diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/README.md b/datadog_checks_base/README.md
index f3e00d2d1e932..ae18f28a95297 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/README.md
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/README.md
@@ -29,6 +29,19 @@ install the toolkit locally and play with it:
 pip install datadog-checks-base
 ```
 
+## Performance Optimizations
+
+We strive to balance lean resource usage with a "batteries included" user experience.
+This is why we import some of our dependencies inside functions that use them instead of the more conventional import section at the top of the file.
+
+Below are some examples for how much we shave off the Python heap for a given dependency:
+
+- `requests==2.32.3`: 3.6MB
+- `RequestWrapper` class (`datadog_checks_base==37.7.0`): 2.9MB
+- `prometheus-client==0.21.1`: around 1MB
+
+This translates into even bigger savings when we run in the Agent, something close to 50MB.
+
 ## Troubleshooting
 
 Need help? Contact [Datadog support][8].
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/changelog.d/19781.fixed b/datadog_checks_base/changelog.d/19781.fixed
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000000..8e1d2bc382e7f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/changelog.d/19781.fixed
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+Import dependencies in base check classes lazily. With only the disk and network checks running, the Agent uses almost 50MB less memory after this change.
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/base.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/base.py
index 5b5bcfb386c0d..1c00c0db0c52e 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/base.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/base.py
@@ -48,7 +48,6 @@
 from ..utils.common import ensure_bytes, to_native_string
 from ..utils.diagnose import Diagnosis
 from ..utils.fips import enable_fips
-from ..utils.http import RequestsWrapper
 from ..utils.limiter import Limiter
 from ..utils.metadata import MetadataManager
 from ..utils.secrets import SecretsSanitizer
@@ -396,6 +395,9 @@ def http(self):
 
         Only new checks or checks on Agent 6.13+ can and should use this for HTTP requests.
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from ..utils.http import RequestsWrapper
+
         if not hasattr(self, '_http'):
             self._http = RequestsWrapper(self.instance or {}, self.init_config, self.HTTP_CONFIG_REMAPPER, self.log)
 
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/libs/prometheus.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/libs/prometheus.py
index a6ce894a421ff..3fe57e6191065 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/libs/prometheus.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/libs/prometheus.py
@@ -4,9 +4,6 @@
 
 from itertools import tee
 
-from prometheus_client.metrics_core import Metric
-from prometheus_client.parser import _parse_sample, _replace_help_escaping
-
 
 def text_fd_to_metric_families(fd):
     raw_lines, input_lines = tee(fd, 2)
@@ -32,6 +29,10 @@ def _parse_payload(fd):
 
     Yields Metric's.
     """
+    # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+    from prometheus_client.metrics_core import Metric
+    from prometheus_client.parser import _parse_sample, _replace_help_escaping
+
     name = ''
     documentation = ''
     typ = 'untyped'
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/base_check.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/base_check.py
index 5d71cde0584fa..7fd6324a1bc90 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/base_check.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/base_check.py
@@ -3,8 +3,6 @@
 # Licensed under a 3-clause BSD style license (see LICENSE)
 from copy import deepcopy
 
-import requests
-
 from ...errors import CheckException
 from ...utils.tracing import traced_class
 from .. import AgentCheck
@@ -74,6 +72,9 @@ def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
         """
         The base class for any Prometheus-based integration.
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        import requests
+
         args = list(args)
         default_instances = kwargs.pop('default_instances', None) or {}
         default_namespace = kwargs.pop('default_namespace', None)
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/mixins.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/mixins.py
index 1a6cb13a09c34..ff2a801c5137a 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/mixins.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/mixins.py
@@ -10,15 +10,11 @@
 from os.path import isfile
 from re import compile
 
-import requests
-from prometheus_client.samples import Sample
-
 from datadog_checks.base.agent import datadog_agent
 
 from ...config import is_affirmative
 from ...errors import CheckException
 from ...utils.common import to_native_string
-from ...utils.http import RequestsWrapper
 from .. import AgentCheck
 from ..libs.prometheus import text_fd_to_metric_families
 
@@ -380,6 +376,10 @@ def get_http_handler(self, scraper_config):
         The http handler is cached using `prometheus_url` as key.
         The http handler doesn't use the cache if a bearer token is used to allow refreshing it.
