Most new websites need less than you think: a few GB of storage and well under 50 GB of monthly data transfer.
You can size both yourself. Multiply your average page weight by your monthly pageviews for transfer, then add up media, database, backups, and email for storage.
Bandwidth vs data transfer: what hosts actually mean
When a host says “bandwidth”, it almost always means monthly data transfer: the total gigabytes your server sends to visitors in a month.
Strictly speaking, bandwidth is a speed, like the 1 Gbps port on a server. Data transfer is an amount, like 40 GB per month.
Hosting plans blur the two words. A plan listing “40 GB bandwidth” is giving you a monthly transfer allowance, not a connection speed.
Kinsta’s documentation defines it clearly. It says server bandwidth “reflects the amount of data your site’s data center sends in response to requests”.
Storage, also called disk space, is different again. It’s how much your files, database, and email take up on the server, measured at any one moment.
For your site, this means two separate questions: how much data leaves the server each month, and how much sits on it.
New to how servers deliver a site? Start with the web hosting basics for beginners.
How to estimate your monthly data transfer
Monthly transfer is roughly your average page weight multiplied by your monthly pageviews, plus a safety margin.
Page weight is the total size of everything a browser downloads to show one page: HTML, images, CSS, JavaScript, and fonts.
You don’t have to guess it. The HTTP Archive measures millions of real pages, and its 2025 Web Almanac page weight chapter reports these medians from its July 2025 crawl:
| Page type | Median on mobile | Median on desktop |
|---|---|---|
| Home page | 2,559 KB | 2,862 KB |
| Inner page | 1,769 KB | 1,963 KB |
So 2 MB per pageview is a fair starting figure for a typical page. You can also measure your own page in your browser’s developer tools on the Network tab.
A worked example
Say a blog expects 10,000 pageviews a month at about 2 MB each.
- 10,000 pageviews x 2 MB = 20,000 MB, which is about 20 GB
- Add 50% headroom for traffic spikes and heavier pages: about 30 GB a month
That 50% is our planning margin, not an industry rule. Pick a larger margin if one post could go viral.
Estimates by site type
These rows use example inputs, not averages. Swap in your own pageviews and page weight.
| Site type | Example pageviews a month | Example page weight | Transfer | With 50% headroom |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Small business brochure site | 2,000 | 2 MB | 4 GB | 6 GB |
| Personal or hobby blog | 10,000 | 2 MB | 20 GB | 30 GB |
| Image-heavy portfolio | 3,000 | 5 MB | 15 GB | 22.5 GB |
| Small online shop | 20,000 | 3 MB | 60 GB | 90 GB |
| Growing content site | 50,000 | 2 MB | 100 GB | 150 GB |
Why your real number is often lower
Your server usually sends less than this formula predicts, because returning visitors reuse files their browser already saved.
A content delivery network (CDN) also serves copies of your files from its own servers, as this explainer on how a content delivery network works shows.
Kinsta, for example, excludes anything a CDN or edge cache serves from server bandwidth.
Smaller images help most. Practical steps for shrinking images before upload can cut page weight more than any other single change.
Don’t forget bots
Bots request pages too, and on a new site they can outnumber people by a wide margin.
About nine in ten requests to our brand-new Kinsta test site came from verified bots, measured over its first three days only.
Whether bots count toward your allowance depends on the host. Kinsta excludes “traffic from common bots” from its figure. Other hosts may not state a policy, so ask.
For your site, this means: estimate from pageviews, then treat bot traffic and spikes as the reason for your headroom.
How to estimate storage before you buy
Storage is the sum of your website files, uploaded media, database, any backups kept on the account, and email if it lives on the same plan.
Here is a worksheet you can fill in.
| Item | How to estimate it |
|---|---|
| WordPress core, theme, plugins | Install, then check your control panel’s disk usage tool. It’s usually a small share of the total. |
| Media uploads | Number of images x average original size, then budget extra for resized copies (see below). |
| Database | Grows with posts, comments, orders, and plugin logs. Check its size in your panel. |
| Backups stored on the account | Each full copy kept on the server can roughly match your site’s size. |
| Staging copy | A full staging site is a second copy of your files and database. |
| Mailboxes on the same plan may share your disk. Check your plan’s terms. |
Why media takes more space than you expect
WordPress saves several resized copies of every image you upload, so one photo becomes several files on disk.
Since version 5.3, WordPress adds 1536×1536 and 2048×2048 sizes on top of the sizes set under Settings then Media. Themes and plugins can register more.
Very large photos get one more copy. When an image is wider or taller than 2,560 pixels, WordPress creates a “-scaled” version and keeps the original as well.
As a planning assumption (not a measured average), we budget at least twice the size of your original uploads.
A storage example
Take a blog with 300 posts and three photos per post.
- 900 images x 300 KB = about 270 MB of originals
- Double it for resized copies: about 540 MB
- Add one backup copy and one staging copy: roughly three times the site, so under 2 GB plus email
That fits easily inside a 10 GB or 20 GB plan. Video is the exception. Host it on a video platform, not your hosting account.
Count the database too
Databases count toward your disk on cPanel accounts. cPanel’s own documentation says it includes MySQL and PostgreSQL database size in an account’s disk usage.
Shops and sites with logging plugins grow their database fastest.
Leave room for the host’s backup rules
Some hosts stop backing up your account once it passes a size or file-count threshold, so staying under it has real value.
