Tool
Travel data usage calculator
Most travelers overbuy data because they don't know how much they'll actually use. Pick how you typically use your phone and we'll estimate the total — plus the plan size that fits, without paying for unlimited you won't touch.
The basics
Start from a preset
Pick the closest match, then fine-tune the activity hours below.
Hours per day on each activity
- 0 h
Email, news, Slack, light web — text-heavy, low-image use.
- 0 h
Google Maps or Apple Maps with offline regions pre-downloaded.
- 0 h
WhatsApp, iMessage, Telegram — text only, no media.
- 0 h
WhatsApp, FaceTime audio, Signal — voice only.
- 0 h
WhatsApp video, FaceTime, Zoom — at standard quality.
- 0 h
Spotify or Apple Music at high quality.
- 0 h
Instagram, TikTok, X, Reddit — videos auto-play in feed.
- 0 h
YouTube, Netflix, Disney+ at standard quality (~720p).
Safety buffer
Background sync, photo backups, and unaccounted browsing usually push real usage 10–20% above the per-activity estimate. Default 15% covers most travelers; bump higher if you do frequent photo or cloud backups on cellular.
Estimated total
Set at least one activity above to see your estimate.
What the rates mean
The MB-per-hour figures shown next to each activity are typical cellular consumption rates, sourced from published bandwidth profiles and cross-checked against our own measurements on mid-range LTE in 2025-26. Real numbers vary with network conditions, codec choices, and the specific app version.
Social media is the silent burner. Instagram and TikTok auto-play video as you scroll — that's why an hour of scrolling can cost 600 MB or more, ten times what an hour of email and browsing uses. If you spend two hours a day in those apps, you're burning more data than someone watching a Netflix episode.
Maps barely cost anything. Google Maps with offline regions pre-downloaded uses around 8 MB per hour — cellular is filling in real-time updates only. Pre-download offline regions of your destination cities before you fly and cellular maps stays cheap.
Video calls are 10× voice calls. A WhatsApp voice call runs about 30 MB per hour; a video call at standard quality is 300 MB. If you'll do daily video calls home, model that explicitly — it adds up across a week-long trip.
Hotel and restaurant Wi-Fi handles the rest. Most travelers spend half their waking time on Wi-Fi — evenings at the rental, lunches at cafes, museums, airports. Cellular is the bridge between Wi-Fi spots, not your only data source. The activity hours above should reflect time you'll actually use cellular, not total app time.
Sized vs unlimited
Travel-eSIM providers sell two structures: sized plans (fixed GB for fixed days, e.g. 10 GB for 14 days) and unlimited plans (no GB cap, usually with a hotspot ceiling). Most travelers pay too much by defaulting to unlimited.
The math: a typical 10-day European trip burns 5-12 GB across both adults. A 10 GB sized plan runs $15-25; an unlimited plan for the same period is $35-60. The unlimited plan would have ~50 GB of unused capacity. You paid double for nothing.
When unlimited is the right call: heavy hotspot use (working from cellular all day), heavy video calls (3+ hours daily), or destinations where the connection is unreliable enough that you want the room to retry without thinking about it. For a typical tourist or short-trip business traveler, sized is almost always cheaper for the same real-world usage.