What you have written in your description and what you have written in the note seem to counter each other. " in row 2, I purchased 4 units at $122 each " Then the per unit cost should be 30.5. If your "basis" column is what you spent PER item, then your "per" column is unnecessary. That being said the general idea for an average like this would be "Total Money Spent" / "Number of items purchased". Total Money Spent = Sum of: Number of items bought at a price (QTY) * that price, for each price. So: (2*120 + 4*122 + ........) / (2+4+4.....). Answer from AvianFang_HS on reddit.com
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Wall Street Prep
wallstreetprep.com › home › average cost (per unit cost)
Average Cost (Per-Unit Cost) | Formula + Calculator
September 18, 2024 - Average Cost = Total Cost of Production ÷ Total Number of Units Produced · Broadly, the total cost of production is composed of two parts, as expressed by the following formula.
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tutor2u
tutor2u.net › business › reference › unit-costs
Unit Costs | Reference Library | Business | tutor2u
August 7, 2019 - The unit cost measures the average cost per unit produced, as measured over a particular time period (e.g. month, year). Unit costs will vary over time and as the scale of a business’ operation changes. Unit costs are particularly sensitive to the effect of significant operational scale and to the relationship between fixed and variable costs for a business. The unit cost can be calculated using the following formula...
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How to get an average price per unit from this example dataset:
What you have written in your description and what you have written in the note seem to counter each other. " in row 2, I purchased 4 units at $122 each " Then the per unit cost should be $122 not $30.5. If your "basis" column is what you spent PER item, then your "per" column is unnecessary. That being said the general idea for an average like this would be "Total Money Spent" / "Number of items purchased". Total Money Spent = Sum of: Number of items bought at a price (QTY) * that price, for each price. So: (2*120 + 4*122 + ........) / (2+4+4.....). More on reddit.com
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How to calculate the average cost of something per unit that also includes # of actual supply?
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/askmath › how to get an average price per unit from this example dataset:
r/askmath on Reddit: How to get an average price per unit from this example dataset:
March 1, 2024 -

I am trying to work out a formula to get an average cost of stocks I have purchased. I have the amount purchased (QTY), the total cost (BASIS), and the average price per unit for each transaction (PER).

Trying to sum this all together, the problem I am facing is that a typical average formula for cost per unit is assuming that each transaction purchased only one unit of the stock.

For example in this made up data, in row 2, I purchased 4 units at $122 each, and in row 4, I purchased 6 units at $136 each. I need the averaging formula to account $122 four times and $136 six times.

What’s a formula I can use to account for this?

Top answer
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What you have written in your description and what you have written in the note seem to counter each other. " in row 2, I purchased 4 units at $122 each " Then the per unit cost should be $122 not $30.5. If your "basis" column is what you spent PER item, then your "per" column is unnecessary. That being said the general idea for an average like this would be "Total Money Spent" / "Number of items purchased". Total Money Spent = Sum of: Number of items bought at a price (QTY) * that price, for each price. So: (2*120 + 4*122 + ........) / (2+4+4.....).
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Your question has been answered, so just a note on the average of averages issue. Which I’m going to approach a little backwards in the hope it sheds some extra intuition on the subject. Imagine a dataset with 2 purchases for $20 total and 1,000,000 purchases for $1,000,000 total to exaggerate the situation. If you took the average cost for transaction 1 ($10) and the average cost for transaction 2 ($1) and averaged them you’d get $5.5. But it’s logically clear that this doesn’t represent well your average cost. This is kind of like an unweighted average of your transactions, it doesn’t respect the fact that the $1000000 transaction is much bigger (heavier if you want to extend the weighting metaphor) and instead treats each transaction as equally important. But what’s actually equally important is each item you acquired. You kind of want to treat it like each item acquisition is separate and then you can do the unweighted average. 1 was acquired for $10, another for $10, another for $1, another for $1,… a million times. Then you’ve got 1000002 transactions to divide by for your average. A little algebra means this is just: The sum of all your spending / the count of all your transactions. And explicitly not: The average cost per item of your transactions. (That’s the $5.5 answer) Hopefully that was a slightly different way of thinking about it that highlights what the mistake is in the average or average situation.
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Lumen Learning
courses.lumenlearning.com › wm-microeconomics › chapter › average-costs-and-curves
Average Costs and Curves | Microeconomics
Average total and variable costs measure the average costs of producing some quantity of output. Marginal cost is somewhat different. Recall that marginal cost, which we introduced on the previous page, is the additional cost of producing one more unit of output.
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Indeed
indeed.com › career guide › career development › formula for cost per unit calculation (with examples)
Formula for Cost Per Unit Calculation (With Examples) | Indeed.com
1 week ago - The lower the production cost, ... customers for $25, making a $15 profit per unit. Cost Per Unit = (Total Fixed Costs + Total Variable Costs) / Total Units ProducedThere are four main parts to calculating cost per ...
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ShipBob
shipbob.com › home › blog › cost per unit: what is it, how to calculate it, & tips to reduce it
Cost Per Unit: Definition, Formula, & How to Optimize
August 1, 2025 - Greg’s Apothecary produces scented candles for an average of $10 per unit. It costs Greg’s biggest competitor $8 on average to create a similar candle.
Find elsewhere
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Lifesight
lifesight.io › glossary › average-cost-per-unit
Average cost per unit - Lifesight
November 7, 2024 - If a business sells 5 units of product X at a total cost of $1000, the average cost per unit will be calculated as:Average Cost = $1000/5Average Cost = $200/unitThis calculation can be used to determine the cost of purchasing or producing a ...
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Average_cost_method
Average cost method - Wikipedia
September 15, 2025 - Average cost method is a method of accounting which assumes that the cost of inventory is based on the average cost of the goods available for sale during the period. The average cost is computed by dividing the total cost of goods available for sale by the total units available for sale.
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Reddit
reddit.com › r/excel › how to calculate the average cost of something per unit that also includes # of actual supply?
r/excel on Reddit: How to calculate the average cost of something per unit that also includes # of actual supply?
February 4, 2024 -

