The 3M Brand Automatic Colony Counter, Model 620, was evaluated and compared with three laboratory technicians on raw milk Standard Plate Count (SPC) cultures over the range of counts from 0–300 colonies per culture plate. Overall, the estimated total variance for the three technicians was 15.07, for the 3M unit 17.82. On plates averaging greater than 150 colonies the 3M unit and hand counts were about equal in Variability. On lower counts the 3M device was somewhat more variable, although within what would appear to be acceptable limits. For the range of data studied, 99.4% of the variance (for the average of three counts by either method) could be accounted for by a similar average of observations using the other method. The 3M unit averaged 2.33 counts higher than technician counts.