This post explains how much data and bandwidth is required by Zoom. You can use it to calculate mobile data used if you’re attending a Zoom meeting on your phone. It can also be used to determine the bandwidth requirements for your Internet connection.
Quick Summary
Zoom can consume a significant amount of data. Zoom uses 90 MB per hour for a voice call. A high quality video conference call of the same duration uses 900 MB of data. Increasing the video quality to 720p increases the data usage to 2.34 GB.
Calculator
Enter
- Meeting duration (in hours and minutes)
- Meeting type (Voice or Video [High Quality, 720p or 1080p])
- Number of users (use the default value of 1 to estimate personal use; any number greater than 1 to see the impact on your home network or enterprise)
- Number of calls – how many do you make during the course of a day? If you only want to calculate data usage for one call, enter 1.
The tool will provide
- Bandwidth (required number of Mbps)
- Total data usage or consumption
Use the drop down menu to select the units
Example Calculations
Mobile Use
You might have to join a zoom meeting on your phone while you’re on the road. In this case using up precious cellular data can get quite expensive. For instance a 30 minute zoom high quality video call on your phone takes up 450 MB. A voice call of the same duration will only take up 45 MB. Many mobile data caps are limited to 1 GB a day. So a 1 hour call will nearly use it all up.
When you’re roaming, it might actually make more sense to dial into the meeting. In that case you’re only using up voice minutes and saving on your data usage.
Enterprise
- A one minute Zoom voice meeting with a single user consumes 1.5 Megabytes.
- A one minute Zoom video meeting with a single user consumes 15 MB to 57 MB depending on video quality.
A Zoom video meeting consumes between 10 and 40 times the amount of data relative to a voice meeting. Something to remember if you’re traveling and using your cellular connection with limits on the amount of data used every month.
- A one hour, single user Zoom video call consumes between 900 MB and 3.4 GB. We can see how this number can add up pretty quickly across even a small organization.
The calculator also allows you to plan your network bandwidth requirements. For instance, with 10 users the total bandwidth consumed is 38 Mbps at the highest quality setting.
Background
Zoom bandwidth consumption depends on whether it is a voice or video meeting and the app settings. We have used Zoom’s recommendation for the best performance settings.
What is the Minimum Bandwidth required by Zoom?
Zoom supports three distinct performance levels: high quality video, 720p and 1080p. The minimum requirements are those consistent with high quality video shown in the table below.
| Application | Bandwidth Requirements |
|---|---|
| 1:1 Video Calling | 600 kbps |
| Group Video calling | 1.0 Mbps Up / 600 kbps Down |
| Screen Sharing only | 50 kbps |
| Screen sharing with video thumbnail | 50 kbps |
| Audio VoiP | 60 kbps |
| Zoom Phone | 100 kbps |
| Webinar with panelist’s video on | 600 kbps |
| Webinar Screen sharing only | 50 kbps |
| Webinar Screen sharing & video thumbnail | 50 kbps |
| Webinar with Audio VoiP | 60 kbps |
Related Calculators
Zoom Data Consumption Table
The following table shows the data use in Megabytes for single user Voice and High Quality Video calling.
| Minutes | Voice Call (MB) | Video Call (MB) |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1.5 | 15 |
| 2 | 3 | 30 |
| 3 | 4.5 | 45 |
| 4 | 6 | 60 |
| 5 | 7.5 | 75 |
| 6 | 9 | 90 |
| 7 | 10.5 | 105 |
| 8 | 12 | 120 |
| 9 | 13.5 | 135 |
| 10 | 15 | 150 |
| 11 | 16.5 | 165 |
| 12 | 18 | 180 |
| 13 | 19.5 | 195 |
| 14 | 21 | 210 |
| 15 | 22.5 | 225 |
| 16 | 24 | 240 |
| 17 | 25.5 | 255 |
| 18 | 27 | 270 |
| 19 | 28.5 | 285 |
| 20 | 30 | 300 |
| 21 | 31.5 | 315 |
| 22 | 33 | 330 |
| 23 | 34.5 | 345 |
| 24 | 36 | 360 |
| 25 | 37.5 | 375 |
| 26 | 39 | 390 |
| 27 | 40.5 | 405 |
| 28 | 42 | 420 |
| 29 | 43.5 | 435 |
| 30 | 45 | 450 |
| 31 | 46.5 | 465 |
| 32 | 48 | 480 |
| 33 | 49.5 | 495 |
| 34 | 51 | 510 |
| 35 | 52.5 | 525 |
| 36 | 54 | 540 |
| 37 | 55.5 | 555 |
| 38 | 57 | 570 |
| 39 | 58.5 | 585 |
| 40 | 60 | 600 |
| 41 | 61.5 | 615 |
| 42 | 63 | 630 |
| 43 | 64.5 | 645 |
| 44 | 66 | 660 |
| 45 | 67.5 | 675 |
| 46 | 69 | 690 |
| 47 | 70.5 | 705 |
| 48 | 72 | 720 |
| 49 | 73.5 | 735 |
| 50 | 75 | 750 |
| 51 | 76.5 | 765 |
| 52 | 78 | 780 |
| 53 | 79.5 | 795 |
| 54 | 81 | 810 |
| 55 | 82.5 | 825 |
| 56 | 84 | 840 |
| 57 | 85.5 | 855 |
| 58 | 87 | 870 |
| 59 | 88.5 | 885 |
| 60 | 90 | 900 |