Data Usage · Streaming
Search this question and you'll find a dozen sites quoting a dozen different numbers — 1080p is "2.5 GB," or "4.1 GB"; 4K is "10.6," or "23." None explain where the figures came from, because YouTube publishes no official data-per-hour table at all. This page fixes that: we derive every number transparently from YouTube's own published speed requirements, show the real-world measured ranges beside them, explain exactly why sources disagree, and give you a calculator for what your habit does to a phone plan.
📅 Published: July 21, 2026 | 🔄 Last reviewed: July 27, 2026
✓ Fact-checked: derived from YouTube's published system requirements, cross-checked against independent measurements; derivation method shown on-page · methodology
YouTube uses roughly 0.3 GB per hour at 360p, ~1.1 GB at 720p, ~2.3 GB at 1080p, and 9–16 GB in 4K. The default "Auto" setting picks quality from your connection, not your data plan — so a phone on fast 5G happily streams 1080p at ~2.3 GB/hour unless you cap it. One number to remember: a default-quality YouTube hour costs about 2.3 GB; everything else scales from there.
| Quality | YouTube's min speed | Derived per hour | Real-world range | 10-min video |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 360p | 0.7 Mbps | ~0.3 GB | 0.25–0.35 GB | 0.05 GB |
| 480p (Data saver class) | 1.1 Mbps | ~0.5 GB | 0.4–0.7 GB | 0.08 GB |
| 720p HD | 2.5 Mbps | ~1.1 GB | 0.9–1.6 GB | 0.19 GB |
| 1080p Full HD | 5 Mbps | ~2.3 GB | 1.5–4 GB | 0.38 GB |
| 1440p QHD | ~10 Mbps | ~4.5 GB | 3–6 GB | 0.75 GB |
| 4K (2160p) | 20 Mbps | ~9 GB | 9–16 GB (60fps/HDR higher) | 1.5 GB |
"Derived" = YouTube's own recommended sustained speed × 0.45 (a megabit-per-second held for an hour is 450 MB — the same conversion used across this site). The real-world column is wider than the derived number because actual bitrate depends on the video: codec, frame rate, and how much motion the encoder has to preserve. For budgeting, use the derived column for 720p and below, and the top of the range for 1080p60 and 4K.
Three real reasons, none of them "someone is lying." First, codec: YouTube serves the same video in different encodings — modern AV1 streams can use 30–50% less data than older codecs at the same resolution, and which one your device gets varies. Second, frame rate: 60fps roughly doubles the bits of 30fps at the same resolution, and YouTube has far more 60fps content than most platforms. Third, adaptive streaming: "watching in 1080p" actually means bouncing along a bitrate ladder that responds to your connection second by second.
That's why this page anchors on the one thing that's stable — YouTube's published speed requirements — and treats everything else as a measured range. Compare Netflix, which publishes official GB-per-hour figures directly (our Netflix breakdown): two services, two documentation philosophies, one conversion connecting them.
YouTube is the classic mobile-data eater. Pick quality and daily watching; see how long common data plans survive.
Quality
Watched per day
Monthly total (30 days)
69 GB
1080p · 1 h/day · ~2.3 GB/hour
5 GB plan
~2 days
15 GB plan
~6.5 days
50 GB plan
~22 days
An hour of default-quality YouTube daily is ~69 GB a month — more than most phone plans on its own. Data saver mode turns the same habit into ~15 GB.
Derived figures (conservative for 4K60/HDR). 30-day month. Wi-Fi hours are free of your cellular cap — this models cellular-only watching.
YouTube is one line of a plan's budget — for the whole picture (feeds, music, calls, and video together against 1–100 GB allowances), run your full mix through the allowance allocator.
YouTube's default is Auto, which optimizes for your connection, not your allowance — the faster your 5G, the more data it spends. The controls, in order of leverage:
Settings → Video quality preferences → separate choices for mobile networks and Wi-Fi: Auto / Higher picture quality / Data saver. Data saver caps around 480p — turning a ~2.3 GB default hour into ~0.5 GB. This is the single highest-impact switch on this page.
Overrides quality for the current video only — useful for forcing 4K on something worth it, or dropping a podcast to 144p. It doesn't change the app-wide default, which is why per-video discipline alone never fixes a data bill.
Autoplay-next keeps the meter running after your video ends, and muted playback in feeds streams video while you scroll. Both have toggles (Settings → Autoplay; Settings → General → Playback in feeds). Neither is huge per minute; both run unattended.
The recurring theme across services: defaults optimize for picture, caps punish for volume. Set the app-wide mobile preference once and the per-video gear becomes a treat switch, not a defense mechanism.
Shorts feel free — each clip is under a minute — but the feed is continuous vertical HD video with pre-loading of upcoming clips you may never watch. YouTube publishes nothing for Shorts specifically, so we'll label our estimate as one: continuous scrolling plausibly runs 0.7–1.5 GB per hour, TikTok-class consumption. A "quick" 30-minute session: call it half a gigabyte.
Two mitigations: the app-wide Data saver preference applies to Shorts too, and Wi-Fi obviously zeroes the cellular cost. The mental model that works: Shorts is a video stream you started the moment you opened the tab — the scroll doesn't pause the meter, it just changes the channel.
The half nobody covers: YouTube also consumes data upward. An upload costs exactly your file's size — a 10-minute 1080p60 export at a typical ~12 Mbps encode is ~0.9 GB; 4K exports run several gigabytes per 10 minutes, and re-uploading after a fix bills again. Live streaming spends continuously: at the ~6 Mbps YouTube suggests for 1080p, that's ~2.7 GB per hour of upload (6 × 0.45 — the same conversion, pointed the other way).
Upload data rarely threatens a home cap, but it absolutely threatens upload bandwidth — on cable plans uploading at 35–50 Mbps, a 20 GB 4K master occupies most of the upstream for an hour-plus, degrading every video call in the house. That asymmetry (and why fiber fixes it) is covered in our gigabit verdict.
| Quality | YouTube (derived/measured) | Netflix (official) |
|---|---|---|
| SD-class | ~0.3–0.5 GB | ~0.7 GB |
| HD 1080p | ~2.3 GB (1.5–4) | up to 3 GB |
| 4K | 9–16 GB | up to 7 GB |
The pattern worth knowing: the services are comparable through HD, then diverge hard at 4K — a YouTube 4K hour can cost double a Netflix 4K hour, thanks to higher-bitrate ladders and abundant 60fps content. If your cap is tight and your TV defaults to 4K, YouTube is the app to cap first. Full Netflix numbers, settings and cap math: how much data Netflix uses.
Quick answers on YouTube data usage
More free converters and calculators
