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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-14T18:48:31+00:00

I have a page where I have 4 tabs displaying 4 different reports based

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I have a page where I have 4 tabs displaying 4 different reports based off different tables.

I obtain the row count of each table using a select count(*) from <table> query and display number of rows available in each table on the tabs. As a result, each page postback causes 5 count(*) queries to be executed (4 to get counts and 1 for pagination) and 1 query for getting the report content.

Now my question is: are count(*) queries really expensive — should I keep the row counts (at least those that are displayed on the tab) in the view state of page instead of querying multiple times?

How expensive are COUNT(*) queries ?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    You need to attach SQL Profiler or an app level profiler like L2SProf and look at the real query costs in your context before:

    • guessing what the problem is and trying to determine the likely benefits of a potential solution

    • allowing others to guess for you on da interwebs – there’s lots of misinformation without citations about, including in this thread (but not in this post :P)

    When you’ve done that, it’ll be clear what the best approach is – i.e., whether the SELECT COUNT is dominating things or not, etc.

    And having done that, you’ll also know whether any changes you choose to do have had a positive or a negative impact.

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