How Much Data Does a Hotspot Use?

Over the space of an hour, a mobile hotspot can use anywhere from around 1MB checking email or up to 10GB if you stream video in 4K. That means knowing how much data you need for any online activity is crucial to tracking your usage and making sure your data lasts till the end of the month.

Read on to learn basic data usage numbers, how data limits work with hotspots, and which mobile plans give you the best data for hotspotting.

How much data do hotspots use?

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Hotspots and data limits

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Using your phone as a mobile hotspot is usually as simple as turning the feature on in your phone's settings. Large carriers like the Big Three (Rogers, Bell, and Telus) and smaller ones like Fido, Lucky Mobile, and Virgin Plus offer data you can repurpose for mobile hotspot usage. In fact, almost every Canadian cell phone carrier allows you to use your phone’s built-in mobile hotspot with your plan’s data for no extra charge.

Tethering, another name for hotspotting, essentially gives you portable Wi-Fi. It’s an incredible convenience, but it’s not magic: The data used to power your hotspot comes from your cell phone plan’s monthly data chunk. If you’re not careful, using a mobile hotspot might lead you to max out your data, leaving you with throttled speeds or overage fees.

Let’s take a look at what you can do to conserve your cellular data and still get the experience of on-the-go Wi-Fi that tethering provides.

Monitor hotspot data usage

The easiest way to ensure you don’t exceed your data limit while hotspotting is to monitor your monthly data usage in the account on your carrier’s website or in their app. Bell, Rogers, Telus, Freedom Mobile, and others provide straightforward reports in their respective apps, making it easy for customers to track usage and make sure they’re never risking exceeding their data limit. 

Use Wi-Fi hotspots

Sometimes you can get free mobile Wi-Fi without using your own data for a hotspot. The major cell phone carriers in Canada offer their customers free Wi-Fi hotspots, available in various locations across the country. 

Rogers offers over 100,000 Wi-Fi hotspots at coffee shops, malls, restaurants and more, with most of them located in urban centres in the country’s southern half.

Telus has over 20,000 Wi-Fi hotspots and is adding more every month. Telus customers can access the OptikTV app while using the hotspots, giving them the ability to watch and record their favourite shows on-the-go.

Freedom Mobile boasts over 100,000 hotspots across Canada, providing a wealth of free alternatives to launching your own personal hotspot.

SaskTel and Bell also offer Wi-Fi hotspots, though their coverage maps are much smaller: Bell offers 4,000 hotspots across the country in participating McDonald’s, Chapters Indigo, and Tim Hortons locations, while SaskTel’s selectWi-Fi 2,500 hubs are limited to southern Saskatchewan.

Best mobile hotspot data plans

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Cell phone plans from Canada’s carriers allow for mobile hotspots at no additional cost to customers, though hotspotting uses data from their monthly allotment. While many cell phone plans in the U.S. provide additional data specifically for hotspots, we don’t have that luxury in the Great North.

If you’re looking to consistently use a mobile hotspot without exceeding your monthly data limit, we recommend an unlimited plan. Unlimited plans in Canada aren’t truly unlimited (since you only get a set amount of premium, high-speed data), but they do provide customers with unlimited connectivity and no overage fees. 

With that in mind, here are some of the best mobile hotspot data plans in Canada.

Rogers | 5G+ Essential plan–Best for remote workers

One of our favourite unlimited mobile plans includes Rogers' 5G+ Essential plan, which offers 100GB of full-speed 5G+ data—enough to work remotely, upload files to the cloud, and stream the occassional video on Netflix.

If you do exceed 100GB for the month, your speed will be throttled to 512Kbps. That will make tethering painfully slow, but it’ll keep you connected for the rest of the month–and it also means you won’t be charged an overage fee.

Rogers’ plan bears a striking resemblance to Bell’s Select 120GB and Telus’ 5G+ Complete plans–even the names are similar! (Hey, we never suggested the Big Three did much to distinguish themselves as individuals.) Still, we prefer Rogers’ plan because of the carrier’s highly-rated nationwide network, which was deemed the most reliable 5G+ wireless network in Canada in a 2025 report from the telecom research firm Umlaut.

