Cron: every 15 minutes

The cron expression `*/15 * * * *` fires four times an hour at :00, :15, :30, and :45. When to use it instead of every 5, every 10, or hourly.

# expression

*/15 * * * *

Means: At every 15th minute past every hour — so :00, :15, :30, :45.

→ Open in cron builder (pre-filled)

# common use cases

Sync jobs that pull from a third-party API with rate limits.
Cache warmers for moderately-hot data.
CI nightly-style smoke tests in a denser cadence.

# next fires (sample)

00:15
00:30
00:45
01:00
01:15

# pitfalls

Quartz-flavor systems (Spring, AWS EventBridge) want `0 */15 * * * ?` — different field count and the dom/dow ? sigil.
If your downstream system aggregates by hour, four 15-min fires can produce four small batches instead of one big one — watch for batch-size assumptions.

# other patterns