- Namecheap runs weekly backups for shared accounts under 25 GB and 200,000 inodes, according to its server backups article.
- HostGator’s courtesy backups cover accounts under 20 GB and 100,000 inodes, per its backup frequency article.
An inode is one file or folder. Thousands of small cache files can hit an inode cap long before you run out of gigabytes.
For your site, this means storage limits are rarely about gigabytes alone. File count and backup thresholds matter just as much.
What real plan limits look like
Shared plans now come with far more storage than the small-site examples above need, while managed WordPress plans tend to meter transfer more tightly.
Each limit below was read on the plan’s official page and rechecked on October 4, 2026.
| Plan | Storage | Monthly transfer | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger Premium | 20 GB SSD | Listed as unlimited | Hostinger web hosting plans |
| Hostinger Unlimited | 50 GB NVMe | Listed as unlimited | Same page |
| Namecheap Stellar | 20 GB SSD | Unmetered | Namecheap shared hosting |
| HostArmada shared | Varies by plan | 30, 60, or 90 GB “acceptable usage”, no hard limit | HostArmada shared hosting |
| Rocket.net Starter | 10 GB | 50 GB | Rocket.net pricing |
| Kinsta WP2 (bandwidth-billed, our account) | 20 GB | 40 GB server plus 250 GB CDN | Our purchase record |
We pay $70 a month for that Kinsta plan, so its limits come from our own account.
The WP2 plan we bought for testing splits transfer into server and CDN allowances.
Metered plans bill past the limit. Kinsta’s overage rates are $0.50 per GB of server bandwidth, $0.05 per GB of CDN bandwidth, and $2 per extra GB of disk monthly.
On the Hostinger side, the shared Hostinger Business account we’ve paid for since December 2024 runs eight live sites plus our test site on one plan.
That plan is no longer sold. Premium and Unlimited also list bandwidth as unlimited.
For your site, this means a 20 GB shared plan covers most first sites. Use the transfer estimate mainly when comparing metered plans.
What “unmetered” means in practice
“Unmetered” means the host doesn’t count your monthly transfer against a fixed number, but other limits still cap how much traffic you can serve.
On a shared plan, CPU time, memory, simultaneous processes, and file counts run out long before transfer does. Those caps are what actually slow or pause a busy site.
The marketing side of these claims, including fair use clauses, is covered in a separate piece on what “unlimited” hosting really means.
A companion explainer, Hosting Resource Limits Explained, covers those CPU, memory, and process caps one by one.
A second, How Much Traffic Can Shared Hosting Handle?, covers visitor capacity on shared plans.
For your site, this means “unmetered” settles the transfer question. It doesn’t settle the capacity question.
How to size your plan in five steps
You can size a plan in about ten minutes with numbers you already have.
- Step 1, find your pageviews. Use your analytics, or a realistic first-year goal for a new site.
- Step 2, measure your page weight. Load a typical post with the browser’s Network tab open, or start from 2 MB.
- Step 3, multiply and add headroom. Pageviews x page weight x 1.5 gives your monthly transfer target.
- Step 4, add up storage. Use the worksheet above, then double it for growth over the plan’s term.
- Step 5, compare against real limits. Check storage, transfer, inodes, and backup thresholds on the plan you’re considering.
When the numbers fit a shared plan, the shared hosting picks ranked by real limits are the next stop.
Frequently asked questions
How much bandwidth does a small website need?
A small website with a few thousand pageviews a month usually needs under 10 GB of transfer.
At about 2 MB per page, 2,000 pageviews is roughly 4 GB. Even with 50% headroom, that’s about 6 GB a month.
Is 10 GB of storage enough for a WordPress site?
Yes, 10 GB is enough for most new WordPress blogs and business sites.
Media and on-account backups are what fill it. The 900-photo blog in the example above stays under 2 GB, while video files or many stored backups can use far more.
How much bandwidth do I need for 100,000 pageviews a month?
Plan for roughly 300 GB a month. At about 2 MB per page, 100,000 pageviews send around 200 GB, and 50% headroom brings that to 300 GB.
A CDN and browser caching usually push the real figure lower.
How do I check how much bandwidth my site uses now?
Your hosting control panel or your host’s analytics page shows it. cPanel’s Bandwidth interface graphs usage over time, if your host has enabled it.
Managed hosts like Kinsta show server and CDN bandwidth separately in their analytics.
What happens if I go over my bandwidth limit?
It depends on the host: some bill overages, some slow the site, and some ask you to upgrade.
Kinsta bills $0.50 per extra GB of server bandwidth and keeps the site online. Rocket.net lists $0.08 per GB over its allowance.
Does a CDN reduce my hosting bandwidth?
Yes, a CDN serves cached copies of your files, so your origin server sends less data.
Kinsta, for one, excludes CDN-served data from its server bandwidth count.
How we researched this
Every plan limit quoted here was read on each provider’s own pricing, plan, and help pages and rechecked on October 4, 2026.
The page-weight medians are the HTTP Archive’s, from its 2025 Web Almanac. WordPress image sizes come from WordPress.org developer documentation, and the database rule from cPanel’s own docs.
Our account data has clear limits.
The Kinsta bot share reflects only the WP2 plan’s first three days, and the Hostinger example is an account we’ve paid for since December 2024.
Table inputs are labeled examples, not averages. Every plan limit was checked against its official page, following how we verify plan limits.
