Why is my speed test lower than the speed I pay for?
Paying for 300 Mbps and seeing 90? Before you call your provider, here are the seven usual reasons — in the order you should check them.
You pay for 300 Mbps. The test says 90. Someone is lying, right? Usually not — but something is in the way. Work through this list top to bottom; most people find their answer in the first three.
1. Wi-Fi
The single biggest cause. Wi-Fi speed drops with distance, walls, floors and interference from neighbours. A phone two rooms from the router often gets a third of the plan speed, and that is normal physics, not a fault.
Test it: plug a laptop into the router with an Ethernet cable and run the test again. If the wired result matches your plan, your plan is fine and your Wi-Fi coverage isn't. Move the router to a central spot, switch to the 5 GHz band, or add a mesh node.
2. Your device
Old laptops, budget phones and smart TVs often have Wi-Fi chips that top out at 100–200 Mbps regardless of your plan. Some USB-Ethernet adapters are 100 Mbps only. A gigabit plan tested on a 100 Mbps adapter will read 94 Mbps — forever.
3. Someone else is using it
A speed test measures what is left over. A 4K stream, a console update or a cloud backup on another device can take half your bandwidth. Pause everything you can, then test again.
4. "Up to" is not a promise
Plans are sold at their maximum. Cable connections are shared with neighbours and slow down in the evening. DSL depends on your distance from the exchange. Mobile depends on how many people are on the cell. A result 10–20% below the headline figure is typical and not worth a complaint.
5. VPNs and security software
A VPN encrypts and reroutes everything, often through a server far away. Many cap out around 100–300 Mbps. Some antivirus "web shields" also inspect traffic and slow it down. Turn them off for a test.
6. Old or overheating hardware
Routers and modems older than five or six years may not support your current plan's speed. Routers in cupboards or behind TVs also throttle when hot. Restart it — genuinely, it works — and if the box is old, ask your provider for a newer one.
7. The provider's network
Only after everything above should you suspect your ISP. Signs it really is them: a wired test at an off-peak time (say 7 am) is still far below the plan, the problem appeared suddenly, or neighbours on the same provider report the same. Run tests at a few different times of day, note the results, and give them to support. Numbers get problems fixed faster than complaints.
A note on how we measure
Speedtesty tests against the Cloudflare data centre nearest to you — the same servers used by Cloudflare's own speed test — so the far end is almost never the limit. We report the 90th percentile of many samples, which removes the slow start of each transfer. If a different speed test gives you a higher number, it may be a server inside your provider's network, which tells you how fast your ISP is to itself, not to the internet.
See your own numbers
Run the test — it takes about 20 seconds and needs no account.