VPS plans list bandwidth as a monthly transfer allowance (for example 2 TB/month), as a port speed (1 Gbps), or as unmetered at a fixed rate (for example 30 Mbps). To choose correctly, you need two numbers: how much data you’ll transfer per month, and how fast it needs to go at peak. Here’s how to estimate both.

Terminology: bandwidth vs traffic vs speed.

The basic formula

Monthly transfer = average response size × requests per month (× outbound streams …)

Most providers count outbound traffic (or both directions). Check your plan’s terms.

Useful conversions:

Unit Value
1 Mbps sustained for a month ≈ 324 GB
10 Mbps sustained ≈ 3.2 TB
100 Mbps sustained ≈ 32 TB
1 TB/month averaged out ≈ 3.1 Mbps

Websites

Monthly GB ≈ page views × average page weight (MB) ÷ 1024
  • A typical page with images: 1–3 MB on first visit, much less for returning visitors (browser cache).
  • With a CDN, most static files are served by the CDN, and your VPS sends far less.

Examples:

Site Page views/month Avg. weight Transfer from VPS
Small business site 20,000 2 MB ~40 GB
Busy blog 500,000 1.5 MB ~730 GB
Same blog behind a CDN 500,000 ~0.2 MB from origin ~100 GB

File downloads and media

Monthly GB = file size × downloads

A 500 MB installer downloaded 2,000 times ≈ 1 TB. Video adds up quickly: a 1080p stream at 5 Mbps uses about 2.25 GB per hour per viewer.

Game servers and voice

Service Per player/user Example
Minecraft ~50–150 MB/hour 20 players × 4 h/day ≈ 150–350 GB/month
Source games (CS2, GMod) ~50–100 MB/hour Similar range
Voice (Mumble/TeamSpeak) ~20–40 MB/hour talking Small

Game servers care more about latency than bandwidth. See game server VPS.

VPN and proxies

All traffic of every user passes through the server twice (in and out). If five people each stream 2 hours of HD video a day through your VPN:

5 users × 2 h × 30 days × 2.25 GB ≈ 675 GB/month (each direction)

See WireGuard VPN server.

Backups and replication

The first full backup transfers the whole dataset. Incremental backups usually send 1–5% of it per day. 200 GB of data with 2% daily change ≈ 120 GB/month, after the initial upload. See VPS as a backup server.

Peak speed: Mbps matters too

Monthly totals don’t tell you whether the port is fast enough at busy times:

Peak Mbps ≈ concurrent users × per-user rate
  • 200 concurrent video viewers at 3 Mbps = 600 Mbps: you need a 1 Gbps port, or a CDN.
  • A website serving 50 pages/second at 1 MB ≈ 400 Mbps at peak (without a CDN).

For unmetered fixed-rate plans (for example on Hong Kong VPS plans), the rate is your ceiling at all times. Pick it for your peak needs. For monthly-allowance plans with a fast port (for example 1 Gbps on USA VPS plans with 1–10 TB/month), check the total. See Hong Kong VPS and USA VPS.

Measure real usage

Estimates are a starting point. Measure once you’re running:

sudo apt install -y vnstat
vnstat -m          # monthly totals
vnstat -l          # live rate

See vnStat bandwidth monitor and iperf3 bandwidth test.

Ways to reduce bandwidth

  • Put a CDN in front of static files. See CDN for websites.
  • Compress text (gzip or Brotli) and images (WebP or AVIF). See Nginx gzip and Brotli.
  • Set long browser cache headers.
  • Host large downloads on object storage, or a separate storage server.

Quick reference

Workload Rule of thumb
Website page views × page weight
Downloads file size × downloads
Video ~2.25 GB/hour per 1080p viewer
VPN user traffic × 2 (in + out)
1 Mbps for a month ≈ 324 GB

Related: VPS storage planning and VPS hosting costs.

  • Bandwidth
  • VPS Guide
  • Networking