diff --git a/src/nested_pandas/utils/__init__.py b/src/nested_pandas/utils/__init__.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ed5d0c5
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/nested_pandas/utils/__init__.py
@@ -0,0 +1 @@
+from .utils import *  # noqa
diff --git a/src/nested_pandas/utils/utils.py b/src/nested_pandas/utils/utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..885668b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/src/nested_pandas/utils/utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,38 @@
+import pandas as pd
+
+from nested_pandas import NestedFrame
+
+
+def count_nested(df, nested, by=None, join=True) -> NestedFrame:
+    """Counts the number of rows of a nested dataframe.
+
+    Parameters
+    ----------
+    df: NestedFrame
+        A NestedFrame that contains the desired `nested` series
+        to count.
+    nested: 'str'
+        The label of the nested series to count.
+    by: 'str', optional
+        Specifies a column within nested to count by, returning
+        a count for each unique value in `by`.
+    join: bool, optional
+        Join the output count columns to df and return df, otherwise
+        just return a NestedFrame containing only the count columns.
+
+    Returns
+    -------
+    NestedFrame
+    """
+
+    if by is None:
+        counts = df["nested"].apply(lambda x: len(x)).rename(f"n_{nested}")
+    else:
+        counts = df["nested"].apply(lambda x: x[by].value_counts())
+        counts = counts.rename(columns={colname: f"n_{nested}_{colname}" for colname in counts.columns})
+    if join:
+        return df.join(counts)
+    # else just return the counts NestedFrame
+    if isinstance(counts, pd.Series):  # for by=None, which returns a Series
+        counts = NestedFrame(counts.to_frame())
+    return counts
diff --git a/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_utils.py b/tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_nestedframe_utils.py
similarity index 100%
rename from tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_utils.py
rename to tests/nested_pandas/nestedframe/test_nestedframe_utils.py
diff --git a/tests/nested_pandas/utils/test_utils.py b/tests/nested_pandas/utils/test_utils.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..43e4648
--- /dev/null
+++ b/tests/nested_pandas/utils/test_utils.py
@@ -0,0 +1,39 @@
+import numpy as np
+import pandas as pd
+import pytest
+from nested_pandas import NestedFrame
+from nested_pandas.utils import count_nested
+
+
+@pytest.mark.parametrize("join", [True, False])
+def test_count_nested(join):
+    """Test the functionality of count nested"""
+
+    # Initialize test data
+    base = NestedFrame(data={"a": [1, 2, 3], "b": [2, np.NaN, 6]}, index=[0, 1, 2])
+    nested = pd.DataFrame(
+        data={
+            "c": [0, 2, 4, 1, np.NaN, 3, 1, 4, 1],
+            "d": [5, 4, 7, 5, 3, 1, 9, 3, 4],
+            "label": ["a", "a", "b", "b", "a", "a", "b", "a", "b"],
+        },
+        index=[0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2],
+    )
+    base = base.add_nested(nested, "nested")
+
+    # Test general count
+    total_counts = count_nested(base, "nested", join=join)
+    assert all(total_counts["n_nested"].values == 3)
+
+    # Test count by
+    label_counts = count_nested(base, "nested", by="label", join=join)
+    assert all(label_counts["n_nested_a"].values == [2, 2, 1])
+    assert all(label_counts["n_nested_b"].values == [1, 1, 2])
+
+    # Test join behavior
+    if join:
+        assert total_counts.columns.tolist() == base.columns.tolist() + ["n_nested"]
+        assert label_counts.columns.tolist() == base.columns.tolist() + ["n_nested_a", "n_nested_b"]
+    else:
+        assert total_counts.columns.tolist() == ["n_nested"]
+        assert label_counts.columns.tolist() == ["n_nested_a", "n_nested_b"]