diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/BUILD b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/BUILD
index 5e6974f8fb4..2e95c4acee4 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/BUILD
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/BUILD
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@ go_test(
     name = "go_default_test",
     srcs = [
         "compact_test.go",
+        "lease_manager_test.go",
         "store_test.go",
         "watcher_test.go",
     ],
@@ -44,6 +45,7 @@ go_library(
         "compact.go",
         "errors.go",
         "event.go",
+        "lease_manager.go",
         "store.go",
         "watcher.go",
     ],
diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/lease_manager.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/lease_manager.go
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..dc06ac52077
--- /dev/null
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/lease_manager.go
@@ -0,0 +1,102 @@
+/*
+Copyright 2018 The Kubernetes Authors.
+
+Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+limitations under the License.
+*/
+
+package etcd3
+
+import (
+	"context"
+	"sync"
+	"time"
+
+	"github.com/coreos/etcd/clientv3"
+)
+
+// leaseManager is used to manage leases requested from etcd. If a new write
+// needs a lease that has similar expiration time to the previous one, the old
+// lease will be reused to reduce the overhead of etcd, since lease operations
+// are expensive. In the implementation, we only store one previous lease,
+// since all the events have the same ttl.
+type leaseManager struct {
+	client                  *clientv3.Client // etcd client used to grant leases
+	leaseMu                 sync.Mutex
+	prevLeaseID             clientv3.LeaseID
+	prevLeaseExpirationTime time.Time
+	// The period of time in seconds and percent of TTL that each lease is
+	// reused. The minimum of them is used to avoid unreasonably large
+	// numbers. We use var instead of const for testing purposes.
+	leaseReuseDurationSeconds int64
+	leaseReuseDurationPercent float64
+}
+
+// newDefaultLeaseManager creates a new lease manager using default setting.
+func newDefaultLeaseManager(client *clientv3.Client) *leaseManager {
+	return newLeaseManager(client, 60, 0.05)
+}
+
+// newLeaseManager creates a new lease manager with the number of buffered
+// leases, lease reuse duration in seconds and percentage. The percentage
+// value x means x*100%.
+func newLeaseManager(client *clientv3.Client, leaseReuseDurationSeconds int64, leaseReuseDurationPercent float64) *leaseManager {
+	return &leaseManager{
+		client: client,
+		leaseReuseDurationSeconds: leaseReuseDurationSeconds,
+		leaseReuseDurationPercent: leaseReuseDurationPercent,
+	}
+}
+
+// setLeaseReuseDurationSeconds is used for testing purpose. It is used to
+// reduce the extra lease duration to avoid unnecessary timeout in testing.
+func (l *leaseManager) setLeaseReuseDurationSeconds(duration int64) {
+	l.leaseMu.Lock()
+	defer l.leaseMu.Unlock()
+	l.leaseReuseDurationSeconds = duration
+}
+
+// GetLease returns a lease based on requested ttl: if the cached previous
+// lease can be reused, reuse it; otherwise request a new one from etcd.
+func (l *leaseManager) GetLease(ctx context.Context, ttl int64) (clientv3.LeaseID, error) {
+	now := time.Now()
+	l.leaseMu.Lock()
+	defer l.leaseMu.Unlock()
+	// check if previous lease can be reused
+	reuseDurationSeconds := l.getReuseDurationSecondsLocked(ttl)
+	valid := now.Add(time.Duration(ttl) * time.Second).Before(l.prevLeaseExpirationTime)
+	sufficient := now.Add(time.Duration(ttl+reuseDurationSeconds) * time.Second).After(l.prevLeaseExpirationTime)
+	if valid && sufficient {
+		return l.prevLeaseID, nil
+	}
+	// request a lease with a little extra ttl from etcd
+	ttl += reuseDurationSeconds
+	lcr, err := l.client.Lease.Grant(ctx, ttl)
+	if err != nil {
+		return clientv3.LeaseID(0), err
+	}
+	// cache the new lease id
+	l.prevLeaseID = lcr.ID
+	l.prevLeaseExpirationTime = now.Add(time.Duration(ttl) * time.Second)
+	return lcr.ID, nil
+}
+
+// getReuseDurationSecondsLocked returns the reusable duration in seconds
+// based on the configuration. Lock has to be acquired before calling this
+// function.
