Here’s how much data Stan uses on all four quality settings (subscription tier dependent) and how fast your internet needs to be to seamlessly stream.
How much data does Stan use?
2 min readStan has grown to become one of the best streaming services in Australia, holding its own against global household names like Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video. With a wealth of TV and movie content on offer (not to mention Stan Sport), there is variance in data usage depending on some key factors.
How much data does Stan use?
The amount of data Stan uses is determined by the playback settings, your internet connection and your Stan subscription. Stan offers subscriptions for Basic, Standard and Premium, which have up to SD, HD and 4K playback, respectively.
Stan defaults to its ‘Auto’ setting for playback. So if you have a slow or inconsistent internet connection, Stan may default to a lower-quality playback setting to ensure a smooth experience without buffering. As for playback settings, outside of automatic, there are options for low, medium, high and 4K quality (dependent on your Stan subscription tier).
With the theory out of the way, Stan uses anywhere from 570MB per hour on its lowest quality setting up to 7GB per hour for 4K playback. The table below shows Stan’s hourly data usage next to Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video. Note that these results are indicative of a single stream, so multiply accordingly for multiple Stan streams on the same internet connection.
Stan data usage vs Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video
How to change Stan video quality
To change Stan video quality, you first need to start playing a video. Tap, press a remote button or move your mouse over the playing video to bring up playback controls, then select the settings cog. Under the Video Quality options, you can select from Ultra (where available), High, Medium, Low or Auto (automatically determined by Stan based on your internet connection).
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What internet speed do I need for Stan?
Stan internet speeds vary based on your Stan subscription, the device you’re streaming on (e.g. smartphone vs 4K TV) and the playback quality setting. You can get away with internet as slow as 1.27Mbps for the low setting but 4K requires around 15.55Mbps.
The table below showcases internet speed requirements for Stan compared to Netflix, Disney Plus and Prime Video (based on the download estimates above). Again, note that these speeds are indicative of a single stream, so multiply by two, three or four if you want to know the bandwidth requirements to stream Stan (or other services) to different devices on the same internet connection.
Pretty much every NBN plan these days has unlimited data (unless you’re a Sky Muster satellite NBN customer), so you don’t have to worry about data limits. We recommend at least an NBN 25 plan to comfortably stream Stan to a single device, but NBN 50 plans are more versatile. Below is a daily updating list of popular NBN 50 plans from our comparison engine.
If you want to watch Stan movies and TV shows on the go, we’d advise starting comparisons with a SIM Only mobile plan with at least 30GB of data. Here are some popular SIM Only plans from our database.
Alternatively, for more control over how much you’re spending, consider a Prepaid plan with at least 30GB of data. Here’s a look at some popular Prepaid plans from our comparison engine.
Stan data frequently asked questions
Stan doesn’t use a lot of data for home internet, but it can add up if you’re streaming via mobile internet. Stan low (SD) quality uses 570MB per hour, medium (SD) ups to 1.13GB, high HD goes through 2.89GB and 4K ultra (UHD) chews up to 7GB.
If you have a home internet plan with unlimited data, you won’t need to worry about data usage when streaming Stan. Mobile devices have access to the low (570MB per hour), medium (1.13GB) and high (2.89GB) settings, so pick a plan with at least 30GB of data if you want to stream frequently with Stan on mobile.
The amount of gigabytes used per two-hour movie on Stan is determined by the streaming quality. It’s 1.14GB for low (SD), 2.26GB for medium (SD), 5.78GB for high (HD) and 14GB for 4K. On Netflix, a two-hour movie uses 600MB for low, 1.4GB for medium, then either 2GB, 6GB or 14GB for 4K. For Netflix on mobile devices, data usage for a two-hour movie varies between 333MB, 500MB and 6GB.
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