Bandwidth for websites, live streams and data plans
Bandwidth questions come in a few shapes: how much data will my website serve each month, what upload speed does a live stream to 200 viewers need, how many Mbps is 1 TB a month, and what will the overage cost? This bandwidth calculator answers each one in its own tab, and includes a bits-and-bytes converter for the decimal (kB, MB, GB) and binary (KiB, MiB, GiB) prefixes that cause so much confusion.
It is aimed at site owners comparing hosting plans, streamers and event organisers sizing an uplink, network admins turning a monthly data cap into a sustained rate, and anyone who needs to know whether a figure is in bits or bytes.
All calculations run in your browser; nothing is sent anywhere.
How to use the Bandwidth Calculator
- Choose a tab: Website, Video streaming, Data ↔ Mbps, Hosting cost or Bits & bytes.
- For a website, enter the average page size (your browser’s developer tools show the total transferred), the page views per month or per day, and a peak factor.
- For streaming, enter the bitrate per stream (or pick a preset), the number of people watching at the same time and the hours per month.
- In Data ↔ Mbps, type either the monthly data or the speed; the other updates.
- In Hosting cost, enter your plan’s allowance and price per extra GB — or press Use the website result.
Bandwidth Calculator features
Website bandwidth
Monthly transfer, average throughput and a peak figure to size a server port or CDN plan.
Streaming bandwidth
Total outbound bandwidth for a given bitrate and audience, and the data it adds up to over a month.
Monthly data ↔ Mbps
Two-way conversion with a choice of 28, 30, 30.44 or 31 days, in GB, TB, GiB or TiB.
Hosting cost estimate
Allowance, overage price and base plan in $, ₹, € or £.
Bits and bytes
Fourteen units from bit to tebibyte side by side, as amounts or as rates per second; a flowing line speeds up with the bandwidth.
The formulas
- Website: monthly data = page size × page views. Average rate = monthly data × 8 ÷ (30 × 86,400 s). 2.5 MB × 100,000 views = 250 GB a month = 0.77 Mbps on average; with a peak factor of 3, plan for about 2.3 Mbps.
- Streaming: bandwidth = bitrate × concurrent viewers. 200 viewers at 5 Mbps need 1 Gbps; 40 hours of that is 1 Gbps ÷ 8 × 144,000 s = 18 TB.
- Data ↔ rate: Mbps = bytes × 8 ÷ seconds in the period ÷ 10⁶. 1 TB over 30 days is 3.09 Mbps non-stop; 10 Mbps for 30 days is 3.24 TB.
- Hosting: cost = base price + max(0, transfer − allowance) × price per GB.
Decimal and binary units
Networks and storage makers use decimal prefixes: 1 kB = 1,000 bytes, 1 MB = 10⁶, 1 GB = 10⁹. Operating systems often count in powers of two: 1 KiB = 1,024 bytes, 1 MiB = 1,048,576 and 1 GiB = 1,073,741,824 — about 7% more than a GB. Speeds are almost always in bits per second (lower-case b, Mbps), and sizes in bytes (upper-case B, MB), a factor of eight apart.
| Unit | Bytes | Bits |
|---|---|---|
| 1 kB (kilobyte) | 1,000 | 8,000 |
| 1 KiB (kibibyte) | 1,024 | 8,192 |
| 1 MB | 1,000,000 | 8,000,000 |
| 1 MiB | 1,048,576 | 8,388,608 |
| 1 GB | 1,000,000,000 | 8 × 10⁹ |
| 1 GiB | 1,073,741,824 | 8.59 × 10⁹ |
| 1 TB | 10¹² | 8 × 10¹² |
Practical notes
Live-streaming platforms and CDNs fan your stream out to viewers, so your own uplink needs only one stream’s bitrate plus headroom (about 1.5× is a common rule). Self-hosting to every viewer is what the streaming tab totals. For one-off transfers use the download time calculator; to measure your actual line, run the internet speed test; and for converting storage sizes alone, the data storage converter.
Bandwidth Calculator FAQ
How do I calculate website bandwidth?
Multiply the average page size by the monthly page views. The bandwidth calculator also turns that into an average and a peak speed, so you can choose a hosting plan or port size.
How much bandwidth do I need to live stream?
For yourself, the bitrate of your stream plus 20–50% headroom — for 1080p at 5–6 Mbps, an upload of at least 8 Mbps. Serving every viewer directly needs bitrate × viewers.
How many Mbps is 1 TB per month?
About 3.09 Mbps if spread evenly over 30 days, or 3.04 Mbps over an average month of 30.44 days.
What is the difference between MB and MiB?
A MB (megabyte) is 1,000,000 bytes; a MiB (mebibyte) is 1,048,576 bytes. Windows labels MiB as “MB”, which is why drives look smaller than advertised.
Is bandwidth the same as speed?
Bandwidth is the capacity of a link (bits per second); download speed is how much of it you actually get. Data transfer (GB per month) is the total volume moved.
Does the hosting estimate match my provider?
Only if you enter their allowance and prices. Providers differ in how they count transfer (outbound only, or both ways) and in regional prices.