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Although currently offering a modest content library in Australia, Amazon Prime Video is steadily growing. Moreover, due to the low $6.99/month price point, a subscription is worth the cash for their original productions alone.
However, binge-watching a ton of video can take a toll on your data allowance. And while many of us keep an eye on how much mobile data we burn through, we’re not always careful about broadband usage. If you have an unlimited plan, streaming a lot of episodes won’t be a problem. But if you’re dealing with a data cap, it’s important to assess how much video content you can enjoy before you run out of GB.
Unfortunately, Amazon Prime Video hasn’t publicly released any official data usage statistics so far. Still, online users approximate Prime Video will chew through 900MB per hour for SD playback, 5GB per hour for HD playback, and around 7GB/hour of UHD content.
Next, we estimate an average viewing week to be 10 hours of streaming, so we’ll base our calculations on that. Of course, your broadband plan should also cover other online activities like shopping, gaming, downloading, social media and so on. Remember not to base your broadband needs on streaming alone.
The other thing you should note is that you can download titles on Amazon Prime Video. That way when you're making your commute to work, or watching while travelling you can cut back on your data usage.
Data usage depends on what quality you're streaming Amazon Prime Video at. It varies on whether you’re watching in SD, HD or 4K. Below is a rough guide to how much data Prime Video will consume at each quality grade. Please note that while we do include mobile data, Prime Video does allow video downloads.
Below is a guide to how much data Amazon Prime Video will consume at each quality grade:
*Mobile usage based on the Amazon Prime Video Android app
If you're hitting your monthly data cap more often than you'd like, you'll want to consider upgrading to a larger Internet plan. To make sure you get a good deal, head over to our comparison of unlimited broadband plans and our guide to high-data mobile plans.
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