What Project Counter does

Project Counter, operating as COUNTER Metrics, is a UK-based non-profit standards organization founded in 2002 and legally constituted as COUNTER Metrics Limited. Its core function is maintaining and publishing the COUNTER Code of Practice, an international standard that enables publishers, aggregators, and technology providers to deliver credible, consistent, and comparable usage metrics to libraries and consortia worldwide. The organization serves a dual-sided ecosystem: libraries and library consortia on the demand side, which require reliable standardized usage data to inform purchasing and resource management decisions, and publishers, aggregators, and technology providers on the supply side, which must report usage data in a comparable format to retain and grow their library customer base.

The core product is the COUNTER Code of Practice itself, a specification document that standardizes how usage metrics are measured, reported, and shared across the scholarly publishing industry. Supporting this standard, COUNTER provides a suite of complementary products including the COUNTER Registry of compliant organizations, technical tools and services for implementation and compliance testing, best practice guidance for use cases such as open access and consortia reporting, free educational guides and videos, the COUNTER Academy training program, translated guides in multiple languages, and a specialized Code of Practice for Research Data (CRD) extension targeting repositories.

The organization's business model is membership- and sponsorship-based, with the Code of Practice and educational materials provided free of charge. COUNTER is funded through a combination of member dues from library, publisher, and vendor members and a sponsors and partners program, with specific fee structures not publicly disclosed. The organization is governed by an Executive Committee and maintains a deliberately small paid staff, with governance and community engagement supported through newsletter communications, a Google Groups community listserv, industry events, and collaborative partnerships across the scholarly publishing ecosystem.

Name

Project Counter

Legal name

COUNTER Metrics Limited

Website

https://projectcounter.org

Company type

Private

Founded year

2002

Operating status

Operating

Headcount range

1–10 employees

Short description

COUNTER Metrics is a non-profit standards organization that maintains the international Code of Practice for usage metrics in scholarly publishing, enabling libraries, publishers, aggregators, and technology providers to exchange credible, comparable usage data through a membership-funded governance model.

Ownership category

akta.pro rank

Product category

Industry Standards / Usage Metrics

NAICS

Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services (541)

SIC

Services-Educational Services (8200)

akta.pro primary industry

Data Quality Management, Validation & Certification (EDADAIAL)

Keywords

• Usage metrics standards
• Scholarly publishing metrics
• Library usage reporting
• Content usage analytics
• Code of practice standards

Headquarters

HQ city

Winchester

HQ country

United Kingdom

HQ region

Europe

Markets served

GTM type

B2B

Offering type

Services

Cost components

Personnel, Operations, Technology or R&D, Marketing or Sales

Distribution channels2 records

Marketing channels4 records

Core offering

Project Counter (COUNTER Metrics) develops and maintains the COUNTER Code of Practice, an international standard that defines how publishers, aggregators, and technology providers measure, report, and share usage metrics for scholarly content. The Code of Practice is the core deliverable, supplemented by an online registry of compliant vendors, technical tools and services for compliance testing, and educational resources (guides, videos, Academy training, translated guides) for libraries and publishers.

Product overview

Project Counter (COUNTER Metrics) is a standards organization that maintains and publishes the COUNTER Code of Practice—an international standard for usage metrics in the scholarly publishing industry. The core offering is the Code of Practice itself, which provides the specification that publishers, aggregators, and technology providers follow to deliver consistent and comparable usage data. Supporting this core standard is a suite of educational resources including guides, videos, and Academy materials; technical tools and services for implementation and testing; best practice guidance for various use cases including open access, consortia reporting, and syndicated usage; a registry of compliant organizations; translated guides for global audiences; and specialized extensions such as the Code of Practice for Research Data (CRD) for repositories.

