If your bandwidth is draining faster than expected, it's usually about how you're sending requests.
Browser-based scraping is the biggest culprit. When you load a page through a browser (or headless browser), it doesn't just grab the HTML—it downloads CSS, JavaScript, images, fonts, tracking scripts, and everything else on that page. A single product page can easily consume 2-5MB instead of the 50-100KB you'd use with a simple HTTP request.
Request method matters. Using libraries like Python's requests or cURL is way more efficient since you're only fetching exactly what you need. Browsers pull everything.
Media-heavy sites burn through traffic fast. If you're scraping sites with lots of images or videos, even basic page loads add up quick.
Concurrent connections can also surprise you. Running multiple threads or sessions at once multiplies your bandwidth usage—10 scrapers running simultaneously means 10x the traffic.
If you're burning through data, switch to lightweight HTTP requests instead of full browser automation, or disable image loading if you must use a browser.