A video bandwidth calculator estimates how much data a video transfers each time it is watched and what that adds up to in a month: length times bitrate gives the data per view, and views times the share watched gives the month. Enter the length, a quality or the file size, and your expected views to see the figures and which Vidreno plan's included allowance covers them. It runs in your browser: no account, and nothing you enter is sent to a server.
Share watched is the average part of the video each viewer gets through. 100% means everyone watches to the end; lower it if your audience usually drops off.
Your estimate
About 572 MB per full view and about 559 GB a month: fits the Standard plan.
Free $0/mo · 50 GB a month
Over1,118% of the allowance · covers about 89 views a month
Standard $12/mo · 5 TB a month
Fits11% of the allowance · covers about 9,162 views a month
Premium $59/mo · 50 TB a month
Fits1.1% of the allowance · covers about 91,625 views a month
More than the Premium plan includes. Contact us about a larger allowance.
Estimates use binary units (1 GB = 1,024 MB), the units the plan allowances are measured in. Paid plans serve several versions of each video and the player picks one per viewer, so real usage is usually below this original-file estimate. Views covered count views at the share watched you entered.
Video bandwidth is the data a video transfers to viewers when it plays. A hosting plan counts it per view: each time the video is watched, the bytes delivered to that viewer count against the month's allowance, so a video watched 1,000 times transfers roughly 1,000 times its size. Uploading the file once counts against storage instead, not bandwidth.
The arithmetic is short. A video's bitrate says how much data each second of playback carries: 1 Mbps is 1,000,000 bits a second, which is 125,000 bytes. Multiply the bitrate by the length and you have the data for one full view, which is also, near enough, the size of the file. Multiply that by the views you expect in a month, scaled by how much of the video people actually watch, and you have the month's bandwidth.
Worked example
Take a 10 min video at 1080p (Full HD), using the 8 Mbps preset. At 8 Mbps each second carries 1,000,000 bytes, so 10 min (600 seconds) comes to 600,000,000 bytes: about 572 MB per full view, and about 3.35 GB per hour of such video.
1,000 full views a month transfer about 559 GB. That is roughly 11 times the Free plan's 50 GB a month, which covers about 89 such views; the Standard plan's 5 TB covers about 9,162 and the Premium plan's 50 TB about 91,625.
The bitrate presets are typical web-delivery figures, taken from the upload recommendations YouTube and Vimeo publish (linked under sources) and listed in the assumptions table below. They are not the output of Vidreno's encoder, and your own file may sit well above or below them: a screen recording compresses far smaller than sport at the same resolution. If you have the file, enter its size instead and the bitrate is worked out from it.
Partial views use less. A viewer who leaves halfway through has only downloaded roughly half the video, so the share-watched input scales the month down. Players also buffer a little ahead of the playhead, which is why "roughly" appears throughout.
Paid plans serve several versions. On the Standard and Premium plans, every video you upload is auto-transcoded into several resolutions (8K / 4K / 1080p / 720p / 480p / 360p) and the player picks the one that suits each viewer's connection and device, so real usage is usually below this estimate for the original file. The Free plan plays the original file exactly as uploaded, so for it the estimate is the figure to plan around.
Sizes are binary. Storage and bandwidth allowances, including Vidreno's, use binary units: 1 GB on this page means 1,024 MB, which the IEC labels GiB. Bitrates stay decimal (1 Mbps = 1,000,000 bits a second), as every encoder reports them, and the page converts between the two for you.
More than the Premium plan? If the month comes out above 50 TB, contact us and we will talk through what you need.
Example 1
10 minutes, 1080p at the 8 Mbps preset, 1,000 views a month, everyone watches to the end.
572 MB per full view; 1,000 views come to about 559 GB a month. Too much for Free (50 GB), inside the Standard plan's 5 TB, which would cover about 9,162 such views a month.
Open in the calculatorExample 2
1 min 30 s, 720p at 5 Mbps, 20,000 views a month, viewers watch 60% on average.
