Internet Speed Needs Calculator
Count what your household does at the same time at peak hour, and we add up the bandwidth with sensible headroom.
Recommended plan (download)–
–Peak use, no headroom
–Suggested upload
–Typical plan tier
The numbers behind it
We use common published guidance per activity: about 5 Mbps for an HD stream, 25 Mbps for 4K (the figure Netflix recommends for Ultra HD), roughly 3–4 Mbps each way for an HD video call, 3–6 Mbps for online gaming (gaming needs low latency more than raw speed) and around 2 Mbps for browsing. Then we add 40% headroom, because speeds dip in the evening and over Wi-Fi.
Upload matters if you video call, stream to Twitch or back up photos to the cloud. Cable plans often have far less upload than download; fibre is usually symmetrical.