Tools
IoT Data Usage Calculator
Estimate how much cellular data your IoT devices will consume each month. Select a device preset or enter custom parameters.
1. Select your device type
Tracking
Security
Utilities
Monitoring
Retail
Energy
Media
Industrial
Agriculture
Automotive
Healthcare
Waste
Custom
2. Configure parameters
Estimated Data Usage
Per transmission
270 B
150 B payload + 120 B overhead
Per device / month
23.8 MB
2,880 transmissions/day + heartbeats
Total fleet / month (100 devices)
2.32 GB
27.85 GB / year
Medium Data Usage(23.76 MB/device/month)
Standard M2M data plans. Pooled data recommended for variable usage across devices.
View calculation breakdown
| Payload per transmission | 150 B |
| Protocol overhead | + 120 B |
| Total per transmission | 270 B |
| Transmissions per day (24h active) | 2,880 |
| Data transmissions per day | 759.4 KB |
| Heartbeat/keepalive per day | + 51.8 KB |
| Per device per day | 811.1 KB |
| Per device per month (x30 days) | 23.8 MB |
| Total fleet per month (x100 devices) | 2.32 GB |
Know your data needs? Find the right provider.
Take our quick quiz and get matched with providers that fit your data profile.
How the calculator works
This calculator estimates monthly cellular data usage by multiplying your payload size (the actual data your device sends) by the protocol overhead (TCP/IP headers, TLS encryption) and your transmission frequency. It accounts for active hours per day and adds heartbeat traffic for devices that maintain persistent connections.
Real-world usage may vary by 10-30% due to network retransmissions, firmware updates, and management traffic. We recommend adding a 20% buffer to your estimated data when selecting a plan.