53.6 MB per full view, about 32.2 MB at 60% watched; 20,000 views come to about 629 GB a month. Too much for Free (50 GB), inside the Standard plan's 5 TB, which would cover about 162,890 such views a month.
Open in the calculatorExample 3
A 16 GB file that runs for an hour, entered by file size, 300 full views a month.
16 GB per full view, an average of 38.2 Mbps; 300 views come to about 4.69 TB a month. Too much for Free (50 GB), inside the Standard plan's 5 TB, which would cover about 320 such views a month.
Open in the calculatorThe figures are the calculator's own output for the inputs stated, rounded for reading; the bitrate presets are the typical web-delivery figures from the assumptions table, not a measurement of any particular file.
At the preset bitrates. The last column is for a 10 min video, the length the worked example uses; a video twice as long transfers twice as much.
| Resolution | Bitrate | Per minute | Per hour | 1,000 views of 10 min |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 360p | 1 Mbps | 7.15 MB | 429 MB | 69.8 GB |
| 480p (SD) | 2.5 Mbps | 17.9 MB | 1.05 GB | 175 GB |
| 720p (HD) | 5 Mbps | 35.8 MB | 2.1 GB | 349 GB |
| 1080p (Full HD) | 8 Mbps | 57.2 MB | 3.35 GB | 559 GB |
| 1440p (2K) | 16 Mbps | 114 MB | 6.71 GB | 1.09 TB |
| 4K (2160p) | 40 Mbps | 286 MB | 16.8 GB | 2.73 TB |
Each plan's included monthly bandwidth divided by the data for one full view at the preset bitrate. Real viewers rarely all watch to the end, so these are floors rather than forecasts.
| Resolution | Per full view | Free (50 GB) | Standard (5 TB) | Premium (50 TB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 360p | 71.5 MB | 715 | 73,300 | 733,007 |
| 480p (SD) | 179 MB | 286 | 29,320 | 293,203 |
| 720p (HD) | 358 MB | 143 | 14,660 | 146,601 |
| 1080p (Full HD) | 572 MB | 89 | 9,162 | 91,625 |
| 1440p (2K) | 1.12 GB | 44 | 4,581 | 45,812 |
| 4K (2160p) | 2.79 GB | 17 | 1,832 | 18,325 |
Typical web-delivery video bitrates (SDR, standard frame rates), set from the upload recommendations the two largest video platforms publish. They describe what a well-encoded file at each size usually weighs, not what Vidreno's encoder produces for your upload. Edit the bitrate in the calculator if yours differs.
| Resolution | Preset used here | YouTube recommends | Vimeo recommends |
|---|---|---|---|
| 360p | 1 Mbps | 1 Mbps | 2–5 Mbps (SD) |
| 480p (SD) | 2.5 Mbps | 2.5 Mbps | 2–5 Mbps (SD) |
| 720p (HD) | 5 Mbps | 5 Mbps | 5–10 Mbps |
| 1080p (Full HD) | 8 Mbps | 8 Mbps | 10–20 Mbps |
| 1440p (2K) | 16 Mbps | 16 Mbps | 20–30 Mbps (2K) |
| 4K (2160p) | 40 Mbps | 35–45 Mbps | 30–60 Mbps |
The preset bitrates are typical web-delivery figures taken from the published upload recommendations linked here, not the output of Vidreno’s encoder, which depends on the file you upload and your plan. The plan allowances are the ones on the pricing page. The date below says when the figures were last checked.
Last reviewed .
From the help centre: Choosing the right plan for you · Adaptive quality playback for your videos.
Vimeo, Vimeo On Demand and Vimeo OTT are trademarks of Vimeo.com, Inc. Vidreno is not affiliated with or endorsed by Vimeo.
Vidreno hosts your videos for embedding on your own site or app, with a generous monthly bandwidth allowance included in each plan. The Free plan costs nothing and includes 50GB of bandwidth a month; paid plans start at $12/mo with 5TB.