Apple Music and Spotify: How much data does music streaming use?

In an era where streaming music has become a daily routine for millions, both Apple Music and Spotify dominate the music streaming landscape. Both Apple Music and Spotify offer vast libraries of songs, playlists, and podcasts. Streaming music on a limited data allowance? Let’s take a look at how much data these music streaming apps use.

Understanding Music Streaming and Data Consumption

Music streaming services compress audio files to reduce data usage while still offering good sound quality. Typically, these services provide multiple streaming quality options, ranging from lower-quality streams to higher-quality, lossless audio.

The amount of data consumed during streaming depends largely on the bitrate of the audio, which is measured in kilobits per second (kbps). Higher bitrates generally result in better sound quality but use more data.

How much data does Spotify use?

Spotify offers several streaming quality options, which greatly influence data consumption:

• Low (24 kbps): Around 90 KB per minute (0.054 GB per hour)
• Normal (96 kbps): Around 0.72 MB per minute (0.043 GB per hour)
• High (160 kbps): Around 1.2 MB per minute (0.072 GB per hour)
• Very High (320 kbps): Around 2.4 MB per minute (0.144 GB per hour)

These figures suggest that the amount of data used on Spotify varies significantly based on your selected audio quality. In general, Spotify’s highest quality setting (320 kbps) uses approximately 144 MB of data per hour.

Spotify also provides an offline mode that allows users to download music and listen without using data. This is an effective solution for those who want to conserve mobile data.

How much data does Apple Music use?

Apple Music also offers different streaming quality levels, though it does not always give users as much manual control over them as Spotify. The following estimates reflect typical data consumption for each quality level:

• Low Quality (64 kbps): Around 0.48 MB per minute (0.029 GB per hour)
• High Efficiency (128 kbps): Around 0.96 MB per minute (0.057 GB per hour)
• High Quality (256 kbps): Around 1.92 MB per minute (0.115 GB per hour)
• Lossless (24-bit/48 kHz): Around 36 MB per minute (2.16 GB per hour)
• Hi-Res Lossless (24-bit/192 kHz): Up to 145 MB per minute (8.7 GB per hour)

Many users of Apple Music favour Apple Music due to the availability of the lossless audio option. However, it is important to note that while lossless audio provides a much better quality, it also consumes significantly more data than standard streaming. At its highest quality, Apple Music can use more than 8 GB of data per hour, which is far higher than Spotify's maximum data usage.

However, for the average user streaming at regular quality (256 kbps), Apple Music consumes approximately 115 MB of data per hour, similar to Spotify’s higher-quality settings.

How to reduce data usage on music streaming

There are a few ways that you can reduce data usage with music streaming:

1. Use a lower streaming quality: You can reduce the streaming quality, which lowers the amount of data used. Disable lossless audio on Apple Music if you are streaming via data.
2. Download Music for Offline Listening: If you're worried about data, you can download your favorite playlists, albums, or podcasts over Wi-Fi and listen offline. This way, you don’t use any data while listening. Remember to download your music only when you are connected to Wi-Fi so that you do not end up using your data for the download.

Stay connected with a Nomad data eSIM as you stream

If you are streaming music while traveling, it is important that you stay connected on your trip with a Nomad international data eSIM.

Nomad offers affordable data plans in over 170 countries, and you can be sure to find one that is suitable for your travel needs. And if you will be traveling across multiple countries, there are also regional plans available so you can stay seamlessly connected as you hop between countries. Data plans are available from as low as $1.10/GB.

Add-ons are also available for Nomad’s eSIMs, so you do not need to worry about running out of data. If you notice that you are running low on data, simply purchase an add-on before your data pack runs out. The add-on data pack will be automatically activated when the base plan runs out, so you do not have to worry about having to install a new eSIM.

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