diff --git a/lib/rollbar/encoding.rb b/lib/rollbar/encoding.rb
index fd81513f..07c54030 100644
--- a/lib/rollbar/encoding.rb
+++ b/lib/rollbar/encoding.rb
@@ -1,21 +1,27 @@
 module Rollbar
   module Encoding
-    def self.encode(object)
-      can_be_encoded = object.is_a?(Symbol) || object.is_a?(String)
-
-      return object unless can_be_encoded
-
-      encoding_class.new(object).encode
+    class << self
+      attr_accessor :encoding_class
     end
 
-    def self.encoding_class
+    def self.setup
       if String.instance_methods.include?(:encode)
         require 'rollbar/encoding/encoder'
-        Encoder
+        self.encoding_class = Rollbar::Encoding::Encoder
       else
         require 'rollbar/encoding/legacy_encoder'
-        LegacyEncoder
+        self.encoding_class = Rollbar::Encoding::LegacyEncoder
       end
     end
+
+    def self.encode(object)
+      can_be_encoded = object.is_a?(String) || object.is_a?(Symbol)
+
+      return object unless can_be_encoded
+
+      encoding_class.new(object).encode
+    end
   end
 end
+
+Rollbar::Encoding.setup
diff --git a/lib/rollbar/encoding/encoder.rb b/lib/rollbar/encoding/encoder.rb
index e1fe7551..dc761c3c 100644
--- a/lib/rollbar/encoding/encoder.rb
+++ b/lib/rollbar/encoding/encoder.rb
@@ -4,6 +4,8 @@ class Encoder
       ALL_ENCODINGS = [::Encoding::UTF_8, ::Encoding::ISO_8859_1, ::Encoding::ASCII_8BIT, ::Encoding::US_ASCII]
       ASCII_ENCODINGS = [::Encoding::US_ASCII, ::Encoding::ASCII_8BIT, ::Encoding::ISO_8859_1]
       ENCODING_OPTIONS = { :invalid => :replace, :undef => :replace, :replace => '' }
+      UTF8 = 'UTF-8'.freeze
+      BINARY = 'binary'.freeze
 
       attr_accessor :object
 
@@ -13,8 +15,14 @@ def initialize(object)
 
       def encode
         value = object.to_s
+        encoding = value.encoding
 
-        encoded_value = force_encoding(value).encode(*encoding_args(value))
+        # This will be most of cases so avoid force anything for them
+        if encoding == ::Encoding::UTF_8 && value.valid_encoding?
+          encoded_value = value
+        else
+          encoded_value = force_encoding(value).encode(*encoding_args(value))
+        end
 
         object.is_a?(Symbol) ? encoded_value.to_sym : encoded_value
       end
@@ -34,6 +42,7 @@ def detect_encoding(v)
 
         ALL_ENCODINGS.detect do |encoding|
           begin
+            # Seems #codepoints is faster than #valid_encoding?
             value.force_encoding(encoding).encode(::Encoding::UTF_8).codepoints
             true
           rescue
@@ -43,8 +52,8 @@ def detect_encoding(v)
       end
 
       def encoding_args(value)
-        args = ['UTF-8']
-        args << 'binary' if ASCII_ENCODINGS.include?(value.encoding)
+        args = [UTF8]
+        args << BINARY if ASCII_ENCODINGS.include?(value.encoding)
         args << ENCODING_OPTIONS
 
         args
diff --git a/lib/rollbar/encoding/legacy_encoder.rb b/lib/rollbar/encoding/legacy_encoder.rb
index c86dee7a..f6192147 100644
--- a/lib/rollbar/encoding/legacy_encoder.rb
+++ b/lib/rollbar/encoding/legacy_encoder.rb
@@ -1,18 +1,20 @@
 require 'iconv'
 
 module Rollbar
-  class LegacyEncoder
-    attr_accessor :object
+  module Encoding
+    class LegacyEncoder
+      attr_accessor :object
 
-    def initialize(object)
-      @object = object
-    end
+      def initialize(object)
+        @object = object
+      end
 
-    def encode
-      value = object.to_s
-      encoded_value = ::Iconv.conv('UTF-8//IGNORE', 'UTF-8', value)
+      def encode
+        value = object.to_s
+        encoded_value = ::Iconv.conv('UTF-8//IGNORE', 'UTF-8', value)
 
-      object.is_a?(Symbol) ? encoded_value.to_sym : encoded_value
+        object.is_a?(Symbol) ? encoded_value.to_sym : encoded_value
+      end
     end
   end
 end