You may supply the arguments as cell references ranges or individual numbers

Number1 and number 2, right up to however many you include, are the values that you are finding the average from. The argument, ‘number1’, is a requirement but, as with SUM, anything inside the [] is optional and you can add in up to 255 of these arguments in one formula. You may supply the arguments as cell references, ranges or individual numbers.

Calculating an Average

To calculate the average of a specific set of numbers, you can put those numbers straight into the formula:

=AVERAGE(2,3,4,5)

The returned result from this will be 3.5.

If you wanted to calculate the average of a column, you would need to supply the column reference:

=AVERAGE(B:B)

And, to get an average of a row, you would need to put in the row reference:

=AVERAGE(2:B)

If you wanted to get the average from a specific range, you would need to input that range into the formula:

=AVERAGE(B1:D30)

If you want to get the average from a range of cells that are not adjacent to one another, you must input each cell reference:

=AVERAGE(A2, B10, C12, D39)

You can include any cell reference or any range in one formula as required. For example, you could calculate the average of 3 ranges and 2 single cells: