Hosting Bandwidth Requirement Calculator

Work out hosting bandwidth requirement instantly with clear inputs, formula shown and shareable results.

About Hosting Bandwidth Requirement Calculator

Monthly transfer is visitors times page views times page weight, and throughput is that volume in megabits spread over the seconds in a month, scaled up by the peak factor. Hosting plans quote monthly allowances but fail on peak throughput, which is why the peak-to-average ratio matters more than the total for a site with spiky traffic.

Formulas

Monthly transfer

MB = visitors x page views x page weight

Peak throughput

peak Mbps = average Mbps x peak to average ratio

Worked example

With the default values below, Hosting Bandwidth Requirement Calculator returns Monthly bandwidth of 205.08. Change any input above and every figure here is recalculated in your browser.

Inputs used

Monthly visitorsminimum 1: 50,000
Page views per visitorminimum 0.1: 3
Average page weightminimum 0.001 MB: 1.4 MB
Peak to average traffic ratiominimum 1: 5

Results

Monthly bandwidth: 205.08 GB
Bandwidth per day: 6.836 GB
Average throughput: 0.6481 Mbps
Throughput needed at peak: 3.241 Mbps

Step by step

1Values used
2Monthly transfer
3Peak throughput
4Monthly bandwidth= 205.08 GB
5Bandwidth per day= 6.836 GB
6Average throughput= 0.6481 Mbps
7Throughput needed at peak= 3.241 Mbps

Assumptions and limits

The result is derived only from the 4 inputs listed above. Anything not among them is not part of the calculation.
In particular, this calculator does not take inflation, tax, fees or charges or compounding frequency into account.
Figures are rounded for display to 4 decimal places, so totals built from several rounded parts can differ slightly from the unrounded arithmetic.

How these calculators are built and tested is described on the Methodology page. If a figure looks wrong, please report it.

Frequently Asked Questions

How is the Hosting Bandwidth Requirement figure worked out?

MB = visitors x page views x page weight. Monthly transfer is visitors times page views times page weight, and throughput is that volume in megabits spread over the seconds in a month, scaled up by the peak factor.

Why does this matter?

Hosting plans quote monthly allowances but fail on peak throughput, which is why the peak-to-average ratio matters more than the total for a site with spiky traffic.

What do I need to enter?

Enter monthly visitors, page views per visitor, average page weight, peak to average traffic ratio. The defaults shown are a realistic worked example — swap in your own figures to get a result you can use.