We study for bounded multiplicative functions f sums of the form n≤x n≡a (mod q) f (n), establishing a theorem stating that their variance over residue classes a (mod q) is small as soon as q = o(x), for almost all moduli q, with a nearly power-saving exceptional set of q. This substantially improves on previous results of Hooley on Barban-Davenport-Halberstam-type theorems for such f , and moreover our exceptional set is essentially optimal unless one is able to make progress on certain well-known conjectures. We are nevertheless able to prove stronger bounds for the number of the exceptional moduli q in the cases where q is restricted to be either smooth or prime, and conditionally on GRH we show that our variance estimate is valid for every q.These results are special cases of a "hybrid result" that we establish that works for sums of f (n) over almost all short intervals and arithmetic progressions simultaneously, thus generalizing the Matomäki-Radziwi l l theorem on multiplicative functions in short intervals.We also consider the maximal deviation of f (n) over all residue classes a (mod q) in the square root range q ≤ x 1/2−ε , and show that it is small for "smooth-supported" f , again apart from a nearly power-saving set of exceptional q, thus providing a smaller exceptional set than what follows from Bombieri-Vinogradov-type theorems.As an application of our methods, we consider the analogue of Linnik's theorem on the least prime in an arithmetic progression for products of exactly three primes, and prove the exponent 2 + o(1) for this problem for all smooth values of q.