+func (l *leaseManager) getReuseDurationSecondsLocked(ttl int64) int64 {
+	reuseDurationSeconds := int64(l.leaseReuseDurationPercent * float64(ttl))
+	if reuseDurationSeconds > l.leaseReuseDurationSeconds {
+		reuseDurationSeconds = l.leaseReuseDurationSeconds
+	}
+	return reuseDurationSeconds
+}
diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/lease_manager_test.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/lease_manager_test.go
new file mode 100644
index 00000000000..e63a8e65e70
--- /dev/null
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/lease_manager_test.go
@@ -0,0 +1,44 @@
+/*
+Copyright 2018 The Kubernetes Authors.
+
+Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
+you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
+You may obtain a copy of the License at
+
+    http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
+
+Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
+distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
+WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
+See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
+limitations under the License.
+*/
+
+package etcd3
+
+import (
+	"testing"
+)
+
+func TestGetReuseDurationSeconds(t *testing.T) {
+	testCases := []struct {
+		ttl      int64
+		duration int64
+	}{
+		{
+			ttl:      3600,
+			duration: 60,
+		},
+		{
+			ttl:      1000,
+			duration: 50,
+		},
+	}
+	lm := newDefaultLeaseManager(nil)
+	for i := 0; i < len(testCases); i++ {
+		dur := lm.getReuseDurationSecondsLocked(testCases[i].ttl)
+		if dur != testCases[i].duration {
+			t.Errorf("Duration error: ttl %v, expected duration %v, get %v\n", testCases[i].ttl, testCases[i].duration, dur)
+		}
+	}
+}
diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go
index fabb083e0ce..1513af8e7c2 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store.go
@@ -70,6 +70,7 @@ type store struct {
 	pathPrefix    string
 	watcher       *watcher
 	pagingEnabled bool
+	leaseManager  *leaseManager
 }
 
 type elemForDecode struct {
@@ -107,8 +108,9 @@ func newStore(c *clientv3.Client, quorumRead, pagingEnabled bool, codec runtime.
 		// for compatibility with etcd2 impl.
 		// no-op for default prefix of '/registry'.
 		// keeps compatibility with etcd2 impl for custom prefixes that don't start with '/'
-		pathPrefix: path.Join("/", prefix),
-		watcher:    newWatcher(c, codec, versioner, transformer),
+		pathPrefix:   path.Join("/", prefix),
+		watcher:      newWatcher(c, codec, versioner, transformer),
+		leaseManager: newDefaultLeaseManager(c),
 	}
 	if !quorumRead {
 		// In case of non-quorum reads, we can set WithSerializable()
@@ -758,13 +760,11 @@ func (s *store) ttlOpts(ctx context.Context, ttl int64) ([]clientv3.OpOption, er
 	if ttl == 0 {
 		return nil, nil
 	}
-	// TODO: one lease per ttl key is expensive. Based on current use case, we can have a long window to
-	// put keys within into same lease. We shall benchmark this and optimize the performance.
-	lcr, err := s.client.Lease.Grant(ctx, ttl)
+	id, err := s.leaseManager.GetLease(ctx, ttl)
 	if err != nil {
 		return nil, err
 	}
-	return []clientv3.OpOption{clientv3.WithLease(clientv3.LeaseID(lcr.ID))}, nil
+	return []clientv3.OpOption{clientv3.WithLease(id)}, nil
 }
 
 // decode decodes value of bytes into object. It will also set the object resource version to rev.
diff --git a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go
index b3e34be3989..1624a6829c4 100644
--- a/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go
+++ b/staging/src/k8s.io/apiserver/pkg/storage/etcd3/store_test.go
@@ -1186,6 +1186,10 @@ func testSetup(t *testing.T) (context.Context, *store, *integration.ClusterV3) {
 	cluster := integration.NewClusterV3(t, &integration.ClusterConfig{Size: 1})
 	store := newStore(cluster.RandClient(), false, true, codec, "", prefixTransformer{prefix: []byte(defaultTestPrefix)})
 	ctx := context.Background()
+	// As 30s is the default timeout for testing in glboal configuration,
+	// we cannot wait longer than that in a single time: change it to 10
+	// for testing purposes. See apimachinery/pkg/util/wait/wait.go
+	store.leaseManager.setLeaseReuseDurationSeconds(1)
 	return ctx, store, cluster
 }