Let's say I'm trying to buy and sell apples for a profit, and my goal is determine the actual average value of every single apple.

In A1, I have the price of apples from Shop #1, which is 3.00. In B1, I put down 50 since Shop #1 has 50 apples.

In A2, I put down 4.00 since that's the price of apples from Shop #2. However, in B2, I only put down 1 because the shop only sells 1 single apple.

If I take the average of A1 and A2, it will give me 3.50 as the average cost of apples. However, this is incorrect. Clearly it should be closer to 3.00 since there is a total of supply of 51 apples, and 50 of them are priced at 3.00.

Example below:

A (Price per apple) B (amount of apples)
1 3.00 50
2 4.00 1
AVERAGE PRICE PER APPLE 3.5 (NOT CORRECT, but excel calculates it as so)

How do I determine this in excel?

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Flowspace
flow.space › home › blog › what is cost per unit? how to calculate it and strategies to reduce it
Cost Per Unit: Formula, Calculation & How to Reduce
3 weeks ago - Now that fixed cost and variable cost are explained, it’s time to look at how the unit cost is determined using these components. The cost per unit formula is simple: total production costs divided by the number of units produced.
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Indeed
indeed.com › career guide › career development › average cost method for inventory management and accounting
Average Cost Method Formula (With Calculations)
October 13, 2023 - To calculate the weighted average cost per inventory unit, you use the AVCO formula. This formula takes the total cost of the inventory and divides that number by the total number of units in the inventory.
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Finale Inventory
finaleinventory.com › home › accounting and inventory software › average cost method: complete guide to inventory valuation and calculation
Average Cost Method: Complete Guide to Inventory Valuation and Calculation
August 7, 2025 - Mathematically, it's expressed as: Average Cost Per Unit = (Total Cost of Beginning Inventory + Total Cost of Purchases) ÷ (Number of Units in Beginning Inventory + Number of Units Purchased).
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Captain Calculator
captaincalculator.com › captain calculator › economics calculators › average cost (ac) calculator + formula
Average Cost (AC) Calculator + Formula
November 28, 2024 - Step 3 – Use the formula or the calculator to find the average total cost. Average cost is the cost, on average, to produce one unit of output.
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Indeed
uk.indeed.com › career guide › career development › what is average total cost formula and how to calculate it
What is average total cost formula and how to calculate it | Indeed.com UK
July 2, 2024 - The average total cost formula is:Average total cost = (total fixed costs + total variable costs) / number of units produced.Here's what the different fixed and variable costs can include:
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Wikipedia
en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Average_cost
Average cost - Wikipedia
November 14, 2025 - An average cost curve can be plotted with cost on the vertical axis and quantity on the horizontal axis. Marginal costs are often also shown on these graphs, with marginal cost representing the cost of the last unit produced at each point; marginal costs in the short run are the slope of the variable cost curve (and hence the first derivative of variable cost).
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Dynamics Community
community.dynamics.com › forums › thread › details
What is the formula of "Average unit cost" in "inventory value ...
We run the inventory value report · What is the formular to calculate "Average unit cost" column in that report
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Corporate Finance Institute
corporatefinanceinstitute.com › home › resources › average cost of production
Average Cost of Production - Overview, Types, How To Calculate
December 4, 2023 - The total cost includes the variable cost of $9,000 ($9 x 1,000) and a fixed cost of $1,500 per month, bringing the total cost to $10,500. The average cost refers to the total cost of production divided by the number of units produced.
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Microsoft Support
support.microsoft.com › en-gb › office › calculate-an-average-c68b2803-c6d8-4faf-bea4-02b7c55fe768
Calculate an average - Microsoft Support
This formula divides the total cost of all the orders by the total number of units ordered, which results in a weighted price per unit average of 29.38297872.
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Microsoft Learn
learn.microsoft.com › en-gb › dynamics365 › business-central › finance-about-calculating-unit-cost
About unit cost calculation - Business Central | Microsoft Learn
As a rule, with the Standard costing method, the Unit Cost field value is based on the standard cost for the item. For all other costing methods (FIFO, LIFO, Specific, and Average), the unit cost is calculated based on the average unit cost across a period of time.