By Alvin Wanjala
If you're not careful, WhatsApp can use more mobile data than expected. But there are ways to limit the app's usage.
WhatsApp is a great instant messaging platform and is one of the most popular options for people across the world. But if you use WhatsApp while on a cellular connection and with a limited data plan, you should cap down the app’s data usage. Otherwise, you could hit the ceiling fast before the month is over.
Thankfully, WhatsApp has some key features that can help you reduce the app's data usage. In this article, we’ll show you three ways you can leverage to reduce WhatsApp data usage.
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WhatsApp enables you to communicate with friends and family in a variety of ways. You can make audio and video calls, send texts, and send audio messages. Group calls are also supported, which comes in handy if you need a little friend group chat.
But how much data does WhatsApp use in all of these instances? Facebook, which owns WhatsApp, hasn’t explicitly revealed how much data the messaging app uses.
Our estimates place WhatsApp’s data usage during video calls at about 5MB per minute on 4G, 3.75MB on 3G, and 3MB on 2G. Meanwhile, our estimates place WhatsApp data usage at about 280KB per minute for numbers in the same country and 330KB for numbers in different countries for voice calls. But these are not official numbers in any way.
You can read more about this in our guide on everything to know about WhatsApp video calling.
So how can you monitor your own data usage? You can check your WhatsApp data usage inside the app. Head over to the settings section, select Storage and data, and then Network usage.
You can reduce WhatsApp data in three different ways. One is by reducing the data usage while on WhatsApp calls. Another is by disabling media auto-downloads. Finally, disabling chat backups will also help.
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WhatsApp has a dedicated feature for reducing audio and video call data usage.
Here’s how you can enable this feature inside the app...
On Android, follow these steps:
On iPhone, use these steps:
Disable Media Auto-downloads3 Images
If you receive lots of media files via WhatsApp, your data consumption will probably be pretty high.
Here's how to disable media auto-download on WhatsApp for Android:
For iPhone, you can do the same by following these steps:
Related: How to Free Up Storage Space on Your Android Device
WhatsApp chat backups also consume your data. While backing up your WhatsApp messages and media files is important, don't let it be a burden to your monthly phone bill.
Here's how to disable WhatsApp chat backups...
On Android:
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If you don't want to disable backups completely but still want to take control of these backups by yourself, select Only when I tap "Back up". On iPhone:
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Related: Tips to Make WhatsApp More Secure and Private
Using WhatsApp has become essential to many, with the application being a major communication channel with friends and family, and even work. If you’re not home or don’t have access to Wi-Fi, you can save data usage on WhatsApp by using the three tips provided above.
Once you're set, you should also check out other WhatsApp tips and tricks to use the app like a pro.
Here’s how much data WhatsApp uses:
Text messaging and group messaging use very little data, unless you receive or send lots of pictures.
Voice calls over WhatsApp use about 400 KB or 0.4 MB per minute on average, regardless of the network generation.
WhatsApp’s video calls, however, consume about 5 MB per minute.
So if you want to learn all about how much data WhatsApp uses, then you’re in the right place.
Let’s dig right in!
Texting and group messaging use almost no data. The only thing that adds up is receiving or sending lots of photos.
In addition to texting and group messaging, WhatsApp allows us to video or voice call individuals and groups. There is a difference between data usage in these two instances.
WhatsApp voice calls use 400 KB or 0.4 MB per minute on average when connected to any generation of network.
Now, when it’s connected through a 2G network, it uses 200 KB per minute.
In 3G data, it uses around 300 KB per minute, and with 4G, it uses around 500 KB per minute.
WhatsApp is not very data efficient compared with other apps.
However, a video call on the WhatsApp app will consume about 5 MB a minute. Now, this can be a troublesome situation.
Not to worry, there is a very simple way to reduce data consumption on WhatsApp.
Go to your WhatsApp app, tap on the three vertical dots, tap on Settings > Data and storage usage.
Once there, we can see the Call settings section, and we can turn on the Low data usage.
By the way, learn all about what it means when you call someone on WhatsApp, your phone rings and then says unavailable here.
Do you wonder how much data Snapchat uses in comparison?
You will consume 160 MB if you send snaps continuously for an hour. Each snap consumes approximately 1 MB of traffic.
Text messages take around 20 KB (1000 KB are 1 MB) per message, but sending about 10 stories takes about 20-25 MB.
Learn all about Snapchat’s data usage here.
When looking for a good Internet service provider and an economic data plan for our mobile devices, we look for the best possible solution. It’s a price/quality balance.
A decent plan should include unlimited calls (international excluded), text messaging, and some data available for surfing the Internet and using social media apps.
When we speak about data, we are talking about gigabytes (GBs).
We need those GBs in lots of situations:
There’s nothing simpler than turning on our Wi-Fi hotspot on an Android device when our ISP (Internet Service Provider) fails.
Think of working from home. When there’s work on the physical network or problems with our ISP, we lose track of work.
