How Much Data Does Spotify Use Per Hour

When the Buggles said that 'video killed the radio star', they weren't joking – except at present music streaming services are the top dog and have killed literally everything else. Gone are the days of lining upwardly outside your local record store, or spending hours attempting to download songs from Limewire onto your iPod touch. Now we observe ourselves proverb goodbye to our hardcopies and entering into a whole new globe of music – run by platforms similar Spotify. Just it's certainly not a free service – not least because of the cost of data required to stream, which we'll explain here.

What is Spotify?

Unless you lot've been living under a rock (or just really similar CDs), you lot would've heard of the Swedish-built-in music streaming platform that is Spotify. Launched in 2008, the service provides users with piece of cake, free (with ads) access to an impressive collection of more than thirty million songs. Spotify currently has millions of active users, with a practiced percent of those paying subscribers every bit role of the premium service – which eliminates advertising and allows users to download songs to be played after without internet. Basically, it'due south all a bit besides adept to be truthful – unproblematic, and nearly every song you lot could want to heed to is at your fingertips.

But how much data are yous using?

Equally great as all this sounds, at that place is one catch – Spotify needs your data in lodge to operate. The corporeality of information that you use depends on numerous unlike facts – let'southward have a look:

How much information is used for one song on Spotify?

To put it simply, on average and with Spotify's default audio settings, y'all can expect to use 2MB+ of data per every 3-minute song. If our maths is correct, that means it would cost y'all 38MB in data to listen to Travis Scott's 58-minute Astroworld or 31.5MB to listen to Ariana Grande'due south 47.25-minute Sweetener. The amount of data used changes, however, with the level of sound you lot choose to listen to your music.

Audio settings: What does this mean?

Basically, Spotify data usage is related to the level of audio quality you take called. Spotify has several audio quality settings, which be located through clicking on 'your library' -> 'settings' -> 'music quality', and then adjusting accordingly.

Spotify Audio Settings

Spotify audio settings are equally followed, as stated on the Spotify application. They are measured in kbps, which stands for kilobits per 2d ('bits' are essentially pieces of the vocal).

Normal quality – 96 kbps
Automated quality – (this is Spotify'due south default setting nosotros spoke near before – the quality is based on your internet connectedness, but will never dip below 96 kbps).
Loftier quality – 160 kbps
Very loftier quality – 320 kbps

Then, according to NBN Co, this is how sound settings interpret into how much data you will be using, per 3-minute song, and then per hour.

Normal – 2MB per song and 40MB per hour
Automatic – 2MB per vocal and 40MB per hour
High – 3.5MB per vocal and 70MB per hour
Very high – vii.5MB per song and 150MB per hour

So, that means if you're listening to bangers to and from piece of work every 24-hour interval on a round trip of an hour, you could exist using up to 750MB data a working calendar week! Obviously, you lot can try and reduce your data usage by listening to your music at a lower quality, but hey – who wants that. Luckily, we've rounded upward some hot tips to try and help you lot salve that dosh and even so hear Eminem's vox in the high-quality that it should be.

How to manage and reduce your data usage on Spotify

If you're ane of those people who doesn't accept much data with their phone plan (promise you're doing okay) and then try out some of these suggestions:

Constantly manage your mobile data usage

This is unproblematic, but often disregarded. You tin can check how much data you are using each day by going to your telephone'southward 'Settings' then clicking onto 'Mobile Data'. This way yous can clasp out equally many songs as you tin can before turning off your information at the end of the calendar month in order to non go over in your data usage.

Listen to your music offline

This requires you to purchase a premium business relationship – merely the payoff might be worth it in the end. Spotify premium allows you to download all your songs while y'all are connected to the internet (Wi-Fi), which can then be played later on even if you are not connected to the internet. This is great mode to relieve information usage, especially if yous can connect to Wi-Fi whilst you download your music.

And then, there you can take – nosotros guess it's truthful that can have your cake and eat it too (and by that nosotros mean superb quality downloaded music and no ridiculous telephone bills).

Phone plans with 'unlimited' information

If you discover Spotify regularly chewing through your data, it might be worth looking into a new telephone plan. More telcos offer big data inclusions for a reasonable price and some even offer unlimited data — but there is a grab. Both Optus and Telstra offer postpaid plans with 'unlimited' information, where one time you've gone over your program's included data allowance, you'll exist able to continue using data just with different capped speeds.

Telstra has eliminated excess data charges on its suite of four postpaid plans, which are bachelor as SIM-only plans and bundled with a device. This ways you tin continue using data once you've gone over your allowance, merely at the capped speed of 1.5Mbps. Optus has also implemented unlimited information in addition to your plan's full-speed gigabyte allowance, but this is again limited to speeds of i.5Mbps.

Vodafone has iv phone plans with unlimited capped-speed data, some with different speeds — the $40, with 2Mbps speeds, $45, with 2Mbps speeds, $55, with 10Mbps speeds, and $65, with 10Mbps speeds. All plans include varying amounts of fast-speed data inclusions, up to 100GB, so you might not fifty-fifty dip into your unlimited capped-speed data.

Still, Vodafone has too introduced a new, truly unlimited data plan with no speed restrictions or caps. This plan is priced at $85 per month and is bachelor both SIM-only and arranged with a smartphone. Although you don't demand super-fast speeds to stream Spotify, this may be an choice if you lot like using other streaming media, such as Netflix.

If you're interested in whatever of these plans and a new device to pair them with, both Telstra and Vodafone offering a range of the latest smartphones from brands including Apple, Samsung and OPPO.