How to average for cells with values only (exclude 0 or blank cells) in Excel?

Average function is quite useful for our daily works in Excel. This article will talk about how to calculate the average for cells with values only (excluding blank cells) in Excel easily.

Average with Ignoring/excluding blank cells with formula

The Average function will ignore the truly blank cells automatically. However, if you have disabled the option of Show a zero in cells that have zero value in Excel Options dialog box (clicking File > Options > Advanced > Display options for this worksheet), some blank cells may have zero values in Excel. In this case, the Average function will not exclude these blank cells with zero values.
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Actually we can exclude the cells with zeros to solve this problem. For example, you want to average the Range A1:D13 with ignoring/excluding blank cells and zeros, you can apply the formula =AVERAGEIF(A1:D13,"<>0") as below screenshot shown:

Average for cells with values only (exclude blank cells) with Kutools for Excel

Microsoft Excel can automatically average selected cells and show calculated results in the Status bar. If we can select only nonblank cells in a range, we can get the average of this range excluding blank cells. Kutools for Excel's Select Nonblank Cells utility can help you get it done at once.

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Select the range where you want to average excluding blank cells, and click the Kutools > Select > Select Un blank Cells.
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Now only cells with values are selected in the specified range, and you will get the average excluding blank cells in the Status bar as below screenshot shown:

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  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Darren · 17 days ago
    what if you're taking an average from a drop down menu in cells (a, b, c, d, e, f) assigned values (5,4,3,2,0) - how do you skip cells that are left blank?
    • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
      kellytte · 4 days ago
      Hi Darren,
      The AVERAGE function ignores blank cells automatically. However, it will include the zeros which are returned by formulas or other ways but display as blank. To ignoring both blank and zeros when calculating average, we can use the AVERAGEIF function.
      =AVERAGEIF(range,"<>0")
      Replace “range” to the specified range reference based on your need.
  • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
    Erick · 4 months ago
    if the entire range has zeros, it still errors out. Would be nice if that defaulted to zero as well. Mathematically not correct but ok for most reasons.
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    Bob · 7 months ago
    this is omitting an entire field. the "average range"

    =averageif(A:H,L1,H:H)

    Looking for value L1 within A:H, averaging the values in H:H that match L1 criteria. Where does the (<>) go huh?
    • To post as a guest, your comment is unpublished.
      kellytte · 5 months ago
      Hi Bob,
      Your formula makes me puzzle. Do you mean to look for a value in the Range A:H by L1, and then average cells in H:H if they match the found value? If so, you can apply VLOOKUP or MATCH function to look for the value in Range A:H, and then use AVERAGEIF function to get the average of H:H.