So, our data plan is a good temporary solution.
Another important issue can be how much data our work or entertainment consumes. To understand that, we need an explanation of what data consumption is.
All the things we do on the Internet consume data.
With our providers, whether they are an ISP or an MNO (Mobile Network Operator), we usually get a limited data plan.
If we cross the specified data limit, the bills come down hard on us like a hammer. This is why we need to be careful.
We need to know the amount of data allowed per month.
More importantly, we need to know which programs and apps use the most data and which ones use the least.
It’s fair to assume that some things we do online consume more data. Everything that has anything to do with a download will consume some data.
Usually, an enormous amount of data is consumed when we upgrade or update our systems.
The download can consume anywhere from a few measly megabytes (MBs) to a massive 4 GBs to upgrade an operating system.
Any software used can take a sizable chunk out of our data plan. We have to pay attention to what you’re downloading from the app stores.
Not only downloading but also uploading extensive files such as high-quality videos or photos results in quick data consumption.
It’s only logical that we should upload/download things when we connect to our ISP’s Wi-Fi network rather than through our MNO.
Streaming videos can be equally worrisome, especially if you’re a fan of hi-res visuals.
Imagine streaming a movie online.
Depending on the movie’s length and the quality of the video, it can consume anywhere from 1 GB to 10 GBs.
The result—pulling our hair out in disbelief when the monthly bill comes.
Believe it or not, playing games on our mobile devices online requires a lot less data than downloading them.
This is because no Android or iOS game developing company wants to prevent us from playing.
They want us to keep playing games for several reasons, such as watching ads or encourage in-game purchases. That’s why data consumption is very light.
Next, we have emails, social media, and browsing.
Of course, when we try to send huge attachments such as wedding videos or photo albums, we drive the data consumption insanely upward.
However, when we send texts or simply read them and view pictures online, we’re dealing in a low consumption zone.
Surprisingly, video conferencing and phone calls using various apps can take up to 400 KBs a minute. This is nothing compared to video streaming or software downloads.
Video conferencing consumes a little more, but it’s nothing to worry about.
Let’s discuss mobile networks and their varieties to understand how they work before continuing onto how much data each app consumes.
Keep reading!
Speaking about network speeds or a mobile network, we often hear the terms 3G, 4G, or 5G.
These are the various network speeds supported by smartphones.
You’re probably wondering what the “G” stands for. It’s not GigaHertz (GHz), as some would believe. It’s actually “generation.”
So, the first mobile network connected to smartphones was the 3G network, i.e., the 3rd generation network.
The predecessor of the 3G network was the EDGE network. EDGE stands for Enhanced Data rates for GSM (Global System for Mobile) Evolution.
You probably remember when we had that “E” sign next to the bars on our phone.
Well, that’s the EDGE sign we could notice in the notification bar of our Android phones.
The major difference between the three generations is their latency. Latency is the reaction time between the sending and the reception of data.
For example, when you press a button on your TV remote, you almost immediately change the channel or volume. Internet connections—especially the older ones—don’t react so quickly.
5G promises significant changes in this department, so people can almost instantly control very remote devices.
So, when we click a button or touch something on our smartphone in Japan, the air conditioning at our apartment in Germany will turn on immediately.
Also, the speed between these network generations varies. The 4G network allows us to stream videos and movies.
The 3G network is good for browsing, although it is significantly slower than 4G, and 5G can be up to 10 times faster than 4G.
Imagine the possibilities!
The question we’re trying to answer now is how much data does each, now famous and frequently used, app consumes. This is no simple task because there are a lot of sources that vary in information.
There are also a lot of factors that affect data consumption of any app. For example, for phone calls and videoconferencing, it’s the talking time. For social media apps and text messages that go through, it’s media type and the length of the involved message.
So, let’s take a look at each app and its data consumption. Remember that your smartphone might use data for updates unless you restrict it.
As the largest social network, Facebook can be very useful and entertaining.
We use it to keep in touch with our friends and family or to read useful/useless information.
Plus, we sometimes surf social networks for funny videos.
Unfortunately, because of all that content and the improvements to the app that come almost daily, the Facebook app consumes more data.
The average use is approximately 1.5 MB per minute.
If we involve video content, it goes up to 2.6 MB per minute. Of course, video quality largely affects data consumption.
So, we can easily spend over 2 GB of data just using the Facebook app.
Luckily for our monthly bills, there’s a Facebook Lite app, a great data-saving solution. It uses less data because there are no fancy animations and fine details. It can consume about 50% less data than the regular app.
The other factor that goes in favor of the Facebook Lite app is that it works smoothly in areas with poor signals.
Messenger can consume data in a lot of ways, so it’s a little more difficult to get to an exact number.
When we send text messages, we don’t use that much data.
Photos, emojis, and animations use a little more than text messages.
Of course, voice calls and video calls use a lot more.
