WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging apps in the world, with over 2 billion users. It allows people to send messages, photos, videos and make voice and video calls easily and for free (aside from data charges). But how much data does WhatsApp actually use when you’re messaging friends or making calls?
How WhatsApp Uses Your Data
WhatsApp gives you two options that determine how much data the app uses:
- When you send and receive messages, photos, videos, documents etc.
- When you make voice or video calls
By default, WhatsApp will use your mobile data plan or WiFi data plan to send and receive messages. The amount it uses depends on the media being sent. Plain text uses very little, while photos, videos and calls use much more.
You can also enable WhatsApp to make voice and video calls using your cellular plan minutes. This option uses less mobile data, but may counting against your monthly minute allowance.
How Much Data Do WhatsApp Messages Use?
Sending regular text messages via WhatsApp uses very little data. Here’s an overview:
- Text message: 64 bytes – 0.0000064 MB per message
- Small image: 256KB on average
- Voice message: 893KB per minute on average
- Video: 16MB per minute on average
Assuming the average WhatsApp user sends 40 messages per day, if they were all text that would use only 0.000256MB per day. That’s about 1MB per month.
Of course most people send a mix of text, photos, videos and other media. 5 photos, 3 videos and 20 text messages per day would use around 30MB per day or 900MB per month.
To estimate your total usage, add up the amounts for each type of message you normally send.
How Much Data Do WhatsApp Voice/Video Calls Use?
WhatsApp gives you the option to make voice and video calls over your data plan or using cellular minutes. Here is an overview of how much data is used for calls:
- WhatsApp voice call: 893KB per minute on average
- WhatsApp video call: 16MB per minute on average
So a 30 minute WhatsApp voice call would use around 27MB and a 30 minute video call would use 480MB.
If you make just 2 hours of WhatsApp calls per day, that’s around 1.4GB of data for voice calls or 9.6GB of data for video calls.
How to Save Data When Using WhatsApp
If you are worried about your WhatsApp data usage there are a few things you can do:
- Use WhatsApp calls over WiFi whenever possible
- Enable lower quality video calling in settings
- Ask contacts to send videos as documents which use less data
- Use WhatsApp’s data saver setting which reduces data usage on calls
- Set messages to download only when on WiFi in WhatsApp settings
WhatsApp Data Usage Compared to Other Apps
Here’s how WhatsApp compares to some other popular apps and activities when it comes to mobile data usage:
| App/Activity | Data Usage |
|---|---|
| WhatsApp message | 64 bytes per text message |
| WhatsApp voice call | 893KB per minute |
| WhatsApp video call | 16MB per minute |
| 100KB – 300KB per hour | |
| 250KB – 500KB per hour | |
| YouTube | 500MB – 1GB per hour of video |
| Netflix | 700MB – 3GB per hour of video |
| Spotify | 24-150MB per hour of streaming |
As you can see, WhatsApp uses very little data for plain messaging compared to streaming and video apps. But voice and video calls can quickly use up mobile data.
How to Check Your WhatsApp Data Usage
If you want to keep track of how much data WhatsApp is using on your phone, there are two easy ways to check:
- On Android: Go to Settings > Data Usage and look for WhatsApp data usage.
- On iPhone: Go to Settings > Mobile Data > Mobile Data Usage and scroll to WhatsApp.
This will show your data usage for WhatsApp over mobile connections. You can reset the counter anytime to start a new monthly tracking cycle.
If you notice WhatsApp using more data than expected, try toggling on some of the data saving options mentioned earlier.
Conclusion
In summary, WhatsApp uses:
- ~1MB per month for plain text messaging
- ~30MB per month for a mix of text, photos and short videos
- ~900MB per month for regular voice calls
- Up to 10GB per month for frequent video calls
While plain messaging is very light on data usage, you need to watch your usage if heavily using WhatsApp’s voice and video calling features, especially on mobile data. Enable WiFi calling when possible, use data saving settings and monitor your usage to avoid surprises.