Another relevant quantity that is closely related to the electrostatic osmotic pressure and the microgel swelling is the microgel net charge Z net , presented in Eq. (12). In Fig. , we observe how Z net varies with increasing ζ for different N for simulations and theory. In simulations, Z net is determined by counting the number of counterions inside the spherical microgel, where the equilibrium radius a eq is determined from the polymer density profile P pol (r) such that P pol (a eq ) = 0.01. This criterion corresponds to the abrupt decrease of the density profile, which approximately delimits the smooth microgel edge and nearly corresponds to radii where the density profiles of the released counterions present a change in behavior, in case of ionic microgels (see Fig. ). At constant N, from the simulations we see that |Z net | increases with increasing ζ , but rapidly saturates, indicating a large retention of counterions in the microgel interior due to the electrostatic interactions. The large fluctuations of Z net at large ζ and the mild decrease for both large ζ and small N are due to fluctuations in the estimation of a eq , as seen in Fig. . The latter occurs because of the error present in the density profiles for highly swollen microgels.