For a stream that runs continuously for 30 days, budget about 324 decimal GB (302 GiB) per 1 Mbps of average outgoing bitrate. Use monthly GB ≈ average bitrate (Mbps) × streaming hours × 0.45; for 720 hours, that becomes monthly GB ≈ Mbps × 324. This estimates the stream sent by FFmpeg—not viewers’ playback—and excludes overhead, retransmissions, and downtime.
Calculate the stream’s monthly data
Multiply the average total outgoing bitrate by the actual time online, then convert bits to bytes. For decimal gigabytes, the general formula is:
GB ≈ Mbps × 1,000,000 × seconds ÷ 8 ÷ 1,000,000,000
For a convenient monthly estimate, where the duration is stated in hours:
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monthly GB ≈ average bitrate (Mbps) × streaming hours × 0.45
A 30-day month has 720 hours, so a constant 1 Mbps feed transfers approximately 324 GB in decimal units. In binary units, that is about 302 GiB. The difference comes from the unit definitions: 1 GB is 1,000,000,000 bytes, while 1 GiB is 1,073,741,824 bytes. These are calculated estimates, not figures published by YouTube.
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Use your actual uptime
Use hours the stream is actually transmitting, not automatically the full 720 hours. For example, a stream averaging 8 Mbps for 600 hours is approximately 8 × 600 × 0.45 = 2,160 decimal GB. Scheduled pauses and outages reduce the total; startup tests and other simultaneous feeds add to it.
Choose the right bitrate for the estimate
Use the aggregate bitrate FFmpeg sends, not resolution by itself. YouTube’s official live encoder settings give H.264 recommendations of 8 Mbps for 720p at 30 fps and 14 Mbps for 1080p at 30 fps. The page’s publication year is not displayed, and these are platform recommendations—not a guarantee of what a particular FFmpeg command transmits.
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Include audio when needed
If your bitrate figure is video-only, add the audio bitrate. For example, 8 Mbps video plus 128 Kbps stereo audio is about 8.128 Mbps before protocol overhead. YouTube lists 128 Kbps as an audio recommendation for stereo. If the stated bitrate already covers the complete multiplexed output, do not add audio a second time.
For variable-rate output, estimate from a representative average
A variable stream does not necessarily transmit at its peak or nominal target all the time. Use a measured average of total outgoing traffic across a representative period. A short sample may miss changes in scene complexity or other activity, so a longer sample is more useful for budgeting.
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YouTube transcodes an incoming live stream into multiple playback formats for viewers. For the creator’s upload usage, count the outgoing FFmpeg feed; viewer playback is a separate direction and is not multiplied by viewer count in the creator’s single ingest upload. YouTube’s settings page describes its transcoding and encoder guidance at YouTube live encoder settings.
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The examples below assume a steady bitrate for all 720 hours in a 30-day period. They exclude protocol overhead, retransmissions, startup tests, and additional backup encoder traffic.
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| Bitrate used | Approximate decimal data | Approximate binary data |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Mbps | 324 GB | 302 GiB |
| 6 Mbps | 1,944 GB (1.94 TB) | 1,811 GiB (1.77 TiB) |
| 8 Mbps | 2,592 GB (2.59 TB) | 2,415 GiB (2.36 TiB) |
| 10 Mbps | 3,240 GB (3.24 TB) | 3,019 GiB (2.95 TiB) |
| 14 Mbps | 4,536 GB (4.54 TB) | 4,226 GiB (4.13 TiB) |
The 8 Mbps and 14 Mbps examples match YouTube’s listed H.264 recommendations for 720p30 and 1080p30, respectively. The other bitrate examples illustrate the calculation; resolution alone does not determine data usage because codec, frame rate, and bitrate all affect the outgoing rate.
Separate monthly usage from upload capacity
YouTube recommends leaving 20% additional room in available upload bandwidth. That is connection headroom, not an automatic 20% increase to the monthly data calculated from the stream bitrate. YouTube also advises accounting for both primary and backup streams when sizing capacity; if a backup feed transmits at the same time, count its traffic separately in your usage estimate. See YouTube streaming tips.
Actual metered traffic can exceed the nominal-payload estimate because of protocol framing, encryption, retransmissions, bitrate variation, testing, or concurrent backup feeds. The cited YouTube pages do not quantify these overheads, so there is no supported universal percentage to add. If your host or internet plan has a strict transfer cap, budget a prudent margin or measure interface/host traffic over representative operation.
Practical FFmpeg and YouTube checks
- Use the outgoing total: Confirm whether the bitrate you are using includes audio. Add audio only when your figure is video-only.
- Check the actual output rate: A configured target is not proof of the traffic your encoder sends, especially with variable-rate output. Measure a representative period where possible.
- Keep the connection test separate: YouTube recommends 20% upload-bandwidth headroom, but that is not a monthly-data multiplier.
- Count parallel feeds: Include a concurrently transmitting backup encoder in the usage budget as well as the bandwidth-capacity check.
- Test and monitor: YouTube recommends testing before going live and monitoring stream health during an event. Its encoder guidance covers RTMP/RTMPS and H.264, H.265, and AV1; follow the settings relevant to your codec, resolution, and frame rate rather than treating one recommended bitrate as universal.
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