Calculate audio file size from bitrate and duration — or reverse-engineer a bitrate from an existing file. Drag in any audio clip and the tool also reports its codec, sample rate, and channel configuration so you can choose the right export settings.

Audio Bitrate Optimizer

Calculate file sizes, find bitrates, or analyze any audio file.

Drop an audio file or click to browse

MP3 · WAV · FLAC · AAC · M4A · OGG · Opus · WMA · AIFF · WebM · APE · WavPack · AMR · DSD · AC-3 · DTS · and more

How This Calculator Works

Bitrate is the amount of data used to represent one second of audio, measured in kilobits per second (kbps). It directly governs the trade-off between file size and perceived quality: higher bitrates capture more detail but produce larger files. Spoken-word podcasts often use 64–96 kbps mono, music streaming 128–256 kbps, and lossless CD-quality audio 1411 kbps (WAV/FLAC). This calculator converts between bitrate, duration, and file size, and analyzes an uploaded file to report its codec, sample rate, channels, and calculated bitrate — useful before re-encoding for distribution.

The Mathematical Formula & Logic

File size (MB) = (Bitrate kbps × Duration seconds) ÷ 8 ÷ 1024.

Divide by 8 to convert bits to bytes, and by 1024 to convert bytes to megabytes.

Bitrate (kbps) = (File size MB × 8 × 1024) ÷ Duration seconds.

Worked Step-by-Step Example

A 3-minute (180 second) MP3 at 128 kbps:

File size = (128 × 180) / 8 / 1024 = 2.81 MB. At 320 kbps the same track is about 7.03 MB; at 1411 kbps (lossless) about 30.96 MB — roughly eleven times larger for a marginal quality gain most listeners can't hear on typical earbuds.

Frequently Asked Questions

64–96 kbps mono is usually sufficient for spoken-word podcasts and keeps hosting and bandwidth costs down. If your podcast includes music, 128 kbps stereo is a common compromise. Always keep a lossless master and compress down from it — you can't recover detail lost to compression.

uncompressed CD audio is 1411 kbps (44.1 kHz, 16-bit, stereo). Lossless formats like FLAC and WAV preserve this full bitrate. MP3 and AAC at 320 kbps are widely considered transparent — most listeners can't distinguish them from the source on typical playback equipment.

File size scales linearly with bitrate — doubling the bitrate doubles the file size for the same duration. A 128 kbps file is half the size of a 256 kbps file of equal length. Choose the lowest bitrate that still sounds acceptable to keep storage and streaming costs down.

Disclaimer: CompelKit tools and calculators are provided for educational and estimation purposes only and do not constitute certified legal, financial, or tax advice.

Read the full guide: Audio Bitrate Explained →
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