Here Is What Every Plan Actually Gives You
Confusion Reins Supreme When It Comes To Starlink And Data Caps — Let’s Set The Record Straight
If you have been shopping for Starlink or trying to understand your current plan, the question of data limits probably came up. The short answer is that it depends on which plan you have. Residential plans are genuinely unlimited. Roam plans are a different story. And in the United States, which plan you are even allowed to use depends on how you use Starlink and where you use it. Let us walk through all of it.
Residential Plans: Truly Unlimited Data
All three of Starlink’s current Residential plans include unlimited data. That is not marketing language with a footnote buried in the fine print. There are no monthly caps, no overage fees, and no hard speed limits after you hit some threshold. The unlimited label is accurate.
What Starlink does reserve the right to do is deprioritize your traffic during peak hours if the network in your area is congested. This is not throttling in the traditional sense. Your speeds only slow down when local capacity is genuinely strained, and even then, most users never notice a meaningful difference. Starlink does note in its Fair Use Policy that customers who consistently consume an extraordinary amount of data, we are talking multiple terabytes in a month, can be flagged for deprioritization. In practice this almost never affects a typical household.
Here are the three current Residential plans available in the United States, with pricing as of June 2026:
Residential 100 Mbps costs $55 per month. Download speeds are capped at 100 Mbps, which is more than adequate for a single person or a small household doing email, video calls, and streaming. This plan is only available in select areas where Starlink has extra capacity.
Residential 200 Mbps costs $85 per month. Speeds are capped at 200 Mbps. This is the middle tier and works well for households with several people streaming or working from home simultaneously. Like the 100 Mbps plan, it is only available in certain markets.
Residential MAX costs $130 per month. This is the flagship Residential plan and the one available almost everywhere Starlink serves. There is no speed cap, and MAX subscribers receive the highest network priority among Residential customers.
All three plans deliver the same unlimited data. What you are paying for as you move up the tiers is faster maximum speed and, in the case of MAX, top priority on the network during congested periods.
Important: Residential plans are tied to a fixed address. Your dish must be set up and used at the address you registered when you signed up. Using a Residential plan away from that location violates Starlink’s terms of service and can result in your account being suspended or permanently banned. More on why that matters below.
Roam Plans: Portable, But With Data Limits
Starlink’s Roam plans are designed for mobility. They work anywhere within North America without requiring you to update a service address. In-motion use is permitted up to 100 miles per hour, making Roam the appropriate choice for RVs, vehicles, boats in inland or coastal waters, and anyone without a single fixed location.
The trade-off is data. Unlike Residential plans, two of the three Roam plans have hard data caps on high-speed service.
Roam 100GB costs $55 per month. You receive 100 gigabytes of high-speed data per billing cycle. Once you exhaust that allotment, Starlink does not cut off your service entirely, but it shifts you to a low-speed mode for the rest of the month. Low-speed in this context means roughly 1 Mbps or less. That is enough for basic email or text-based browsing. It is not enough for streaming video or video calls. You cannot purchase additional high-speed data once you hit the cap. This plan suits occasional travelers, weekend campers, and anyone who does not rely on Starlink as their primary internet connection while moving.
Roam 300GB costs $80 per month. This tier was introduced in May 2026 and fills a gap that many users felt acutely. You receive 300 gigabytes of high-speed data per month. After that, the same low-speed unlimited mode kicks in. The 300GB plan is the only Roam plan that did not receive a price increase this spring. For people who work remotely while traveling but do not stream heavily, this plan often represents the best value in the Roam lineup.
Roam Unlimited costs $175 per month. There is no monthly data cap. You can use Starlink on the road without ever worrying about hitting a limit or being slowed down to low-speed mode. The caveat is that Roam Unlimited traffic is deprioritized behind Residential customers on the network. In most areas this has little practical effect, but in dense or high-demand locations you may notice slower speeds during peak evening hours. This plan is the right choice for full-time RVers, digital nomads, and anyone who depends on Starlink as their sole internet connection while traveling.
Which Plan Are You Actually Required to Use?
This is where a lot of new Starlink subscribers get confused, and where getting it wrong can cost you your account.
In the United States, you must use a Residential plan if you are connecting Starlink at a fixed, permanent home address. Starlink registers your address when you sign up and creates a service cell around that location. The dish is expected to stay there. If you try to use a Residential plan somewhere else, the system will eventually detect it and your account is at risk.
You must use a Roam plan if you want to use Starlink at more than one location, if you travel with your dish and use it wherever you happen to be, or if you use Starlink while your vehicle or boat is in motion.
Starlink used to offer a Portability add-on that let Residential customers temporarily use their dish in other locations for an extra $25 per month. That option was discontinued in early 2025. There is no workaround for this today. If mobility is part of how you use Starlink, Roam is not optional, it is required.
One practical note for households that have Starlink at home and want connectivity while traveling: the Starlink Mini is worth knowing about. The Mini is a compact, lightweight second dish that can be added to an existing Starlink account and paired with a Roam plan, giving you separate coverage on the road without disrupting your home service. It is not a replacement for a Roam plan, but it keeps the two use cases cleanly separated.
The Bottom Line
If Starlink is your home internet and the dish stays at your house, a Residential plan gives you unlimited data at a predictable monthly cost, and you never have to think about data caps.
If you need Starlink on the road, in an RV, on a boat, or across multiple locations, you need a Roam plan, and you need to go in knowing that two of the three tiers will cap your high-speed data each month. The 300GB plan at $80 per month is the newest option and for many travelers represents the best balance of cost and usability. If you burn through data quickly or depend on Starlink for work, the Unlimited plan at $175 per month is worth the premium.
Mixing up which plan you need is not just a billing issue. Using a Residential plan outside its registered address can get your account permanently banned. Starlink’s terms are clear on this point, so it is worth getting right before you pack up the dish and hit the road. You need a Mini dishy in addition to your residential system.
