🌡️How Bandwidth Works in BIG Digital Download

Every time one of your customers downloads a file, that consumes bandwidth. Each plan includes a set amount of bandwidth per 30-day period. This article explains how it is measured, what happens when you reach the limit, and how billing works for Enterprise stores.

What is Bandwidth?

Bandwidth is the total amount of data transferred when your customers download files from your store.

Think of it like a water pipe. Your plan gives you a pipe of a certain size. Every download pushes water through that pipe. When the pipe is full, downloads stop. If you are on Enterprise, you keep going and pay for the extra flow.

Bandwidth is not the same as storage. Storage is how much space your files take up on our servers. Bandwidth is how much data moves when customers actually download those files.

Practical example:

You sell a digital course made up of 5 files, each 200MB. Total: 1GB per customer. If 50 customers download the full course in 30 days, that is 50GB of bandwidth consumed, regardless of how much storage the files use.

Bandwidth Allocation by Plan

Plan	Price	Bandwidth included
Regular	Free	500MB / 30 days
Starter	$9.99/month	50GB / 30 days
Pro	$19.99/month	500GB / 30 days
Growth	$49.99/month	1TB / 30 days
Enterprise	$99.99/month	Custom (agreed with Penida)

All limits are measured on a rolling 30-day window (not a calendar month reset). More on that below.

How the 30-Day Rolling Window Works

Most people expect bandwidth to reset on the 1st of each month, like a phone plan. Ours works differently, and it is worth understanding so you are not caught off guard.

Every day, the app looks back exactly 30 days and adds up all the bandwidth consumed in that window.

That number is your current usage. It is always moving, always recalculating.

What this means in practice:

Imagine you ran a big sale on May 1st and your customers downloaded 400GB that day. On June 1st (31 days later) that 400GB drops out of the window entirely. Your available bandwidth goes back up automatically, without you doing anything.

This is actually better than a fixed reset: you do not get hit with a sudden hard stop on the 1st of the month. Usage smooths out over time.

What Happens When You Reach the Limit

On Regular, Starter, Pro, and Growth plans

Downloads are temporarily blocked until your rolling 30-day total drops back below your plan's limit.

Your customers will not be able to download files during that time. No overage charge is applied. Access simply pauses.

There are two ways to restore access:

1. Wait. As older usage rolls out of the 30-day window, your total will drop and downloads will re-enable automatically.

2. Upgrade to a higher plan immediately.

Practical example:

You are on the Pro plan (500GB/30 days). You launched a product on May 10th and sold 300 copies of a 2GB file. That is 600GB, 100GB over your limit. Downloads are now blocked.

On June 9th (30 days after May 10th) that spike starts rolling out of the window. By June 11th your total is back under 500GB, and downloads re-enable automatically. No action needed on your part.

Your customers will see a download error while access is blocked. If you are expecting a high-volume launch, upgrade your plan beforehand to avoid interruption.

On the Enterprise plan

Downloads are never blocked. You can exceed your included bandwidth and the extra usage is charged at $0.023 per additional GB, billed automatically through Shopify.

Practical example:

You are on Enterprise and consumed 1,100GB in the last 30 days. Your plan includes 1,000GB. Extra usage: 100GB. Additional charge: 100 × $0.023 = $2.30, billed through Shopify.

The overage is tagged as billable the same day it occurs. This prevents it from being counted again on future days. Shopify may process the charge that day or within the following days depending on their billing cycle.

How to Monitor Your Bandwidth

You do not have to wait until downloads break to check your usage.

Step 1 - Open the app

Log in to your Shopify Admin and go to Apps → BIG Digital Download.

Step 2 - Go to the Dashboard

Inside the app, click on Dashboard. Your current bandwidth consumption for the rolling 30-day window is displayed there.

Check your Dashboard before running a sale or sending a promotional email. A spike in orders means a spike in downloads. Plan accordingly.

Important Notes

Bandwidth consumed by re-downloads counts toward your limit just like first-time downloads. If a customer downloads the same file 10 times, that is 10× the file size in bandwidth. Use the download limit setting in the app to cap how many times each customer can download a file.

There is no fixed reset date. The 30-day window rolls forward daily. Even if you are currently blocked, usage from 30 days ago will start dropping off, and your available bandwidth will recover, without you doing anything.

Best Practices

Set a download limit for every product. Go to each product's settings and cap downloads at 3–5 per customer. Most legitimate buyers download a file once or twice. Without a cap, a single customer re-downloading a 1GB file 20 times costs you 20GB of bandwidth, invisible until it adds up.

Check your Dashboard before big promotions. If you are planning a flash sale or email blast, look at your current rolling usage first. If you are already at 70–80% of your limit, consider upgrading your plan for that period. Upgrading takes effect immediately and you can downgrade again once the peak passes.

Use the Growth plan if you sell large files to frequent buyers. The jump from Pro (500GB) to Growth (1TB) doubles your headroom and is the right move if you consistently sell video courses, high-res asset packs, or software. The Starter and Pro plans are built for lighter catalogs.

Upgrade to Enterprise only if you regularly exceed 1TB. The Enterprise plan is designed for high-volume stores (think marketplaces, agencies distributing to clients, or stores with thousands of active buyers per month). If you hit 1TB once during a launch, upgrading temporarily and downgrading again is a valid strategy.