Mean, Median, Mode and Range Calculator

This calculator gives the main descriptive statistics of a data set in one go: mean, median, mode, range, minimum, maximum, sum and count. Paste a list of grades, measurements, prices or times; the tool sorts the data and explains each calculation, so you can check an exercise or quickly summarize data.

The arithmetic mean (the average) is the sum of the values divided by how many there are (the count). It uses every value, which makes it sensitive to extreme values: a single very high salary is enough to pull a team’s average upward.

The median splits the sorted list into two groups of equal size: half of the values are less than or equal to it, the other half greater than or equal to it. With an odd count, it is the middle value; with an even count, it is the average of the two middle values. It resists extreme values better than the mean.

The mode is the value that appears most often. A data set can have several modes (it is then called bimodal or multimodal) or none, when all the values are different. It is the only measure that makes sense for non-numeric data, such as the best-selling shoe size.

The range is the difference between the largest and the smallest value. It is the simplest measure of spread, but it depends on only two values; to measure the spread of the whole data set, use the variance and the standard deviation.

Comparing the mean and the median tells you about the shape of the distribution: a mean clearly above the median points to a few very high values (a distribution skewed to the right), a mean below it to a few very low values.