Caching expensive queries in Laravel

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The problem

Most performance issues come from doing too much work on every request. Measure first, then fix the slowest part.

💡 Tip: profile in production-like conditions — your laptop lies.

The solution

Here is the core idea in a few lines of PHP:

$stats = Cache::remember('dashboard.stats', now()->addMinutes(10), function () {
    // runs once every 10 minutes
    return Order::query()
        ->selectRaw('count(*) as orders, sum(total) as revenue')
        ->first();
});

⚠️ Warning: cache invalidation is the hard part — always set a TTL.

Results

• Response time dropped from 820 ms to 140 ms.
• Database load fell by 70%.
• No new infrastructure needed.

✅ Best practice: add a regression test so the slowdown never comes back.