How Much Data Do You Really Need When Travelling? Numbers From Our eSIMs

Last updated on 10 November 2026

Our customers use a little over half of the data they buy: 10,215 of 20,789 GB, or 51.6%. That comes from our sales data on 2,661 eSIMs from 2025 and 2026, analysed on 18 October 2026. Customers on unlimited plans use 0.82 GB per day on average. Every destination, with plans from 1 GB, is in the POVNOMAD eSIM store.

Three in four customers on a 30-day plan got by with about 8.5 GB, which works out at 4 GB for two weeks. At our prices for Turkey and Thailand, unlimited only pays off from about 0.7 GB a day (prices as of 2 November 2026). Below you will find the usage per plan size, a table by trip length, the break-even point for unlimited and what Netflix, Spotify and Zoom say their apps use.

How much data do travellers really use?

The totals across all fixed-data plans since 2025:

• 51.6% of the data bought was used, 10,215 of 20,789 GB.
• Plans that have ended reached 54.7% on average. Only 21% were used up completely.
• 1 GB plans were only 54% used on average.
• From 6 GB upwards, usage drops to about 51 to 53% of the plan.
• Unlimited: 4,170 GB in total, 7.9 GB per eSIM and 0.82 GB per day on average.

The table only counts plans bought from January to July 2026 that have since ended. Next to the average you see the median, the middle value: half of the customers used less, half used more. It shows what a typical customer needed better than the average does.

Source: our sales data, 533 fixed-data eSIM plans bought from January to July 2026, ended, without top-ups, data as of 18 Oct 2026. Plan types with fewer than 30 eSIMs are grouped as “other plans”. “Used up completely” means at least 99.5% used. GB per plan day = GB used divided by the plan’s validity in days. The 54% figure for 1 GB plans in the list above covers all 89 ended 1 GB plans from 2026; the table shows January to July only.

Why only January to July? Many plans bought from August onwards are still running. The ones that have already ended are mostly those used up early, which pushes the rate up: of the ended plans bought between August and mid-October, 29% were used up completely, against 16% for January to July.

How much data do I need for one, two or four weeks?

The table scales four usage levels from our data to the length of your trip. “Light” is the median of the 30-day plans: 0.15 GB per day. Three in four customers stayed below “medium”, 0.28 GB per day. Nine in ten stayed below “heavy”, 0.50 GB per day. “Very heavy” is the average of our unlimited customers, 0.82 GB per day. After the arrow you see the smallest plan that covers it.

Source: usage per plan day of 394 ended 30-day plans bought January to July 2026 (median, 75th and 90th percentile), plus the unlimited average of 0.82 GB per day across 528 used unlimited eSIMs. Data as of 18 Oct 2026. Plan sizes from the Turkey product page on 2 Nov 2026: 1 GB/7 days, 3 GB/15 days, and 3, 5, 10, 20 and 50 GB for 30 days. If your trip is shorter than your plan’s validity, you use more per travel day, so these figures lean on the low side.

Whether your trip counts as light or heavy depends mostly on video and video calls. What the big apps use per hour is further down. For a plan suggestion for your destination, try our eSIM check.

When is an unlimited plan worth it?

Unlimited at POVNOMAD means this: Unlimited Smart gives you 1 GB of high-speed data per day, Unlimited XL 3 GB. A day is 24 hours from activation. After that you keep going without a cap at up to 1 Mbit/s. We do not slow down the fixed GB plans. That is what the product pages say as of 2 November 2026.

At 1 Mbit/s you can move at most 0.45 GB an hour. Netflix on “Save Data” works out at about 0.37 Mbit/s, so it keeps playing on a slowed connection. Zoom puts a 720p video call at 1.2 Mbit/s each way, which a slowed connection cannot carry.

All prices collected on 2 Nov 2026 from our Turkey and Thailand product pages. Thailand: data plans with the standard IP; Unlimited Smart is only sold with a Singapore IP there. Unlimited Smart gives 1 GB of high-speed data per 24 hours, then up to 1 Mbit/s.

