A system, method and computer program product to predict elapsed response time of a query during an application stage is disclosed. The query is executed over a database and is classified based on a mode of access of the database by the query. The database is emulated to obtain an emulated database. After classification, an access pattern of the database by the query along with one or more parameters is determined. By applying a classification specific technique over the access pattern and the one or more parameters, an input-access time of the query on the emulated database is then calculated to determine the elapsed response time of the query.