More than half of pay monthly customers use a fifth or less of the data they pay for. That is Ofcom's finding, not ours, and it means the most useful question about mobile data is not "how much can I get?" but "how much do I actually use?". Answer that honestly and most people can cut their bill without noticing any difference at all. This guide shows you how to find your real usage in two minutes, what everyday apps genuinely consume, and what every allowance band costs on the live market right now.
Most people are paying for data they never touch
The numbers are stark. In its February 2026 pricing report, Ofcom found that 55 percent of pay monthly customers use 20 percent or less of their monthly allowance, and 29 percent get through 2GB or less. At the other end, 39 percent of customers are on plans of 50GB or more, while only 5 percent actually use that much.
Why does it happen? Big allowances are cheap to give away, so networks push them, and nobody ever got a nasty bill from over-buying. Under-buying announces itself with warning texts; over-buying just quietly costs you money every month for years.
Find your real usage in two minutes
Do not guess. Your last three months of actual usage are already recorded in two places.
Check your network's app first; every major network shows monthly data used on the account or usage screen. Or go to your phone's own counter: on an iPhone it is Settings, then Mobile Service, and on Android it is Settings, then Network and internet, then your SIM. Look at the last three months rather than your record month, and note the highest of the three. That number, plus a little headroom, is the allowance you actually need.
What actually uses data
Almost everything people worry about is small, and one thing is big. Video is the big one.
- Browsing and social media: a web page is around a megabyte on Three's published figures, so an hour of reading and scrolling is tens of megabytes. Video-led feeds are the exception; autoplaying clips behave like streaming, not browsing.
- Music streaming: about 40MB an hour at normal quality and around 150MB at the highest setting, worked out from the bitrates on Spotify's audio quality page. Ten hours a week is a few GB a month at most.
- Maps and navigation: too small to budget for once the route has loaded, and downloading the map before you travel makes it almost nothing.
- Video calls: Zoom's published bandwidth figures work out at roughly 540MB an hour for a standard-quality call and about 1.1GB in HD.
- Video streaming: the budget-killer. Netflix's own figures are about 700MB an hour in standard definition and 3GB an hour in HD. An hour a day of HD video away from Wi-Fi is roughly 90GB a month on its own.
Every figure above comes from the service's own published rates, checked on 24 August 2026. The pattern is simple. If your away-from-Wi-Fi life is messaging, music, maps and scrolling, you are a light user whatever it feels like, and 10GB is plenty. Add regular video streaming or hotspotting and the sums change completely.
Three quick profiles
Not sure where you sit? Most people match one of these three.
The everyday user. Messaging, email, social scrolling on the commute, music at the gym, maps at the weekend. Streaming happens at home on Wi-Fi. Real usage is typically 3 to 8GB a month, and a 10GB plan leaves headroom. This is the majority of the country, including most people currently paying for five times more.
The streamer. The same habits plus regular video away from Wi-Fi: catch-up TV on the train, YouTube at lunch, the odd football stream. An hour a day in standard definition adds around 20GB a month; in HD it adds around 90GB. This is 50GB to 100GB territory, and the band you pick should follow the video quality you actually watch at.
The tetherer. The phone is the household's connection, or the laptop's on the move. Usage is genuinely unpredictable and a warning text in week two is a real risk. This is the one profile where unlimited earns its premium, because the alternative is rationing your own broadband.
One more honest note: your profile changes. A new commute, a home broadband outage or a teenager with your hotspot password can move you a band overnight. That is why the two-minute usage check beats any rule of thumb, and why re-checking once a year at renewal is worth the bother.
What each allowance band costs right now
This table is built from every pay monthly SIM only deal on Switchity and refreshes when the site does. Each row links to the live deals behind it.
| Data allowance | Cheapest deal | Typical price | Deals |
|---|---|---|---|
| Up to 3GB | £1 a month (1GB, Sky Mobile) | £6 | 7 |
| 3 to 10GB | £3.90 a month (3GB, Spusu) | £7 | 24 |
| 10 to 20GB | £5.90 a month (10GB, Spusu) | £7 | 36 |
| 20 to 50GB | £5.95 a month (20GB, TalkMobile) | £10 | 62 |
| 50 to 100GB | £7 a month (50GB, iD Mobile) | £10 | 80 |
| 100GB+ | £8.95 a month (100GB, TalkMobile) | £14 | 115 |
| Unlimited | £14 a month (unlimited, giffgaff) | £22 | 56 |
“Typical price” is the median monthly price in the band. Click a band to see every deal in it. Prices change as networks refresh their offers; the checked date above is when this table was last rebuilt.
Two things usually surprise people here. The step up to a big allowance costs less than expected; the gap between a 10GB plan and a 100GB plan is often just a few pounds a month. And the unlimited premium is real: the typical unlimited plan costs half as much again as a typical 100GB plan, which is a lot to pay for data the numbers say only one in twenty people would use.
Is unlimited worth it?
For most people, no, and Ofcom's usage figures above are the evidence. Paying the unlimited premium makes sense in three situations. You routinely tether a laptop through your phone, you have no home broadband and the SIM is your household connection, or you genuinely stream hours of video away from Wi-Fi most days.
One caution if you do go unlimited. Some networks manage speeds on unlimited plans at busy times or after very heavy use, and the detail lives in the plan's terms rather than the advert. Read the fair-use section of the specific plan before you sign; the honest answer is that unlimited usually means unlimited amount, not always unlimited speed.
Paying for data you never use?
Fixing it is easier than it used to be. If you are out of contract or on a 30-day plan, you can move to a smaller allowance this month; a 30-day SIM also makes the change reversible, so a downgrade is an experiment rather than a commitment. If you are mid-contract, note your renewal date and downgrade at the exit, or check whether your network lets you change plan within the contract; several do.
Two of our other guides matter here. Smaller plans do not escape mid-contract price rises, but a flat rise on a smaller bill is the same pounds on less money, so know your network's terms; our guide to SIM only price rises lists them. And moving network to right-size your plan takes one free text; our guide to switching and keeping your number covers the whole process. When you are ready to look, start with SIM only deals filtered to the band you actually need.
Whatever you pick, set a spend cap
One setting removes the only real risk of right-sizing your plan. Every major network lets you set a spend cap when you join, which blocks charges beyond your monthly price: no surprise out-of-allowance fees, no accidental add-ons, no shock bill from a week abroad. Set it to zero and the worst outcome of underestimating your data is a slow few days at the end of the month. That slow week is also the clearest possible signal to move up one band at renewal.
A cap costs nothing, takes a minute in the account settings, and can be changed whenever you like. If you are choosing a smaller allowance on the back of this guide, treat the cap as part of the same decision rather than an optional extra.