How much data does TikTok use?
About 870MB an hour at standard.
The sleeper. Nobody thinks of TikTok as streaming, but it autoplays video continuously. Half an hour a day is roughly 13GB across a month.
Put that on a real trip: 30 minutes a day for 10 days at standard works out at about 4.2GB , before anything else on your phone, and before the 120MB a day that background sync quietly takes.
TikTok data usage by quality
| Quality | Data | 1GB lasts | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Data saver | 360MB/hr | 2.8 hours | measured |
| Standard | 870MB/hr | 1.2 hours | measured |
| HD | 1.6GB/hr | 37 minutes | measured |
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 TikTok
- Netflix700MB/hr
- Instagram600MB/hr
- Zoom / Meet540MB/hr
Heavier than TikTok
- YouTube1.8GB/hr