Streaming Data Usage Calculator — GB per Hour by Quality
This calculator turns streaming bitrates into the gigabytes your connection consumes — the number that decides whether a 1 TB data cap survives a winter of binge-watching.
Quick answer: Streaming uses roughly 0.7 GB per hour at SD, 3 GB per hour at HD (1080p) and 7 GB per hour at 4K, per Netflix's own published figures. That means a 2-hour 4K film is about 14 GB, and a 10-hour HD binge is about 30 GB.
Formats: 90m · 1h30m · 5400s · plain number = seconds
Typical H.264 average bitrates at medium quality
Overrides the preset when filled — use the target bitrate from your encoder settings
| Duration | Size (decimal GB/MB) |
|---|---|
| 1 min | 37.5 MB |
| 5 min | 187.5 MB |
| 30 min | 1.125 GB |
| 1 h | 2.25 GB |
| 2 h | 4.5 GB |
| 10 h | 22.5 GB |
| SD (480p) | ~0.7 GB per hour |
|---|---|
| HD (1080p) | ~3 GB per hour |
| 4K UHD | ~7 GB per hour |
| Typical 2-hour film | HD ≈ 6 GB · 4K ≈ 14 GB |
| 1 TB data cap | ≈ 333 h of HD or 142 h of 4K |
Where these numbers come from
Streaming services publish their own consumption guides because customers ask about data caps: Netflix's help centre lists about 0.7 GB per hour at SD, 3 GB per hour at HD and up to 7 GB per hour at Ultra HD. YouTube leaves bitrate control to the viewer (up to ~20 Mbps for 4K, about 9 GB per hour), and live sport is the heaviest of all because it cannot buffer ahead and re-encode as efficiently.
Multiple streams add up fast
A household running one 4K stream plus two HD streams consumes roughly 13 GB per hour — a 1 TB cap disappears in about 77 such hours. Turning off 4K for casual viewing (most shows are mastered at 1080p anyway) is the single easiest way to halve streaming usage without noticing.
Downloading instead of streaming
Downloads are usually more data-efficient than streaming the same title: a 1080p film download is 4–6 GB for the whole film, versus about 6 GB when streamed in HD, and it can be watched repeatedly at no extra cost. On a metered connection, downloading at a lower quality tier is the better pattern.
When to use this calculator
- Checking whether a monthly data cap survives a streaming habit.
- Planning mobile hotspot usage for travel or a temporary home.
- Comparing 4K versus HD data costs before enabling max quality.
- Explaining to a household why the cap was hit mid-month.
- Estimating data for a season of a series before downloading it.