Does iMessage use data? How much?

I've heard lots of people saying it uses data, but I'm not sure if that's true.
If it is true, will iMessage work with Wi-Fi instead of data?
And if I'm in a place that doesn't have Wi-Fi, will my phone continue to text other iPhone users using iMessage?
Is there any setting that will use iMessage only when there's Wi-Fi?

I'm just worried about how much this will eat into my data. I have a plan with only 1 GB, shared.

I found this - seems pretty conclusive to me…

"Let's put it this way, if each message takes up 1K (and it's probably much less than that on average), and you send or receive 1 message every minute you're awake (16 hours a day) for a whole month, you'd use 29 MB for those 28, 800 messages, or less than 15% of even the smallest 200 MB data plan.

Yes, pictures are going to use more data. You could send 1, 000 (about 33 per day) 100K picture messages (again, that's on the large size, most.jpg pics will be smaller) and only use 100 MB, or 50% of your 200 MB data plan.

Now if you're sending 30, 000 text messages or 1, 000 picture messages, it seems pretty obvious you aren't a good candidate for the "light user" 200 MB data plan anyway. Most people are going to have a 2 GB data limit. Under that, you could send your 30, 000 text messages and your 1, 000 picture messages and only use about 6.5% of your 2 GB data limit."

  • IMessage use data? How much? Ok so I just got an iPhone 5c and I'm a little confused now. I heard that you can basically only use iMessage to text other iPhone, iPod ect. Users. But then I heard that using iMessage uses data. I have 4 GB and I'm just wondering if I text kind of a lot using iMessage if it would kill my data? Obviously I'm not really good with this kind of stuff so any info you have to help me would be great
  • If I keep my data on but also use Wi-Fi will it use my data? I just got an iPhone from us cellular. I use Wi-Fi to save data, but I can't receive group messages if my data isn't on. If I keep my data on all the time, but use Wi-Fi, will it use my data? And if I keep both on will it use my Wi-Fi instead of data?
  • I just got the iPhone 5s, Does iMessage use my data when I'm connected to Wi-Fi? I only have 5gb of data a month. Will iMessage use my data up when connected to Wi-Fi? also, when i leave the house and I'm no longer connected to Wi-Fi, will iMessage cost me? I don't want to go over my bill!
  • How much does a mb of data cost when not on a contract with data on it? I have a really old contract ish and i got my bill back today and it says its £15 extra for internet usage, so i hop on the iphone and it says i've used 58mb of mobile data (the rest i've used with Wi-Fi) but this seems extremely expensive? Is it right? My contract is with vodafone if that helps