AVEDEV Function in Excel: Average Distance From the Mean

AVEDEV Function in Excel: Average Distance From the Mean featured illustration

📎 This article includes 1 downloadable practice file ↓

⏱ 2 min readUpdated 28 September 2026

StatisticsLevel: ExpertAvailable in: Excel 2007+

In this article
  1. Syntax
  2. Examples
  3. Example 1
  4. AVEDEV in practice
  5. Where you will use it
  6. Worked example
  7. Mistakes people make
  8. Related functions
  9. Continue learning

AVEDEV is the average of absolute deviations — an easier-to-explain measure of spread than standard deviation (“on average we are off by 12 units”).

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Syntax

=AVEDEV(number1, [number2], ...)
Argument What it means
number1… Values.

Examples

Example 1

=AVEDEV(D2:D31)

Typical daily miss against the average demand.

AVEDEV in practice

Where you will use it

  • How much daily sales swing around the average
  • Simple variability measure for non-statisticians
  • Quality checks

Worked example

Rows usedFormulaResult
3=AVEDEV(INDEX({120,135,128,160,95,140,132},SEQUENCE(A2)))5.111111111
5=AVEDEV(INDEX({120,135,128,160,95,140,132},SEQUENCE(A3)))16.08
7=AVEDEV(INDEX({120,135,128,160,95,140,132},SEQUENCE(A4)))13.42857143

Results calculated in Excel.

Mistakes people make

MistakeWhat to do instead
Confusing with STDEVAVEDEV uses absolute deviations, so outliers count less
TextIgnored

STDEV.S · ABS

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📎 Practice files for this article

  • 📗
    Practice workbook: Statistics advanced33 tasks on realistic sales data — type your formula, the Check column turns green when it is right. Answers sheet included.
    ⬇ XLSX · 36 KB

Free to use for learning. Files with macros (.bas) are plain text — import them with Alt+F11 → File → Import File, and always test on a copy.

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