Mean, Median & Mode Calculator
Enter a list of numbers to instantly calculate the mean (average), median (middle value), mode (most frequent value), and range — the four most common measures used to summarize a data set.
How the Mean, Median & Mode formula works
Each measure summarizes the data differently:
Mean = (sum of all values) / (count of values) Median = the middle value once sorted (or the average of the two middle values, for an even count) Mode = the value(s) that occur most frequently Range = maximum value − minimum value
Step-by-step calculation
- Sum every value and divide by the count to get the mean.
- Sort the values and find the middle one (or average the two middle values) to get the median.
- Count how often each value occurs; the most frequent value(s) form the mode.
- Subtract the minimum from the maximum to get the range.
Worked example
Data set: 3, 7, 7, 2, 9. Mean = (3+7+7+2+9)/5 = 5.6. Sorted: 2, 3, 7, 7, 9 → median = 7. Mode = 7 (appears twice). Range = 9 − 2 = 7.
Frequently asked questions
What if a data set has no repeated values?
It has no mode — every value appears exactly once, so there's no single most-frequent value to report.
When is median more useful than mean?
Median is more resistant to outliers. For skewed data like household income, a few extremely high values can pull the mean up substantially, while the median stays closer to what a 'typical' data point looks like.
Can a data set have more than one mode?
Yes — if two or more values are tied for the highest frequency, the data set is multimodal, and all of the tied values are reported as modes.