We love streaming music and audio on a variety of devices: smartphones, tablets, and voice-activated speakers like Amazon’s Echo Dot and Google’s Home devices. All of these devices use services like Pandora, Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, and more to stream our favorite music.
How much mobile data does music streaming use?
But we wondered: how much data does streaming music actually use?
The amount of data your music streaming services use depends on the streaming quality settings in the application. Quality settings are measured in bitrates, which is the speed at which data is processed or transferred. The higher the bitrate, the better the quality of the music when you listen to it.
For example, Apple Music maxes out at 256 Kbps (kilobits per second), while Spotify Premium maxes out at 320 Kbps. Most services let you change the quality setting, based on your plan type and how you’re listening to the music (over Wi-Fi or a cellular network, for example).
