Average Calculator

Find the mean, median, mode, range and more for any set of numbers.

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Mean (Average)
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Count of Numbers
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Sum
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Median
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Mode
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Minimum
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Maximum
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Range
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How Average, Median & Mode Are Calculated

This tool computes several common measures of central tendency and spread from a list of numbers.

Worked example

For the default list 72, 85, 90, 64, 78: Sum = 389, Count = 5, so Mean = 389 ÷ 5 = 77.8. Sorted, the list is 64, 72, 78, 85, 90 — the middle value is 78, so the Median is 78. Since every value appears exactly once, there is No mode. The Range is 90 − 64 = 26.

How to calculate average, median and mode, step by step

  1. Enter your list of numbers, separated by commas or new lines.
  2. Click Calculate to see the Mean, Median, Mode and Range for your data.
  3. Use the Mean for a typical overall value, the Median if outliers might be skewing the Mean, and the Mode to find the most frequently occurring value.

Why use median or mode instead of mean?

The mean can be skewed by extreme values (outliers), since every number contributes to the sum. Average salaries in a small office can look misleadingly high if one person earns far more than everyone else — the median is often a more representative "typical" value in such cases. The mode is most useful for categorical or frequently repeating data, such as the most common exam score in a class.

Frequently Asked Questions

The mean is pulled toward extreme values (outliers), since every number contributes to the sum. In a small office where one person earns far more than everyone else, the average salary can look misleadingly high — the median, which is unaffected by how extreme the outlier is, often better represents a "typical" value in such cases.

The median is defined as the middle value of a sorted list. With an odd count, there's a single number exactly in the middle. With an even count, there are two numbers straddling the middle position, so the median is defined as their average — this keeps the median consistently representing the 50th-percentile point of the data regardless of whether the count is odd or even.

Yes. If two or more values tie for the highest frequency, the data set is "multimodal" and has multiple modes. For example, in the list 3, 3, 5, 5, 7, both 3 and 5 appear twice, more than any other value, so the data set has two modes: 3 and 5.

"No mode" means every value in the list appears exactly once, so no single value repeats more often than any other — there's nothing that qualifies as the "most frequent" value. This is common with small data sets of unique measurements, like five different exam scores that all happen to be different numbers.

Range is meant to show the total spread of the data — how far the highest value is from the lowest — so it only needs the maximum and minimum. It ignores everything in between, which makes it simple to calculate but also sensitive to a single unusually high or low outlier, unlike the mean or median.

Average (mean) reflects the overall total spread evenly across all values, and is best for data without extreme outliers. Median reflects the middle-ranked value, and is more robust when outliers are present. Mode reflects the most common value, and is most useful for categorical or frequently repeating data, like the most common exam score in a class, rather than continuous numeric measurements.
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