How to Estimate the Amount of Data You Spend Streaming Music and Video

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Ever wonder how much data your streaming apps are using? Here’s the good news: for the most part, the differences between most apps aren’t that great when you’re viewing content of the same type and quality. (For example, Netflix and Hulu will be about the same on average.)

There are still some emissions to be aware of, especially if you are concerned about how much data you consume on your home internet or cellular data plan. While your Spotify might not force you to pay any pesky excessive fees, the 4K Netflix stream that you leave in the background while you work every day might be worth rethinking. Here’s a quick rundown:

Music streaming apps

Every music streaming app uses variable bitrate streaming, adjusting the music quality on the fly based on your connection. Users can usually also set their desired playback level if you want more control over the quality of your music.

Here’s how much data you can expect from Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and even Pandora Premium per hour on average, depending on sound quality:

  • Low (48-96 kbps): approximately 43 MB per hour
  • Normal (128-160 kbps): approximately 72 MB per hour
  • High (192-320 kbps): approximately 115 MB per hour

Note that not all applications are streamed at the same bit rate, which affects the average between specific applications, but this is not significant as bit rate is not the only indicator of quality or file size. Other factors such as sample rate, bit depth, file type and codec also affect file size (and sound quality) and therefore how much data is used to stream it.

For example, Spotify uses the same bitrates listed above, while Apple Music streams at 64, 126 and 250 kbps, but uses a different file type and audio codec. However, streaming high quality music for an hour in any application requires approximately 40MB of data.

The only noticeable emissions are Amazon Music and Tidal:

  • Amazon Music usually uses the same transfer rates, but the service also has an “HD” quality level that uses 330 MB per hour and an “Ultra HD” level that can use up to 720 MB per hour.
  • Then there is Tidal, which streams music at 96kbps, 320kbps, 1411kbps (635MB per hour), or 3000kbps (1.35GB per hour). This one really eats up tariff plans.

It’s also worth noting that streaming music videos via Spotify or YouTube Music will also increase your data usage compared to just listening to streaming audio files. Speaking of the video …

Video streaming apps

Streaming video is more complex than streaming music as obviously both video quality and audio quality are important here. However, each of the core services uses roughly the same amount of data.

Here’s the average data per hour you can stream Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, or Disney Plus:

  • Low 240p-320p: 300MB per hour.
  • SD 480p: 700 MB per hour.
  • HD 720p: 900 MB per hour.
  • HD 1080p: 1.5 GB per hour.

(Note: These numbers are for mobile devices only. Video and sound quality will vary on desktops, TVs, game consoles, and set-top boxes.)

Videos above 1080p are generally hard to find on mobile, but over time there will only be more phones supporting 2k and 4K UHD. If the service offers 2K video as a mobile option, you can expect to spend roughly 3GB per hour at that quality, while 4K UHD uses 7-8GB per hour depending on the app. These numbers can be even higher when viewed in HDR at higher frame rates than usual.

Youtube

YouTube’s data usage differs from other video streaming services for one key reason: frame rate.

Most of the content you’ll find on other streaming video services plays at 24 or 32 frames per second (FPS), but all YouTube videos go up to 30 or 60 frames per second. More frames means more data, so 1080p videos (high pixel rate for crisp images) at 24fps consume less data than 1080p videos at 60fps, even if they are the same length. YouTube also supports a wider range of video playback, from 144p to 1440 QHD on select mobile devices.

This higher frame rate and resolution means that the amount of data used by individual YouTube videos can vary greatly. Fortunately, the Android Authority did an exhaustive test of YouTube’s multiple resolution and frame rates.

Here’s how much data YouTube uses, depending on what quality and frame rate you’re using:

  • 144p 30fps: 30-90MB per hour
  • 240p 30fps : 180-250MB per hour
  • 360p 30fps: 300-450MB per hour
  • 480p 30fps: 480-660MB per hour
  • 720p 30-60fps : 1.2-2.7GB per hour
  • 1080p 30-60fps : 2.5-4.1GB per hour
  • 1440p 30-60fps: 2.7-8.1GB per hour

Based on these numbers, YouTube is arguably the most data-intensive streaming app on your phone. You might want to check your app’s data usage in your device’s settings if you consistently exceed your monthly data limit.

How to reduce the amount of mobile data while streaming

Streaming apps are clearly a threat to your data plan, but there are many ways to limit the amount of data your apps actually use .

The most obvious one is to stream only when connected to Wi-Fi. If your home internet provider has no data limits, you can stream over Wi-Fi at no additional fees. You can even try downloading your favorite music or videos for offline viewing so you don’t overload your mobile data unnecessarily.

You can also check the following links for ways to adjust audio and video quality, and data usage options in each app you are looking at:

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