diff --git a/src/metrics/quality/config.vsh.yaml b/src/metrics/quality/config.vsh.yaml
index 6f91bb4c..f89fd73b 100644
--- a/src/metrics/quality/config.vsh.yaml
+++ b/src/metrics/quality/config.vsh.yaml
@@ -25,6 +25,15 @@ info:
       min: 0
       max: 1
       maximize: true
+    - name: number_of_cells
+      label: Number of Cells
+      summary: "The number of cells in the spatial dataset."
+      description: |
+        The number of cells in the spatial dataset.
+      references:
+        doi: "10.1101/2023.02.13.528102"
+      min: 0
+      maximize: true
       
 resources:
   - type: python_script
diff --git a/src/metrics/quality/script.py b/src/metrics/quality/script.py
index 7f103ada..cae3425c 100644
--- a/src/metrics/quality/script.py
+++ b/src/metrics/quality/script.py
@@ -23,6 +23,7 @@
 metrics = {
     "proportion_of_assigned_reads": proportion_of_assigned_reads(sdata)[0],
     "proportion_of_annotated_cells": proportion_of_annotated_cells(sdata),
+    "number_of_cells": sdata['counts'].n_obs,
 }
 
 print("Write output AnnData to file", flush=True)