful. Thank you