For example, a Facebook Messenger voice call uses approximately 350 KB per minute instead of the WhatsApp messenger, which uses 400 KB on average.
Messenger consumes around 3.20 MB a minute for video calls, while WhatsApp uses approximately 5 MB a minute.
There are quite a few differences in consumption between these two.
FaceTime is a popular app on iOS. It’s very data efficient compared with WhatsApp.
This app uses approximately 3 MB of data per minute during a video call.
However, there’s a possibility to have an audio call using FaceTime, and it uses Wi-Fi or cellular data.
Of course, an audio call consumes much fewer data.
It’s about 600 KB per minute for an audio call using FaceTime, a little more than WhatsApp voice calls.
There are several ways we can spare our data plan when using our smartphones.
The most logical way is to connect to Wi-Fi networks as frequently as possible.
When we’re connected to Wi-Fi, our devices don’t consume data provided by our MNOs.
However, a smart data consumption option activates data consumption when there are breaks in the Wi-Fi connection.
Another good tip to limit your data use is to not stream when you’re not connected to Wi-Fi.
Instead, download a couple episodes of your favorite TV show when you’re on Wi-Fi and watch them later.
Also, you can limit data use by going to Settings > Apps and then tapping on an app that you’d like to limit.
Tap on Mobile data, and just disable background data usage.
Setting a data warning and data limit on your smartphone is also a good way to save data.
You can do this by going to Settings > Connections > Data usage > Mobile data usage > Billing cycle and data warning.
You’ll see an option to receive a notification when your device consumes a certain amount of data.
Also, there will be an option that you can tap that says “Limit mobile data usage.”
Finally, you can turn on the Data saver.
Go to Settings > Connections > Data usage > Data saver. Turn it on, and it will stop apps from running any kind of background data.
It would seem that instant messengers are not the applications that require a lot of Internet. In fact, it all depends on how actively and how to use them. Under certain conditions, even on WhatsApp, you can effortlessly spend about ten gigabytes per month. With a limited internet package, it would be nice to know how much traffic WhatsApp consumes in general and how to save it wisely. Let's look into this issue.
First, let's talk about how much WhatsApp consumes while running in the background. This is just 1 MB of traffic per day. Then there are text messages, each character sent consumes 1.6 bytes. That is, 1 MB of traffic is enough for 655360 characters in correspondence, and this is not the volume of the smallest book novel.
Voice messages are "heavier" in order, one such message per minute will require 160 Kb of traffic, and for 1 MB it will be possible to record messages for 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Audio calls consume even more - 350 KB per minute of conversation. But they are still far from video communication - 6.7 MB per minute.
Files carry the biggest load. Sending documents, photos or videos takes the lion's share of traffic. This is despite the fact that WhatsApp compresses images and videos by default, degrading their quality but reducing their weight.
It is worth mentioning two more sources that consume the Internet. The first is backup. It allows you to restore correspondence and files attached to them when you reinstall the messenger. Perhaps this is due to sending all the contents of your WhatsApp account to the cloud storage. Naturally, this consumes traffic, the amount of which depends on the volume of files and messages. The second is the automatic update of the messenger, the size of updates can be either very tiny or reach tens of megabytes.
If your Internet is very limited and WhatsApp consumes too much, then you can resort to the following steps to reduce Internet consumption:
Topic: 7 most useful Whatsapp features that few people know about
Contents
WhatsApp is a service designed for communication in a variety of formats. Subscribers can talk in real time using the smartphone's camera and microphone, as well as send text and multimedia content to each other. Already in 2016, the messenger became completely free. Service subscribers pay only the Internet service provider. Knowing the approximate traffic consumption, the user can minimize the cost of communication by correctly distributing priorities. This is especially important if the subscriber uses a tariff plan, the rates of which depend on the number of megabytes transferred. How much traffic does WhatsApp consume next.
Internet usage while the application is running is distributed as follows:
Communication with a picture requires more internet consumption. A minute of conversation without including an image uses 350 kilobytes, a similar conversation time with a picture is about 6.6 megabytes. One hour of video conversation corresponds to 400 MB transfer.
Mobile devices contain built-in utilities for calculating network connection costs. Access to the option depends on the platform on which the smartphone is running. Most often, the information is located inside the options menu, in the "Connections" section. The name of the option varies: "Data usage", "Traffic monitoring", "Internet consumption".
Using this option, you can see the consumption of mobile data for a specific application for a selected period, as well as set a limit on data transfer through a specific service. When the limit is exhausted, all types of communication through the messenger will be blocked.
To clarify information about Internet consumption, you can use special utilities. There are programs that allow you to set up notifications about approaching the set limit, as well as regulate data transfer depending on roaming, connection method and other conditions.
Inside the WhatsApp application, you can check the statistics related to the traffic used, including highlighting information on specific interlocutors.
The Network Usage option is located in the Settings menu section, inside the Data Storage block.
There are several methods to help you minimize your internet usage when communicating.
