Streaming data is bitrate multiplied by time. A 1080p stream at 5 Mbps moves 2.25 GB every hour, so three hours a night for thirty days comes to 202 GB. The same habit at 4K uses 608 GB.
Quality is the whole story. Dropping from 4K to 1080p cuts usage by two thirds, and audio-only streaming is negligible at around 0.07 GB an hour. Most services let you cap quality per profile, which is the single most effective control if an allowance is tight.
Mobile plans and rural fixed-wireless services are where this bites. A 100 GB monthly allowance sounds generous until a household streams high definition every evening, at which point it lasts about 25 days at 720p.
The formula
bitrate- Stream bitrate in megabits per second
÷ 8- Megabits to megabytes
× 3600- Per second to per hour
÷ 1000- Megabytes to gigabytes
How to use this calculator
- Choose the quality you normally watch at.
- Enter the hours you watch on a typical day.
- Set how many days in the period you are budgeting for.
- The gauge shows total usage in gigabytes.
Worked examples
Three hours a night at 1080p
5 Mbps is 2.25 GB an hour, so three hours daily for thirty days uses 202 GB — about 40 per cent of a 500 GB allowance.
What 4K costs
The same schedule at 15 Mbps uses 608 GB a month. On a 500 GB plan that is 122 per cent gone on one household member watching television.
How to read your score
Frequently asked questions
Do these figures include audio?
Yes. The quoted bitrates are for the complete stream. Spatial audio formats add roughly 0.3 to 0.7 Mbps on top of the video, which is inside the rounding at high definition and above.
Why does my provider report more than this?
Adaptive streaming ramps up and down, buffers ahead of what you watch, and discards the buffer when you skip. Retries and abandoned starts all count against the meter.
Does downloading for offline viewing use less?
Slightly, because it fetches once at a chosen quality rather than re-fetching on every replay. If you watch something twice, downloading halves the cost.
How much does video calling use?
Roughly 1 to 2 GB an hour for a group call in high definition, which is similar to a 720p stream in each direction. Screen sharing is usually lighter than camera video.
Is data measured the same by every provider?
Not exactly. Some exclude their own services, some count only from midnight to midnight in their own timezone, and rounding varies. Expect a few per cent of disagreement with any calculator.
Data usage by quality
| Quality | Bitrate | GB per hour | GB per day | GB per 30 days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Audio only | 160 kbps | 0.07 | 0.22 | 6 |
| SD 480p | 1.5 Mbps | 0.68 | 2.03 | 61 |
| HD 720p | 3 Mbps | 1.35 | 4.05 | 122 |
| Full HD 1080p | 5 Mbps | 2.25 | 6.75 | 202 |
| 4K HDR | 15 Mbps | 6.75 | 20.25 | 608 |
Based on three hours of viewing a day at a constant bitrate.