How much data do I need?
Less than most people think, unless you stream. Here's what a day of travelling uses, what each app costs in data, and which pack size fits your trip.
How much data, at a glance
| Trip | Light | Normal | Heavy |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3 days | 0.8 GBtake 1 GB | 1.8 GBtake 3 GB | Unlimited |
| 7 days | 1.8 GBtake 3 GB | 4.2 GBtake 5 GB | Unlimited |
| 14 days | 3.5 GBtake 5 GB | 8.4 GBtake 10 GB | Unlimited |
| 21 days | 5.3 GBtake 10 GB | 13 GBtake 20 GB | Unlimited |
| 30 days | 7.5 GBtake 10 GB | 18 GBtake 20 GB | Unlimited |
Light is about 0.25 GB a day: maps, messages, ride apps. Normal is about 0.6 GB a day: add socials and stories. Heavy is streaming, hotspot and work. The pack size includes about 10% margin, because your phone counts a little differently from the network.
The short answer
- Light use, about 0.25 GB a day: maps, messages, ride apps, looking things up. A week fits in 3 GB.
- Normal use, about 0.6 GB a day: the same plus socials and stories. Two weeks fits in 10 GB, a month in 20 GB.
- Heavy use: streaming video, using your phone as a hotspot for a laptop, working on the road. That’s where Unlimited makes sense.
Most travellers are somewhere around normal. Not sure? Pick the next size up: running out halfway costs you more than a few extra gigabytes.
What each app really uses
These are rough figures, and they vary with your settings and with how fast the network is. Where a company publishes its own figure, we use it.
| What you do | Data, roughly |
|---|---|
| Navigating with Google Maps | a few MB an hour |
| Messages, with the odd photo | tens of MB a day |
| Voice call on WhatsApp | about 1 MB a minute or less |
| Video call | several MB a minute, a few hundred MB an hour |
| Scrolling Instagram or TikTok | several hundred MB an hour, often more |
| Music at Spotify’s Normal quality (96 kbps) | about 43 MB an hour |
| Netflix in standard definition | up to 1 GB an hour |
| Netflix in HD | up to 3 GB an hour |
The pattern: text and maps cost almost nothing, video costs a lot. Ten minutes of video can use as much as a full day of maps and messages.
Five ways to make your data last
- Download before you go. Offline maps in Google Maps, your playlists, a few episodes on Netflix. Do it on wifi.
- Stop the background uploads. iCloud Photos, Google Photos and other cloud backups can upload hundreds of photos over mobile data. Set them to wifi only.
- Turn off autoplay. Instagram, TikTok and YouTube start videos by themselves. Most apps have a data saver setting.
- Use Low Data Mode. On iPhone it’s under the settings of your eSIM line, on Android it’s called Data Saver. It holds back updates and background activity.
- Watch out with hotspot. A laptop on your phone’s data downloads updates and syncs files without asking. Switch those off first.
Your phone counts differently
Your phone’s data counter and the network’s counter never match exactly. That’s normal: they measure at different points. Keep about 10% margin; the table above already includes it.
Running out?
On our 3 GB plans and bigger, you stay online at 128 kbps when the data runs out: slow, but enough for messages and maps. The 1 GB plan stops. Need more? Order a new plan in two minutes; it comes with its own QR code.
Going to more than one country? Our route planner adds up the days and countries for you and picks the cheapest eSIM that covers it.
Sources: Netflix Help Center, How to control how much data Netflix uses. The Spotify figure follows from its 96 kbps bitrate. The other figures are our own estimates.
Last updated on 24 October 2026.