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Freedom Mobile | 5G+ 60GB Total Freedom –Best for travellers

On top of that, Freedom Mobile's 5G+ 60GB Total Freedom plan has a stable allotment of 5G+ data to use each month. The plan provides 60GB of full-speed 5G data–half of Rogers’ Infinite Essential plan, but still enough to occasionally use your phone as a mobile hotspot without risking throttling. That’s a good thing, too, because the slowdown from Freedom is more severe than the Big Three–if you exceed your 60GB of data, speeds will be throttled to 256Kbps.

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Check out our top picks for the best unlimited hotspot plans and the best general hotspot plans, and browse some of the most popular unlimited data plans below.

How to turn on your mobile hotspot

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Good news: turning your phone into a mobile hotspot is easy. The exact steps vary depending on your phone and operating system, but most phones require just a few simple steps. Here’s how to enable your personal hotspot on an iPhone and an Android.

Turn on hotspot for iPhone

Apple makes it incredibly easy to toggle hotspot access on and off from your iPhone. To connect your laptop, tablet, or gaming handheld to your personal hotspot, follow these steps:

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Personal Hotspot.
3. Toggle Allow Others to Join.
4. Set or confirm your Wi-Fi password.

Turn on hotspot for Android

Android steps vary slightly depending on your device. None is overtly complicated, though the naming convention differs slightly. For example, the Samsung Galaxy S26 has a different user interface from the Google Pixel 10. 

Here’s how enabling hotspot access works on the two most common brands in Canada: Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices.

Samsung Galaxy

1. Open Settings.
2. Tap Connections.
3. Select Mobile Hotspot and Tethering.
4. Tap Mobile Hotspot.
5. Toggle it On/Off.
6. Review your network name and password.

Google Pixel

1. Open your phone's Settings app.
2. Tap Network & internet. 
3. Select Hotspot & tethering and then Wi-Fi hotspot.
4. Turn on Wi-Fi hotspot.

Hotspot data use: FAQ

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Can you use a mobile hotspot without using data?

No, you generally cannot use a mobile hotspot without using data: Mobile hotspots use your phone’s cellular data to connect other devices to the internet. You can, however, avoid using mobile data by taking advantage of your carrier’s mobile Wi-Fi hotspots, if they offer them.  

Some newer Samsung Galaxy and Google Pixel devices can also repeat a Wi-Fi network, allowing your phone to rebroadcast a Wi-Fi network to other devices and avoid using your plans data.

How long will 5GB of hotspot last?

How long 5GB of hotspot will last depends on what you’re doing and how long you’re doing it: 5GB will sustain over five hours of Zoom videoconferencing, while that same amount could sustain 1,000 hours of navigating on Google Maps. If you’re interested in seeing how much data specific activities use while hotspotting, you can check out our comprehensive list above. 

Can you run out of hotspot data if you have unlimited data?

Yes, you can run out of hotspot data if you have unlimited data. “Unlimited data” in Canada isn’t truly unlimited: Once you exceed your monthly data, your connection will be slowed, often to the point where hotspotting will be painfully slow or simply not usable.

Is it bad for your phone to use it as a hotspot?

No, it’s not bad for your phone to use it as a hotspot, but it’s not sustainable over long periods of time because hotspotting drains your battery quickly and uses a hefty amount of data. If you’re interested in a long-term solution, you should consider purchasing a mobile hotspot device (also known as a MiFi router) and a data-only plan.

How much hotspot data do I need per month in Canada?

Most Canadians need 5GB to 20GB of data per month for typical mobile usage. If you use your phone as a hotspot, 30GB to over 50GB per month is recommended.

Does hotspot use more data than using your phone directly?

A mobile hotspot does not inherently use more data than using your phone directly for the same activities.