How Much Data Do You Need Abroad? Trip Calculator
Guessing how much mobile data a trip needs is hard, and most advice gives you one number for the whole trip without asking what you actually do with your phone. This works it out from your own habits, day by day, and tells you which of our two plan types fits the way you travel.
Pick the profile that sounds like you and adjust anything that does not. Nothing is stored, and you can change your mind as often as you like.
Hours per day for one device. People sharing a plan rarely all stream at once, so the result runs high on purpose.
—
The calculator rounds up and assumes you are never on Wi-Fi. In practice hotels, cafes and airports cover a good share of a trip, so treat the result as a ceiling rather than a forecast. Better to be told you need less than you bought than the reverse.
Fixed volume or unlimited — which suits you
We sell both, and neither is the better plan in the abstract. They suit different trips.
A fixed volume — 1, 5, 10, 20 GB and up depending on the destination — is the simplest choice when you have a rough idea of what you use. You buy an amount, it is yours for the length of the plan, there is no daily ceiling of any kind, and it is usually the cheaper of the two for short trips and predictable habits. If you run low you top up in seconds from the link in your order email, without reinstalling anything.
Unlimited is the one to take when you would rather not think about it: long trips, a schedule that changes, or the kind of travel where one day looks nothing like the next. You never watch a counter. If usage becomes unusually heavy the connection may run a little slower for the rest of the day and then returns to full speed — nothing is cut off, and you are never charged more than the price you paid. The detail is in our usage policy.
Where these rates come from
| Activity | Rate used | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Video streaming | 0.3 / 0.7 / 3 / 7 GB per hour | Published by Netflix for data saver, standard, HD and 4K |
| Messaging and email | 5 MB per hour | Estimate |
| Maps | 5 MB per hour | Estimate; satellite view runs three to four times higher |
| Web and apps | 50 MB per hour | Estimate |
| Social feeds | 400 MB per hour | Estimate, and the least reliable figure here |
| Music | 100 MB per hour | Estimate at standard quality |
| Video calls | 400 MB per hour | Estimate; HD calls run closer to 1 GB |
Only the video row is published by the service itself. Netflix documents its per-hour rates; no social platform does. Every other line is an estimate, and the social feed figure is the shakiest: the same hour of scrolling ranges from roughly 150 MB to over 800 MB depending on whether videos autoplay and at what resolution. Turning off autoplay on mobile data is the largest saving available to most travellers, and it costs nothing.
We publish the rates rather than hide them so you can disagree with them. If your own phone reports something different, trust your phone.
Sharing your connection changes the answer
A tethered laptop uses far more than the phone does — software updates, cloud sync and video calls at full resolution. If you plan to work from one, add it as a device above and pick the remote work profile. On both our plan types, sharing your connection draws on the same data as the phone itself: there is no separate, smaller cap for tethering, which is not the case everywhere.
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I use a lot on one day?
On a fixed volume, nothing at all — you are simply using what you bought, at full speed, on whichever days you choose. On unlimited, unusually heavy use may mean a slower connection for the remainder of that day before it returns to normal. Nothing is switched off and there is no extra charge either way.
Which one is cheaper?
For a short trip with predictable habits, a fixed volume usually is. For a long trip, or one where you would rather not keep an eye on anything, unlimited often works out better and always costs less to think about. The calculator above will tell you which side of that line your trip falls on.
Is it cheaper to buy one regional plan or several country plans?
If you cross two or more borders on the same trip, a regional plan is almost always cheaper than a plan per country, and there is nothing to reinstall at each border. For a single country, the country plan wins.
What if I get it wrong and run out?
You top up from the link in your order email — no new QR code, no reinstalling, and the data is added to the eSIM you already have. Getting the estimate slightly low is not an expensive mistake.
See plans for your destination
Because you worked it out rather than guessed, take 5% off your first plan
with the code DATAUSAGE5 at checkout.
Last updated: 30 August 2026 by the RapideSIM Travel Team.