Average Calculator

Paste a list of numbers — get the mean, median, sum, and range.

How the calculator works

The mean is the sum of all values divided by how many there are — the classic “add them up and divide” operation, computed at full precision so long lists do not drift. The median sorts the values and takes the middle one; with an even count it averages the two middle values, which is why medians can land between actual data points. The range is simply the maximum minus the minimum, a first look at spread. Values are parsed leniently — decimal points, thousands separators, negative numbers, and both Latin and Arabic-Indic digits are all accepted — and any token that cannot be read as a number is reported so you can fix the input rather than receive a silently wrong average.

Formula

Mean = Σ x ÷ n
Median = middle value of sorted x (or mean of the two middle values)

Where:

  • x — the values you enter
  • n — how many values there are
  • Σ x — the sum of all values

Example

Take weekly spending: 42, 38.5, 55, 47, 38.5. The sum is 221 across 5 entries, so the mean is 44.2. Sorting gives 38.5, 38.5, 42, 47, 55, whose middle value — the median — is 42, slightly below the mean because the 55 pulls the average upward. The range runs 55 − 38.5 = 16.5. The mean answers “what does a typical week cost?” while the median shows the week you would experience most often.

Frequently Asked Questions

When should I use the median instead of the mean?
Use the median when your data contains outliers: one extreme value drags the mean toward itself but barely moves the median. Income and house prices are the classic cases — the mean is inflated by a few large figures, while the median describes the typical person.
Why are the mean and median different in my data?
They measure different things. The mean is the balance point of all values; the median is the 50% cutoff. A gap between them signals skew — data bunched on one side with a tail on the other. Neither is wrong; they answer different questions.
How many numbers can I enter?
Thousands — the list is parsed and processed locally in your browser, so length is limited only by your device's memory rather than a server limit.
Does the calculator round the average?
The display shows up to six decimals and trims trailing zeros, so 44.2 stays 44.2 and a repeating result like 10 ÷ 3 shows as 3.333333. The underlying calculation always uses full precision.