How Many Average Functions Are There in Excel?

There are four AVERAGE functions and each has different uses:

Let’s explore these in more detail.

In this example, we have a set of seven students and want to calculate their average exam score.

Excel sheet showing a table with two columns: column A contains student names and column B contains their exam scores. Next to this table is an ‘average’ cell, where their average scores will be calculated using the AVERAGE function.

To save time, you might instead calculate the average through a few simple clicks.

From there, click “Average”.

The result will appear at the end of your data.

Excel sheet showing a table with two columns: column A contains student names and column B contains their exam scores. Next to this table is an ‘average’ cell, where their average scores has been calculated using the AVERAGE function.

If this were instead TRUE, this would be counted as 1.

This is why the result is lower for this calculation than the previous one.

Let’s look at this example.

Excel sheet showing a table with two columns: column A contains student names and column B contains their exam scores. Next to this table is the average of the scores, calculated using AVERAGE, and a space where their average scores will be calculated using the AVERAGEA function.

We want to work out two things from this table.

First, the criteria must always be enclosed in double quotes.

Excel sheet showing a table with two columns: column A contains student names and column B contains their exam scores. Next to this table is the average of the scores, calculated using AVERAGE, and their average scores, calculated using the AVERAGEA function.

Excel sheet showing a table with three columns: column A contains student names, column B contains their exam scores, and column C contains their ages. Next to this table are cells where the AVERAGEIF functions will be tested.

Excel sheet showing a table with three columns: column A contains student names, column B contains their exam scores, and column C contains their ages. Next to this table, the first AVERAGEIF calculation has been performed.

Excel sheet showing a table with three columns: column A contains student names, column B contains their exam scores, and column C contains their ages. Next to this table, both AVERAGEIF calculations have been performed.

Excel sheet showing a table with four columns: column A contains student names, column B contains their exam scores, column C contains their house, and column D contains their age. Next to this table is a cell where AVERAGEIFS will be performed.

Excel sheet showing a table with four columns: column A contains student names, column B contains their exam scores, column C contains their house, and column D contains their age. Next to this table is a cell where an AVERAGEIFS calculation has been performed.