diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index b3b61ffb61f7..baeb39a8f979 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -62,6 +62,7 @@ Ref: https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.0.0/
 * [#12187](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12187) Add batch operation for x/nft module.
 * [#12693](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12693) Make sure the order of each node is consistent when emitting proto events.
 * [#12455](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12455) Show attempts count in error for signing. 
+* [#12886](https://github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/pull/12886) Amortize cost of processing cache KV store
 
 ### State Machine Breaking
 
diff --git a/store/cachekv/search_benchmark_test.go b/store/cachekv/search_benchmark_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 000000000000..d7f1dcb8d4f1
--- /dev/null
+++ b/store/cachekv/search_benchmark_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,43 @@
+package cachekv
+
+import (
+	db "github.com/tendermint/tm-db"
+	"strconv"
+	"testing"
+)
+
+func BenchmarkLargeUnsortedMisses(b *testing.B) {
+	for i := 0; i < b.N; i++ {
+		b.StopTimer()
+		store := generateStore()
+		b.StartTimer()
+
+		for k := 0; k < 10000; k++ {
+			// cache has A + Z values
+			// these are within range, but match nothing
+			store.dirtyItems([]byte("B1"), []byte("B2"))
+		}
+	}
+}
+
+func generateStore() *Store {
+	cache := map[string]*cValue{}
+	unsorted := map[string]struct{}{}
+	for i := 0; i < 5000; i++ {
+		key := "A" + strconv.Itoa(i)
+		unsorted[key] = struct{}{}
+		cache[key] = &cValue{}
+	}
+
+	for i := 0; i < 5000; i++ {
+		key := "Z" + strconv.Itoa(i)
+		unsorted[key] = struct{}{}
+		cache[key] = &cValue{}
+	}
+
+	return &Store{
+		cache:         cache,
+		unsortedCache: unsorted,
+		sortedCache:   db.NewMemDB(),
+	}
+}
diff --git a/store/cachekv/store.go b/store/cachekv/store.go
index 29e297f4cf67..bd467c418f91 100644
--- a/store/cachekv/store.go
+++ b/store/cachekv/store.go
@@ -13,6 +13,7 @@ import (
 	"github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/store/tracekv"
 	"github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/store/types"
 	"github.com/cosmos/cosmos-sdk/types/kv"
+	"github.com/tendermint/tendermint/libs/math"
 )
 
 // cValue represents a cached value.
@@ -278,6 +279,8 @@ const (
 	stateAlreadySorted
 )
 
+const minSortSize = 1024
+
 // Constructs a slice of dirty items, to use w/ memIterator.
 func (store *Store) dirtyItems(start, end []byte) {
 	startStr, endStr := conv.UnsafeBytesToStr(start), conv.UnsafeBytesToStr(end)
@@ -294,7 +297,7 @@ func (store *Store) dirtyItems(start, end []byte) {
 	// O(N^2) overhead.
 	// Even without that, too many range checks eventually becomes more expensive
 	// than just not having the cache.
-	if n < 1024 {
+	if n < minSortSize {
 		for key := range store.unsortedCache {
 			// dbm.IsKeyInDomain is nil safe and returns true iff key is greater than start
 			if dbm.IsKeyInDomain(conv.UnsafeStrToBytes(key), start, end) {
@@ -331,6 +334,17 @@ func (store *Store) dirtyItems(start, end []byte) {
 		endIndex = len(strL) - 1
 	}
 
+	// Since we spent cycles to sort the values, we should process and remove a reasonable amount
+	// ensure start to end is at least minSortSize in size
+	// if below minSortSize, expand it to cover additional values
+	// this amortizes the cost of processing elements across multiple calls
+	if endIndex-startIndex < minSortSize {
+		endIndex = math.MinInt(startIndex+minSortSize, len(strL)-1)
+		if endIndex-startIndex < minSortSize {
+			startIndex = math.MaxInt(endIndex-minSortSize, 0)
+		}
+	}
+
 	kvL := make([]*kv.Pair, 0)
 	for i := startIndex; i <= endIndex; i++ {
 		key := strL[i]