A method, apparatus and program product to optimize a database query. A query plan is generated for the database query where the query plan includes first and second subplans. Cached optimization data associated with the first subplan and generated during evaluation of another query plan for a previous query that uses the first subplan is retrieved. The first subplan is evaluated for resource cost using the retrieved optimization data. The second subplan is also evaluated for resource cost. The query plan is then evaluated for resource cost based upon the evaluations of resource cost for the first and second subplans. A query plan is selected based on evaluations of resource cost and the plan is executed to generate a result set.