Differentiator

Problem solved

Functional benefit

Brands

• Code of Practice: The Code of Practice standard for online usage metrics

Products and services

• Code of Practice The international standard that enables publishers, aggregators, and technology providers to deliver credible, consistent, and comparable usage metrics to libraries and consortia worldwide. Used by libraries to evaluate resource use and by publishers to demonstrate standardized reporting to library customers.
• COUNTER Education Materials
• COUNTER Tools and Services Technical tools and services to support implementation and testing of COUNTER-compliant products and usage reporting, used by publishers, aggregators, and technology providers working toward Code of Practice compliance.
• Best Practice Guidance Guidelines and best practices for using COUNTER metrics, including syndicated usage, open access, consortia reporting, and technical implementation. Used by libraries and publishers to apply the standard correctly in their reporting workflows.
• COUNTER Registry A registry listing COUNTER-compliant publishers, aggregators, and technology providers that have demonstrated compliance with the Code of Practice. Used by libraries to identify vendors whose usage data is standardized and comparable.
• Translated Guides Educational guides and documentation translated into multiple languages to support global adoption of COUNTER metrics standards by libraries and publishers in non-English-speaking markets.
• Code of Practice for Research Data (CRD) A specialized extension of the COUNTER standard for repositories and research data evaluation practices, enabling repositories and data providers to deliver standardized, comparable usage metrics for research data alongside traditional scholarly content.

Segments2 records

Ideal customer profiles2 records

Technology focussed No

API detail

Has API

No

API docs

API detail

Core technology

AI maturity

App detail

Feature1 record

Scale indicators1 record

Recent moves6 records

Expansion highlights5 records

Direct peers

• DOAJ (Directory of Open Access Journals): Direct peer: non-profit infrastructure project that defines quality/certification standards for open access journals. Comparable function of certifying and indexing publishers based on standardized criteria.
• ORCID: Direct peer: non-profit organization maintaining a researcher identifier standard, similarly funded by member institutions and publishers. Comparable governance and sustainability model in scholarly infrastructure.
• Crossref: Direct peer: non-profit scholarly publishing infrastructure that operates DOIs and metadata standards, supported by publisher/library membership. Comparable membership-funded infrastructure model serving the same scholarly ecosystem.
• DataCite: Direct peer: non-profit data citation infrastructure provider for research data, with a member-funded model. Highly comparable to COUNTER's CRD extension targeting repository and data usage metrics.
• OASPA (Open Access Scholarly Publishers Association): Direct peer: trade association that develops and enforces best-practice/certification standards for open access publishers. Comparable member-funded standards body within scholarly publishing.
• NISO (National Information Standards Organization): Direct peer: a US-based non-profit standards body developing information management and scholarly publishing standards (e.g., SUSHI, KBART). Closely comparable in mission, structure, and community to COUNTER.

Regional players

• JSTOR / ITHAKA: Regional/broad incumbent: large not-for-profit scholarly content platform that consumes and reports usage metrics under COUNTER compliance. Comparable non-profit governance but operates content delivery rather than standards.

Broad incumbents

• Creative Commons: Broad incumbent: non-profit standards body that provides widely adopted licensing standards for scholarly and creative content. Comparable non-profit, globally adopted content-standards model.
• STM Association: Broad incumbent: international trade association for scholarly publishers that also develops industry standards and guidelines. Larger scope than COUNTER but operates adjacent in scholarly publishing standards.

Emerging players

• SPARC (Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition): Emerging player: advocacy and infrastructure initiative within libraries that influences scholarly publishing standards and open access practices. Operates in adjacent space influencing how COUNTER metrics are consumed.

Market position

Strengths4 records

Weaknesses4 records

Competitive moat5 records

Key risks5 records

Key highlights6 records

Customer concentration

• Xx.com/ProjectCounter

Revenue estimate

Valuation estimate

Number of profiles

Profiles1 record

Funding overview

Funding rounds

Investors

Funding detail is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

M&A

Investments

M&A and investment is available on the Subscription and Enterprise plan.Contact sales →

Frequently asked questions about Project Counter