Average Calculator

Paste or type your numbers, separated by commas, spaces or new lines. You'll get the mean (the average), along with the sum, count, minimum, maximum, range and median.

Enter a list of numbers and press Calculate.

The formula

The average — more precisely the arithmetic mean — is the sum of all the values divided by how many there are:

sum: Σx = x₁ + x₂ + … + xₙ mean: x̄ = (Σx) ÷ n range: R = max − min median: middle value (sorted)

The median is a second kind of "average": sort the numbers and take the middle one. When the count is even there is no single middle, so the median is the mean of the two central values. Because it ignores how far away the extremes are, the median resists outliers that would drag the mean up or down.

Worked example

For the set 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 (n = 6):

Sum: 4 + 8 + 15 + 16 + 23 + 42 = 108.
Mean: 108 ÷ 6 = 18.
Range: 42 − 4 = 38.
Median: the two middle values are 15 and 16, so (15 + 16) ÷ 2 = 15.5.

Mean or median — which to use?

Use the mean when the data is roughly symmetric and you want every value to count, such as averaging test scores or daily temperatures. Reach for the median when the data is skewed or has outliers — incomes, house prices and response times are classic cases, where a few very large values would inflate the mean and make it misleading. Reporting both, alongside the range, gives a fuller picture of a data set than any single number.

Note: the mean here is the simple (unweighted) average. If some values should count more than others — like credit hours in a GPA — you'd use a weighted mean instead.

Frequently asked questions

How do you calculate the average of a list of numbers?

Add up all the values to get the sum, then divide by how many values there are (the count). This arithmetic mean is what people usually call the average.

What is the difference between the mean and the median?

The mean is the sum divided by the count. The median is the middle value when the numbers are sorted (or the average of the two middle values if there's an even count). The median is less affected by extreme outliers.

What is the range?

The range is the spread of the data: the maximum value minus the minimum value. For 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42 the range is 42 − 4 = 38.

How do I enter my numbers?

Type or paste your numbers separated by commas, spaces or new lines. Blank entries are ignored, so you can paste straight from a spreadsheet column.

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Mustafa Bilgic · Editor, Calcool
The arithmetic mean, median and range are standard descriptive statistics, as defined by references such as the NIST/SEMATECH e-Handbook of Statistical Methods. All computation runs in your browser. Last updated 20 June 2026.

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