How much data does Netflix use?
About 700MB an hour at medium.
Netflix publishes these figures itself, which makes them the most trustworthy numbers in this whole table. Download episodes on hotel wifi and this drops to zero.
Put that on a real trip: 60 minutes a day for 10 days at medium works out at about 6.8GB , before anything else on your phone, and before the 120MB a day that background sync quietly takes.
Netflix data usage by quality
| Quality | Data | 1GB lasts | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data saver | 300MB/hr | 3.4 hours | published |
| Medium | 700MB/hr | 1.5 hours | published |
| HD | 2.9GB/hr | 20 minutes | published |
| 4K | 6.8GB/hr | 9 minutes | published |
Published means the service states the figure itself. Bitrate means it's arithmetic from a documented stream rate. Measured means it's corroborated across independent tests. Real usage moves with signal strength and how aggressively the app pre-buffers.
How that compares
Lighter than Netflix
- Instagram600MB/hr
- Zoom / Meet540MB/hr
- WhatsApp video calls270MB/hr
Heavier than Netflix
- TikTok870MB/hr
- YouTube1.8GB/hr