For a full month the break-even point is 20 GB in both countries, about 0.7 GB a day. Nine in ten of our customers on a 30-day plan stayed below 0.5 GB a day. For short, data-hungry trips to Thailand there is one more option with a Thai IP: 50 GB for 10 days at €15.90. Other providers’ prices are in our comparisons for Turkey and Thailand.

What uses the most data?

Video, by a wide margin. The figures come from the providers’ own help pages. Where a provider gives kbit/s, we converted it to MB per hour.

Sources, retrieved on 2 Nov 2026: Netflix Help on data usage, Spotify support “Audio quality”, Zoom system requirements. Conversion: kbit/s × 3,600 ÷ 8 ÷ 1,000 = MB per hour. Whether an app works at 1 Mbit/s is calculated from these figures, not measured.

For Google Maps, Apple Maps, WhatsApp calls, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube we found no per-hour figure from the provider on 2 Nov 2026, so we give none. Two more data hogs have no official figure either, but you can switch them off: iCloud Photos syncing and automatic app updates. And if you share the eSIM through a hotspot, everything your laptop or tablet downloads counts too.

How do I save data while travelling?

• iPhone: Turn on Low Data Mode for the eSIM under Settings › Cellular › your eSIM line › Low Data Mode. According to Apple it then pauses iCloud Photos updates, turns off automatic updates and downloads, and lowers streaming quality (Apple Support on Low Data Mode). Apple names the menu Cellular or Mobile Data, depending on the region.
• Android: On a Pixel, Data Saver sits under Settings › Network & internet › Data Saver. Most apps then fetch background data over Wi-Fi only (Pixel Help). On other Android phones the path may differ.
• Download maps first: In Google Maps you can save an area as an offline map. Navigation then works without signal as long as the whole route is on that map, but you get no traffic info offline (Google Maps Help). Apple Maps also stores offline maps (Apple Support).
• Turn streaming down: Netflix puts “Save Data” at about 6 hours per GB, Spotify puts “Normal” at approximately 96 kbit/s.

Do most travellers buy too much data?

Often, yes. Of the 533 plans from January to July 2026, 55% were not even half used. Customers who bought 20 GB for 30 days used a median of 8.6 GB. Half of them would have been fine with 10 GB, which in Turkey costs €10.90 instead of €16.90.

1 GB is enough for many. On 1 GB for 7 days, the median was 0.28 GB, and only 12% needed the whole gigabyte. Unlimited customers mostly stay low too: 69% used less than 1 GB per booked day, 34% less than 0.5 GB. Unlimited Smart customers used 77% of their high-speed allowance, XL customers only 36%.

There is another side. 24% of unlimited eSIMs went over their allowance and ran at 1 Mbit/s for part of the time. If you stream in HD every day, you need more. One hour of Netflix in HD a day comes to up to 3 GB, so up to 21 GB a week. Work video calls and a laptop on the hotspot belong in the same group. You can top up fixed-data plans, as the product page says, so starting smaller costs you little.

What do I do if my data runs out or nothing loads?

If a fixed-data plan is used up, top it up. Unlimited does not stop: after the daily allowance it keeps running at up to 1 Mbit/s. If the eSIM shows signal but nothing loads, the data allowance is rarely the reason. In 131 WhatsApp conversations with our support team between February and October 2026, data roaming switched off for the eSIM was the most common cause (36 cases). The fix for iPhone, Samsung and Pixel is in eSIM installed but no internet.

Install the eSIM over Wi-Fi before you leave, most easily from the link in your delivery email (Install an eSIM without a QR code). The plan only starts with the first connection in your destination, so you lose no data. If your iPhone says “Unable to Activate eSIM”, the eSIM is usually installed already (here is how to check). Every other message is explained in iPhone eSIM error messages. This guide is also available in German.

Frequently asked questions

📦 Matching eSIM plan: the top-selling destinations in October 2026 were Turkey, Morocco and Indonesia including Bali. Every other country is in the eSIM store.

Last updated on 2 November 2026. Prices collected from our product pages on 2 November 2026, provider figures retrieved on 2 November 2026, usage data as of 18 October 2026.