Mean, Median, Mode Calculator
Enter your data set below to instantly get the mean, median, and mode.
Mean, Median, and Mode, Explained
These are the three most common ways to describe the "center" of a data set, and each one answers a slightly different question: what's the average, what's the middle, and what's the most common.
Worked example
Data set: 4, 8, 6, 5, 3, 8, 9
Mean = (4+8+6+5+3+8+9) / 7 = 43 / 7 ≈ 6.14
Sorted: 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 9 → median = 6 (the middle value)
Mode = 8 (it appears twice, more than any other value)
Keep going
- Median is one of the three measures here and also one of the five numbers in a five-number summary; the five number summary calculator adds the minimum, quartiles, and maximum around it. Five Number Summary Calculator
- Once you have the mean, standard deviation measures how spread out the data is around it; the standard deviation calculator takes that next step. Standard Deviation Calculator
Frequently Asked Questions
What's the difference between mean, median, and mode?
The mean is the average: add everything up and divide by how many values there are. The median is the middle value when the data is sorted. The mode is whichever value shows up most often. They can all give different answers for the same data set.
Why would you use the median instead of the mean?
The median resists outliers better than the mean does. A single extreme value (like one billionaire in a room of average earners) can drag the mean way off, while the median barely moves. That's why household income is usually reported as a median, not a mean.
Can a data set have more than one mode?
Yes. If two or more values tie for the most frequent, the data set is called bimodal (two modes) or multimodal (more than two). If every value appears exactly once, there's no mode at all.
What if the data set has an even number of values?
The median is the average of the two middle values once the data is sorted, rather than a single middle value.
Related Calculators
- Standard Deviation Calculator — Statistics
- Percentile Calculator — Statistics
- Variance Calculator — Statistics
- Quartile Calculator — Statistics