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Agriculture · head to head

Baseline Irrigation vs Lely Horizon

Baseline Irrigation logo

Baseline Irrigation

Agriculture

Two-wire commercial irrigation control where the cloud subscription tier applies to every controller you own at once

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Lely Horizon logo

Lely Horizon

Agriculture

Dairy herd management software billed per lactating cow that only runs a Lely robot barn

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Baseline Irrigation all controllers belonging to a company are set to the same BaseManager subscription level, so one complex site needing the higher tier raises the cost across every controller in the portfolio rather than just that site.; Lely Horizon billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
  • They diverge on capability: Baseline Irrigation covers BaseStation 3200, Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Baseline Irrigation and Lely Horizon actually diverge.

Attributes where Baseline Irrigation and Lely Horizon differ
AttributeBaseline IrrigationLely Horizon
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, iOS, Android, Windows

Identical on both: starting price (On request), pricing model (quote), free tier (No), user rating (Not yet rated), category (Agriculture).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in Baseline Irrigation

  • BaseStation 3200
  • BaseStation 1000
  • biSensor soil moisture
  • WeatherAccess scheduling
  • BaseManager
  • AppManager
  • Two-wire diagnostics
  • Flow management

Only in Lely Horizon

  • Per-cow milking data
  • Health and fertility alerts
  • Work list generation
  • Feed management
  • Farm Management Support
  • Multi-site view
  • Mobile alerts
  • Reporting and benchmarking

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

Baseline Irrigation

  • A university grounds department running two-wire loops across a campus that needs fault location without diggingnot Lely Horizon
  • A city parks department under a water ordinance that must run WaterSense-compliant weather-based schedulingnot Lely Horizon
  • A property manager with 40 sites who needs one login rather than a controller key per locationnot Lely Horizon
  • A site with a history of mainline breaks where flow shutdown prevents a five-figure water bill overnightnot Lely Horizon

Lely Horizon

  • A 180-cow dairy running four Astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a daynot Baseline Irrigation
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot Baseline Irrigation
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot Baseline Irrigation
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot Baseline Irrigation

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

Baseline Irrigation

  • All controllers belonging to a company are set to the same BaseManager subscription level, so one complex site needing the higher tier raises the cost across every controller in the portfolio rather than just that site.
  • WaterSense-compliant WeatherAccess operation on the 3200 requires an active BaseManager Plus subscription, which means a rebate or ordinance obligation depends on a recurring payment rather than the hardware you installed.
  • Baseline has been part of HydroPoint since 2016 and sits alongside the WeatherTRAK line, so buyers should ask directly which of the two product families gets new development, because they overlap.
  • No pricing is published for controllers or subscriptions, so estates cannot budget a multi-site rollout without a distributor quote per site.
  • Remote access needs Ethernet, Wi-Fi or a cellular modem at each controller, and cellular adds a data cost per site that is easy to leave out of a rollout budget for forty locations.

Lely Horizon

  • Billing is per lactating cow, so the software cost grows with the herd indefinitely and a farm that expands from 120 to 200 cows takes a permanent software cost increase it did not budget when it bought the robots.
  • Horizon is not optional: the barn equipment depends on it, so the subscription cannot be cancelled in a difficult year the way a discretionary analytics tool can, which removes any negotiating position at renewal.
  • It manages Lely equipment and effectively nothing else, so a farm running a Lely robot alongside a conventional parlour or another manufacturer's feeder ends up with two systems and no combined cow record.
  • The migration from the older T4C system was compulsory and rebuilt the interface and reporting, and farms that had years of T4C reports and custom lists found the equivalents either missing or shaped differently, costing retraining time.
  • Everything is bought and supported through the local Lely Center, so pricing, response time and the quality of advice vary by dealer with no published rate card, and a farm with a weak local centre has no practical alternative supplier.

Pricing, plan by plan

Baseline Irrigation

On request
  • BaseManager$undefined/year
    • Subscription tier determines available remote features
    • All controllers in a company are set to the same subscription level
    • BaseManager Plus required for WaterSense-compliant WeatherAccess operation

Lely Horizon

On request
  • Horizon Basic$undefined/month
    • Core robot operation and monitoring
    • Per lactating cow subscription
    • Invoiced digitally by the local Lely Center
  • Horizon Control$undefined/month
    • Adds herd management and fertility tooling
    • Per lactating cow subscription
  • Horizon Advance$undefined/month
    • Adds analysis, benchmarking and advisor tooling
    • Per lactating cow subscription

Which should you pick?

Choose Baseline Irrigation if

  • You need basestation 3200.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want basestation 1000.
Baseline Irrigation review

Choose Lely Horizon if

  • You need per-cow milking data.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
  • You also want health and fertility alerts.
Lely Horizon review

Questions people ask

Is Baseline Irrigation or Lely Horizon better?
Neither clearly leads. Baseline Irrigation starts at On request and Lely Horizon at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Baseline Irrigation or Lely Horizon?
Baseline Irrigation starts at On request and Lely Horizon at On request.
Does Baseline Irrigation or Lely Horizon run on more platforms?
Baseline Irrigation runs on Web, iOS, Android. Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
What is Baseline Irrigation best used for?
Baseline Irrigation is most often used for a university grounds department running two-wire loops across a campus that needs fault location without digging, a city parks department under a water ordinance that must run watersense-compliant weather-based scheduling, a property manager with 40 sites who needs one login rather than a controller key per location, a site with a history of mainline breaks where flow shutdown prevents a five-figure water bill overnight. Of those, a university grounds department running two-wire loops across a campus that needs fault location without digging and a city parks department under a water ordinance that must run watersense-compliant weather-based scheduling are not what Lely Horizon is typically brought in for.
What can Baseline Irrigation do that Lely Horizon cannot?
Baseline Irrigation covers BaseStation 3200, BaseStation 1000, biSensor soil moisture, WeatherAccess scheduling. Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Baseline Irrigation: Can different sites have different BaseManager tiers?

No. All controllers belonging to a company are set to the same subscription level, which is the main pricing surprise in a multi-site rollout.

Lely Horizon: How is Lely Horizon priced?

As a subscription per lactating cow milked by the Astronaut robots, in Basic, Control and Advance tiers. Lely does not publish rates; the local Lely Center quotes them.

Baseline Irrigation: Who owns Baseline now?

HydroPoint Data Systems acquired it in 2016. It is a product line inside HydroPoint rather than an independent Boise company.

Lely Horizon: Can I run Horizon without Lely robots?

No. It is the control and management layer for Lely equipment and has no meaningful function without it.

Baseline Irrigation: Do I need a subscription for WaterSense compliance?

On the BaseStation 3200 operating in WeatherAccess mode, yes, an active BaseManager Plus subscription is part of meeting the criteria.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

Horizon replaced it. Migration was required rather than optional, and reporting was rebuilt rather than ported.

Baseline Irrigation: How does the controller reach the cloud?

Ethernet, Wi-Fi or a cellular modem at each site, with the cellular data cost separate from the subscription.

Lely Horizon: Does the subscription end when the robot is paid off?

No. It continues for as long as the robots are milking, which is the cost most robot business cases understate.

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