Average Calculator
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Paste a list of numbers and get the mean, median, mode, range and spread.
- Paste or type your numbers — commas, spaces or line breaks all work
- Read the three averages together, not just the mean
- Use the sample or population figure depending on what your numbers are
Mean
Median
Mode
About this tool
Paste a column out of a spreadsheet, a comma-separated line, or numbers with line breaks between them. It reads whatever is there and works out all three averages at once. All three, because "average" means three different things in ordinary speech and which one somebody wanted is usually revealed by how far apart they are. Ten salaries with a mean of 62,000 and a median of 41,000 is a sentence about the data, not about arithmetic — and you only see it if both are in front of you. Standard deviation comes back twice, and that is deliberate. The two definitions differ by one in the divisor: divide by n when your numbers are everything there is, by n − 1 when they are a sample of something larger. A sample of ten gets a figure about five per cent too small under the wrong one, and a tool offering a single number labelled "standard deviation" is guessing which you are doing. The mode is only reported when something actually repeats. A list where every value appears once has no most-common value, and inventing one would be worse than saying so.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between mean, median and mode?
The mean is the total divided by how many there are. The median is the middle value once they are sorted. The mode is whichever value appears most often. They are all called the average, and when they disagree sharply that gap is usually the most interesting thing about the data.
Which standard deviation should I use?
Divide by n − 1 (the sample figure) when your numbers are a sample of something larger, which is nearly always. Divide by n (the population figure) only when you have every member of the group you are describing. On a small sample the difference is several per cent.
Why does it say there is no mode?
Because nothing in your list repeats. A list where every value appears exactly once has no most-common value, and reporting the first one would invent a fact the data does not contain. If several values tie for most common, all of them are shown.
How should I separate the numbers?
However they already are. Commas, spaces, tabs, semicolons and line breaks all work, so a column pasted straight out of a spreadsheet needs no tidying. The one thing that will not work is a decimal comma, because it cannot be told apart from a separator.
Is there a limit to how many numbers?
Practically, no — it handles tens of thousands without noticing, because it is a handful of passes over a list. Everything is computed in your browser, so a long list costs you nothing and is sent nowhere.
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