Average and Median Calculator

How the mean, median, and range are calculated

The box is split on commas and on whitespace. Each piece is read as a number after dollar signs, percent signs, and commas inside that piece are stripped. Empty pieces are dropped. If nothing numeric remains, the page asks you to enter at least one number and hides the result. Mean = sum ÷ count. The list is copied and sorted from smallest to largest for everything else. If the count is odd, the median is the middle value. If the count is even, the median is the average of the two middle values. Minimum and maximum are the first and last values after that sort. Range = maximum − minimum. Sum, mean, median, minimum, maximum, and range are shown to four decimal places, with trailing zeros removed, so 88.5 stays 88.5 and 500 ÷ 7 displays as 71.4286. Count is the number of values that parsed, not the number of commas.

The page does not compute a mode, a standard deviation, a trimmed mean, or a weighted mean. Order in the box does not matter, because the median sort is internal and addition does not care. A single number has a mean and a median equal to itself and a range of 0.

Worked examples

Example 1: Four quiz scores

Type 88, 92, 79, 95. Sum = 354. Mean = 354 ÷ 4 = 88.5. Sorted: 79, 88, 92, 95. The count is even, so the median is (88 + 92) ÷ 2 = 90. Minimum 79, maximum 95, range 16, count 4. The mean sits below the median because 79 is farther below the middle than 95 is above it.

Example 2: An outlier, with the digits the page actually shows

Type 70 75 80 85 90. Sum = 400, count = 5, mean = 80, median = 80, range = 20. Add a 0 and a 100 so the box reads 0, 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 100. Sum = 500, count = 7, mean = 500 ÷ 7, which displays as 71.4286. The middle of seven sorted values is 80, so the median stays 80. Range displays as 100. The gap between 71.4286 and 80 is the outlier. Reporting only the mean describes a different set than the one a typical score sits in.

Example 3: Five incomes, typed without thousands separators

Type 40000 42000 45000 48000 250000. Sum = 425000. Mean = 85000. Sorted, the middle value is 45000, so the median is 45000. Minimum 40000, maximum 250000, range 210000, count 5. The mean is 85000 because one value is 250000, not because the page "pulls toward" that value in some other way. If those figures are in dollars, type them without a comma inside the number. The string 40,000 is split into 40 and 0 before the comma-stripping step, so it is not forty thousand.

When to use this

Use it for a list where every entry should count once: quiz scores, lap times, invoice amounts, daily temperatures. Use the mean when the entries are on one scale and a very large or very small value deserves to move the result. Use the median when you want the middle of the sorted list, which is the more stable description of example 2 and example 3. If the question is a course grade weighted by credit hours, this page will treat a 4-credit A and a 1-credit A as two equal numbers. That calculation is the GPA Calculator. If the question is how much one number grew relative to another, it is the Percent Change Calculator, which divides a difference by the starting value. This page never divides by a starting value.

Averaging averages, and the comma trap

Two class means are not the mean of the combined class unless the classes are the same size. Class A averages 80 with 10 students and class B averages 90 with 90 students. The combined mean is (10 × 80 + 90 × 90) ÷ 100 = 8,900 ÷ 100 = 89. Typing 80 90 on this page displays a mean of 85, because you handed it two numbers, not one hundred scores. To get 89 here you would paste ten 80s and ninety 90s. The page has no weight field.

Commas both separate values and, inside a single token, get deleted only after the split. 88, 92 is two scores. 1,000 is the values 1 and 0. A percent sign is safe: 85% becomes 85, because the percent sign is stripped from the token and there is no comma to split on. Dollar amounts over 999 need the comma left out, or written as 1000. Negatives and zeros are ordinary numbers. -2, 0, 1, 3 has sum 2, mean 0.5, median 0.5, and range 5.

Common mistakes

• Putting a thousands comma inside a value. 40,000 becomes 40 and 0. The mean collapses. Type 40000.
• Averaging two averages. Equal weight on two class means ignores class size. Example above: 85 on this page, 89 if every student is an entry.
• Mixing units in one list. A 150 and a 68 are not "about the same weight" if one is pounds and one is kilograms. Convert first with the Weight Converter, then average.
• Expecting a weighted grade. Credits, hours, and coefficients are not read. A GPA with credit hours belongs on the GPA page.
• Reading 71.4286 as 71.4 and then arguing with the median. The panel keeps four decimal places. 500 ÷ 7 rounded to four places is 71.4286, and the median of that seven-value list is 80.
• Using the mean for a growth rate. The mean of 10 and 50 is 30. That is not a compounded return. Percent change between two values is a different tool.

Limitations

Arithmetic mean and median only. No mode, no percentile other than the median, no standard deviation, no geometric mean, and no weights. Very long pastes work only as far as the browser's text field allows. The sort is numeric, so a value that fails to parse is skipped rather than treated as zero, except that a comma inside a number creates an extra piece that may parse as a small integer. Rounding is to four decimal places on the summary lines, using half-up rounding, so a repeating mean is the displayed four-place value, not the full fraction.

FAQ

Is average always the mean?

On this page the heading "Mean (average)" is the sum divided by the count. The median is shown beside it. In ordinary speech people use "average" for the mean. If the list is skewed, read both numbers. Example 2 displays a mean of 71.4286 and a median of 80.

What if I have an even number of values?

The median is the average of the two middle values after sorting. For 88, 92, 79, 95 the sorted middle pair is 88 and 92, and the median displays as 90.

Can I paste a long list?

Yes. Separate values with commas, spaces, or line breaks. Do not put a thousands comma inside a value. A percent sign on a token is removed. A dollar sign is removed, but a comma in $40,000 still splits the token first.

Does order matter?

No. The mean adds every parsed value. The median sorts a copy. Typing the scores backwards does not change either result.

Why did 1,000 become a mean near 0.5?

The comma splits the field before numbers are parsed, so 1,000 is the list 1 and 0. The mean of 1 and 0 is 0.5. Type 1000 if you mean one thousand.

Will this weight a 4-credit class more than a 1-credit class?

No. Each parsed number counts once. Credit-weighted grade points are the GPA Calculator. Two class averages typed as two numbers are averaged equally, even when the classes have different sizes.

What gets skipped?

Blank pieces are skipped. A word that is not a number is skipped. If every piece fails, the page shows a warning and no summary. A lone zero is kept, and it pulls the mean and can become the minimum.

Related calculators

• GPA Calculator when credits should weight the grades
• Percent Change Calculator for the change between two values
• Ratio Calculator
• Fraction to Decimal to Percent
• Weight Converter before you average masses that are not in the same unit