📱 Mobile data
How Long Does 1GB Last?
Choose what you use your phone for and press Calculate to see how many hours 1 GB lasts, and what 1 hour costs in data.
About the How Long Does 1GB Last?
One gigabyte is 1,024 megabytes, so the answer is 1,024 divided by the megabytes per hour that activity consumes. Browsing text and social feeds uses around 60 MB an hour; HD video uses about 3,000 MB, which is why video is the only thing that really drains a plan.
These are typical figures on mobile networks, where video is often served at a lower bitrate than on Wi-Fi. Turning off autoplay and dropping video quality to 480p can stretch a gigabyte from two hours to six.
How the calculation works
- Hours = 1,024 MB ÷ MB per hour
- 1 GB = 1,024 MB
- HD video ≈ 3,000 MB/h · SD video ≈ 700 MB/h
Reference values
| Activity | Data per hour | 1 GB lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Web browsing | 60 MB | 17 h |
| Social media scrolling | 120 MB | 8.5 h |
| Music streaming | 50 MB | 20 h |
| SD video (480p) | 700 MB | 1.5 h |
| HD video (1080p) | 3,000 MB | 20 min |
| 4K video | 7,000 MB | 9 min |
| Online gaming | 100 MB | 10 h |
| Video calls | 500 MB | 2 h |
Worked examples
- A 2 GB plan at 120 MB/h gives 17 hours of social scrolling.
- One hour of 1080p video uses about 3 GB, so a 5 GB plan is 1.7 hours of it.
- Music at 50 MB/h gives 20 hours from a single gigabyte.
Where the data actually goes
Video dominates everything else by an order of magnitude. An hour of scrolling text and images is roughly 60 MB; an hour of the same app's video feed can be 1 GB. If a plan keeps running out, the fix is almost always video quality or autoplay, not general browsing.
Common mistakes
- Assuming Wi-Fi usage counts against mobile data. It does not, unless the phone has a data-saver bug.
- Leaving cloud photo backup on mobile data, which can consume gigabytes overnight.
- Believing a "1 GB" plan gives 1,000 MB exactly — allowances are usually 1,024 MB.
A last check on the Activity table: Web browsing 60 MB sits at the base of the chart, and the rows above it step in the same proportion, so you can scale from that first row instead of reading every line. If a figure you were quoted falls between two rows, it is the Data per hour side that has been rounded, not the conversion itself.