What is bandwidth
Bandwidth is the volume of data that can be transferred from the origin server to the client in a given amount of time. The larger the bandwidth, the more data can be transferred in that given time.
How it works
If we decode the word bandwidth, band means circle and width is the diameter or how wide the circle is. The wider the circle, the more volume of data will be able to pass through at a given time. Having larger bandwidth will get data to your clients faster.
How bandwidth is calculated
Network bandwidth is usually calculated in bits, megabits, or gigabits per second served by the origin server. Hosting bandwidth is calculated by multiplying the average number of monthly visitors, the average number of monthly page views, and the average size of your website pages. The total equates to the approximate size of bandwidth needed for your website per month.
For example, if your average monthly visitor count is 100 and average page views are 3 pages per person, and the average size of your page is 3mb, then:
(a)×(b)×(c) = total bandwidth usage per month. |
| Avg. Monthly Visits | Avg. Page Views Per Person | Avg. Page Size | Total |
| 100 | 3 | 3MB | 900MB |
| 30 | 5 | 2MB | 300MB |
| 567 | 2 | 3MB | 3402MB |
Bandwidth is calculated using the request made to your origin server. Having a CDN greatly reduces the monthly use of bandwidth by serving cached pages from the CDN network. If your website does not have CDN, when clients make a request to your website, they are making a request to the origin server and using up more bandwidth.
Note:
If you have enabled Cloudflare Enterprise CDN on your website, then your bandwidth is calculated using the average overall request size times the average number of requests.