An Explanation of Bandwidth Vs. Pageviews

You’ll notice that our hosting packages have 2 main items that differentiate them. First, is the number of WordPress sites allowed per account. And the second, is the number of pageviews accommodated per month. Pageviews is a way of expressing bandwidth in a way that makes sense to most users. There are limitations to this ‘pageview’ number as you’ve likely experienced if you’ve run out of resources in your account, but do not get the allotted pageviews.

That brings us to the real measurement that we use on our hosting server – bandwidth.

“Bandwidth” in relation to a hosting account, is a measurement of data used on your account. You have a maximum limit of bandwidth per account, per month. And usually the bandwidth we set correlates to the pageviews you can expect to accommodate.

How much bandwidth do I use?

If you want to know if your package is sufficient for your needs, you’ll need your current bandwidth. There are 2 ways to find your current bandwidth mentioned below. But if your pageviews are over what we estimate, then you’re doing great – keep going until you get a warning email that you should upgrade! 🙂

View Actual Bandwidth on CPANEL:

1. Log into CPanel with the logins you received when you purchased your account
2. Go to Metrics > Bandwidth
3. At the top you can see the % of your account that is used to date.

Things to Note:

• bandwidth renews each month on the 1st at midnight
• bandwidth includes your email and FTP use too

Approximate Your Bandwidth

1. Go to GTMetrix and enter a blog page link.
2. Get the total page size under Page Details section. (see image below for reference)
3. Get the average number of visitors per month from Google Analytics.
4. Use this formula: page size x number of visits
5. Allow for differences if you use the server for email and/or FTP.

Hosting Bandwidth vs. Pageviews on your WPB Hosting Package

We calculate bandwidth by 800kb per page because most of you have photos and videos in your pages. So for 25,000 pageviews on the Entrepreneur package, the calculation is:

800kb x 25,000 pageviews = 20,000 mb

We add 2,000 MB Bonus to a grand total of 22,000 MB bandwidth (or 22 GB).

Why is my bandwidth so high and pageviews so low?

There are only 3 things that affect your bandwidth: the size of your page, the number of visitors and in a small way – your email and FTP use.

You’ll need to double check each one, if the numbers aren’t adding up.

For example – if Google Analytics is saying your visitors are 10,000/month, and we’re telling you that you are over bandwidth, then you need to look at your page size.

If your visitors are over 25,000 and you haven’t been asked to upgrade – just keep going! You’re doing great!

Find your page size by checking the “Total Page Size” in GT Metrix. Do that for all types of pages – categories, tags, blogs, pages, homepage, landing pages, ecommerce pages, etc. Test in mobile and in desktop. This will give you a better idea of the average size of your pages. If they still aren’t adding up – just contact support for assistance.

If your pageviews are over 1MB, I would recommend revisiting that and seeing if you can optimize it any further. See this article for reducing your page size. Reducing your page size is also good for SEO and user experience. Win win!

I hope this covers the basics and answers your questions! Here’s a few more that we get asked quite often!

Frequently Asked Questions