         """
+
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from ...utils.http import RequestsWrapper
+
         prometheus_url = scraper_config['prometheus_url']
         bearer_token = scraper_config['_bearer_token']
         if prometheus_url in self._http_handlers and bearer_token is None:
@@ -826,6 +826,9 @@ def poll(self, scraper_config, headers=None):
 
         Custom headers can be added to the default headers.
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        import requests
+
         endpoint = scraper_config.get('prometheus_url')
 
         # Should we send a service check for when we make a request
@@ -1060,6 +1063,9 @@ def _decumulate_histogram_buckets(self, metric):
         """
         Decumulate buckets in a given histogram metric and adds the lower_bound label (le being upper_bound)
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from prometheus_client.samples import Sample
+
         bucket_values_by_context_upper_bound = {}
         for sample in metric.samples:
             if sample[self.SAMPLE_NAME].endswith("_bucket"):
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/base.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/base.py
index 0a502b95a4dea..d4a0722afc38a 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/base.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/base.py
@@ -4,8 +4,6 @@
 from collections import ChainMap
 from contextlib import contextmanager
 
-from requests.exceptions import RequestException
-
 from ....errors import ConfigurationError
 from ....utils.tracing import traced_class
 from ... import AgentCheck
@@ -62,6 +60,9 @@ def check(self, _):
         Another thing to note is that this check ignores its instance argument completely.
         We take care of instance-level customization at initialization time.
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from requests.exceptions import RequestException
+
         self.refresh_scrapers()
 
         for endpoint, scraper in self.scrapers.items():
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/scraper.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/scraper.py
index 4d156ae9773ab..ffcbb430f31ef 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/scraper.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/scraper.py
@@ -9,17 +9,12 @@
 from math import isinf, isnan
 from typing import List  # noqa: F401
 
-from prometheus_client.openmetrics.parser import text_fd_to_metric_families as parse_openmetrics
-from prometheus_client.parser import text_fd_to_metric_families as parse_prometheus
-from requests.exceptions import ConnectionError
-
 from datadog_checks.base.agent import datadog_agent
 
 from ....config import is_affirmative
 from ....constants import ServiceCheck
 from ....errors import ConfigurationError
 from ....utils.functions import no_op, return_true
-from ....utils.http import RequestsWrapper
 from .first_scrape_handler import first_scrape_handler
 from .labels import LabelAggregator, get_label_normalizer
 from .transform import MetricTransformer
@@ -50,6 +45,8 @@ def __init__(self, check, config):
         """
         The base class for any scraper overrides.
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from ....utils.http import RequestsWrapper
 
         self.config = config
 
@@ -333,6 +330,10 @@ def parse_metrics(self):
 
     @property
     def parse_metric_families(self):
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from prometheus_client.openmetrics.parser import text_fd_to_metric_families as parse_openmetrics
+        from prometheus_client.parser import text_fd_to_metric_families as parse_prometheus
+
         media_type = self._content_type.split(';')[0]
         # Setting `use_latest_spec` forces the use of the OpenMetrics format, otherwise
         # the format will be chosen based on the media type specified in the response's content-header.
@@ -393,6 +394,8 @@ def stream_connection_lines(self):
         """
         Yield the connection line.
         """
+        # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+        from requests.exceptions import ConnectionError
 
         try:
             with self.get_connection() as connection:
diff --git a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/utils.py b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/utils.py
index eb44d81cf358b..b613ec6c045bd 100644
--- a/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/utils.py
+++ b/datadog_checks_base/datadog_checks/base/checks/openmetrics/v2/utils.py
@@ -1,7 +1,6 @@
 # (C) Datadog, Inc. 2020-present
 # All rights reserved
 # Licensed under a 3-clause BSD style license (see LICENSE)
-from prometheus_client.samples import Sample
 
 NEGATIVE_INFINITY = float('-inf')
 
@@ -10,6 +9,9 @@ def decumulate_histogram_buckets(sample_data):
     """
     Decumulate buckets in a given histogram metric and adds the lower_bound label (le being upper_bound)
     """
+    # See Performance Optimizations in this package's README.md.
+    from prometheus_client.samples import Sample
+
     # TODO: investigate performance optimizations
     new_sample_data = []
     bucket_values_by_context_upper_bound = {}