Does Playing Pandora Use Data

The amount of data Pandora uses is directly related to how often you use it. For example, If you are daily Pandora free listener for an hour then it amounts 57 MB(Approx. 1-hour data usage) X 30 days = 1.7 GB data per month.

Pandora radio is a well-known music streaming app which is powered by the Music Genome Project. This service is available on the Web and Mobile app for Apple and Android phones. Pandora allows the user to listen to the kind of music they love. They do this by analyzing the type of music the user prefers and adding other music to their list which is similar. This high level of musical analysis is very different from most other musical platforms.

Pandora uses what is called the musical genome, to direct you to the kinds of music that you like. Though you are able to type in the songs you like, the subsequent exploration of similar music comes as a result of Pandora's analysis of the types of music you like.

Calculate Pandora cellular data usage on iPhone?

The amount of data Pandora uses is directly related to how often you use it and how long you listen. Users who use the Pandora App considerable amount will be subject to higher data usage than those who are merely casual listeners.

The average listener listens to music on average around two hours per day mostly while 1-hour commuting to work or back to office on cellular data or 1-hour at Home or Office on Wi-Fi network. For our calculations let us ignore WiFi data usage as most of us using unlimited data plans from Comcast/Verizon FiOS and let's calculate cellular data usage of Pandora app your phone.

Go to Settings on your iPhone and Cellular data
Check data usage under your Pandora App – It will be something similar to this screenshot below

Use this calculation to figure the amount of data usage – Expected values (Data Usage under Pandora App / No. Of days between the start of your billing cycle to today) * Multiply with 30 (days)

For example, My Data usage based on 3 days I used it on my current billing cycle is = (210 MB /3 days ) * 30 days = 2.1 GB

Typically, Pandora data usage will range between 1.5 GB to 3 GB per month cellular usage on my network.

Pandora was the number one music streaming app a couple of years ago with arrival along with Spotify and Apple music it lost a big chunk of its subscribers to Apple and Amazon music in recent years, yet it continues to hold large market share in crowded online music streaming market.

It is the top choice among users in 2018 between the ages of 25-44 and this group is the biggest strength behind Pandora's health market share. Pandora features such as streaming music based on listener's tastes, offline listening(Premium), replay features(Premium) are some of the hot favorites of its subscribers. These features make Pandora an extremely popular platform where people listen to the music they love.

Source: Reach of selected music sources in the United States as of July 2018, by age group

Will you able to save data usage moving to different streaming service?

We have a plethora of music streaming services in the market to stream songs and other audio files anywhere we go. They all have their advantages in one way or another and they are all in direct competition with Pandora radio. A person like me, access to music or podcasts on the go is an important part of my daily commute, I used and still using many streaming services from Pandora to Youtube Music, some of them are paid and mostly free ones.

When I compare data using some paid subscription services, it offers better options from offline download to settings to change the audio quality, It is the same with Pandora premium plans too. Please try at least a couple of them for a month or two to see if it really helps your data usage before you are strict to one of these online music streaming service. Spotify, Apple Music, SoundCloud, and iHeartradio are my other choices for online music listening.

How to save cellular data with Premium plans?

Pandora was able to create new, improved services for its users – Pandora Premium and Pandora Plus. Premium which costs listeners $9.99 monthly, offers on-demand services, offline listening, Ad-Free streaming, and others.

Pandora Plus $4.99/Month service offers ad-free music streaming over App and Web. It also allows you to listen to 4 channels offline, replay your favorite tracks and many more.

By upgrading, offline listening and Ad-free streaming may save some amount of data usage but I don't see a huge advantage of these.

Toggle Pandora's audio settings to save cellular data?

There are three audio quality settings on the Pandora premium. These are low, standard and high. Users are able to change these setting to suit their needs. The low setting uses 32 kbps AAc+, the standard setting uses 64 kbps AAC+ and the high setting uses 192 kbps mp3. By toggling these settings while you on cellular data changes the data usage a lot.

Pandora Plus/Pandora Free users can save data usage by toggling "Higher quality audio setting" under Settings > Advanced and Cell Network Audio Quality setting.