Spotify usually uses between about 10 MB and 150 MB of data per hour, depending mainly on your audio quality setting and whether you play video podcasts or extra visuals.

Quick Scoop: Typical Data Use

For music streaming only (no video), common estimates per hour are:

  • Low quality (around 24–48 kbps): about 10–15 MB per hour.
  • Normal quality (around 96 kbps): about 40–45 MB per hour.
  • High quality (around 160 kbps): about 70–75 MB per hour.
  • Very high quality (around 320 kbps): about 140–150 MB per hour.

That means if you listen about 1 hour per day at Normal quality, you’ll usually use roughly 1.2–1.5 GB per month.

Example: Light vs heavy listener

  • Light listener (1 hour/day, Normal): about 1.3 GB per month.
  • Medium listener (2 hours/day, Normal): about 2.4–3 GB per month.
  • Heavy listener (2 hours/day, High/Very high): roughly 5–8+ GB per month.

HTML table: Spotify data per quality

Below is an HTML table you can embed directly:

html

<table>
  <thead>
    <tr>
      <th>Spotify quality</th>
      <th>Approx. bitrate</th>
      <th>Data per hour</th>
      <th>Data per month (1 hr/day)</th>
    </tr>
  </thead>
  <tbody>
    <tr>
      <td>Low</td>
      <td>24–48 kbps</td>
      <td>≈ 10–15 MB/hour [web:3][web:5][web:7]</td>
      <td>≈ 0.3–0.5 GB/month [web:3][web:5]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Normal</td>
      <td>96 kbps</td>
      <td>≈ 40–45 MB/hour [web:3][web:7][web:9]</td>
      <td>≈ 1.2–1.5 GB/month [web:3][web:5][web:9]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>High</td>
      <td>160 kbps</td>
      <td>≈ 70–75 MB/hour [web:5][web:7][web:9]</td>
      <td>≈ 2–2.5 GB/month [web:5][web:9]</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
      <td>Very High</td>
      <td>320 kbps</td>
      <td>≈ 140–150 MB/hour [web:3][web:5][web:7][web:9]</td>
      <td>≈ 4–4.5 GB/month [web:5][web:9]</td>
    </tr>
  </tbody>
</table>

What secretly increases data use

Even if you mostly care about “how much data does Spotify use,” a few extra features can quietly push your numbers up:

  • Video podcasts: Streaming video can massively increase data compared to audio-only.
  • Canvas animations: Those looping visuals behind some tracks add extra data on mobile.
  • High/very high quality: Great for audiophiles, but they more than triple usage vs Normal.

Simple ways to use less data

If you’re worried about your mobile plan, you can usually cut Spotify’s data usage with a few settings:

  1. Turn on a data-saver mode (where available) to lower audio and reduce video quality.
  2. Set streaming quality to Low or Normal when on mobile data and keep High/Very high for Wi‑Fi only.
  3. Download playlists and podcasts on Wi‑Fi and listen offline during the day.
  4. Turn off video for podcasts and disable Canvas/visuals if your plan is tight.

In practice, most casual users listening around an hour a day on Normal quality sit near the 1–2 GB per month mark, which fits comfortably into many modern data plans.

TL;DR: For the search phrase “how much data does Spotify use,” the key number most people care about is ~40–45 MB per hour on Normal quality, or about 1.3 GB per month if you listen an hour a day.

Information gathered from public forums or data available on the internet and portrayed here.