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Agriculture · head to head

CeresAI vs Lindsay FieldNET

CeresAI logo

CeresAI

Agriculture

Aerial and satellite crop imagery with per-acre pricing for permanent crops and irrigation

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Lindsay FieldNET logo

Lindsay FieldNET

Agriculture

Remote pivot monitoring, control and irrigation scheduling that retrofits almost any electric pivot

From
$300/year
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: CeresAI per-acre pricing only pencils on high-value crops; on low-margin broadacre cereals the fee is hard to justify against free public satellite imagery.; Lindsay FieldNET the subscription is per pivot per year and permanent, so a thirty pivot farm carries roughly a five-figure annual bill on top of the retrofit hardware and never owns the capability outright.
  • They diverge on capability: CeresAI covers Aerial multispectral capture, Lindsay FieldNET covers Pivot Watch.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which CeresAI and Lindsay FieldNET actually diverge.

Attributes where CeresAI and Lindsay FieldNET differ
AttributeCeresAILindsay FieldNET
Starting priceOn request$300/year
Pricing modelPer acre per seasonPer pivot per year plus hardware

Identical on both: free tier (No), platforms (Web, iOS, Android), 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 CeresAI

  • Aerial multispectral capture
  • Thermal water stress
  • Irrigation fault detection
  • Nitrogen and chlorophyll
  • Pest and disease hotspots
  • Yield variability
  • Third-party integrations

Only in Lindsay FieldNET

  • Pivot Watch
  • Pivot Control retrofit
  • Remote start and stop
  • FieldNET Advisor
  • Variable rate irrigation
  • Alerts and diagnostics
  • Multi-brand fleet view

What people use each for

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

CeresAI

  • An almond grower finding blocked emitters across thousands of trees without walking every rownot Lindsay FieldNET
  • A wine estate managing deficit irrigation block by block to hit a target fruit compositionnot Lindsay FieldNET
  • A farmland investment manager verifying tenant irrigation practice on ground it ownsnot Lindsay FieldNET
  • A citrus operation targeting nitrogen applications to the parts of a block that actually need itnot Lindsay FieldNET

Lindsay FieldNET

  • A farm with Valley, Reinke and Zimmatic pivots that wants one app instead of three vendor systemsnot CeresAI
  • An operation with pivots an hour apart where a physical check costs half a daynot CeresAI
  • A grower under a water allocation that needs defensible scheduling to stay inside the limitnot CeresAI
  • A manager who needs an alert the moment a pivot stops overnight rather than at dawnnot CeresAI

Where each one falls short

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

CeresAI

  • Per-acre pricing only pencils on high-value crops; on low-margin broadacre cereals the fee is hard to justify against free public satellite imagery.
  • Aerial capture runs on a scheduled cadence and is weather dependent, so it will not answer a question you need settled tomorrow and gaps happen in bad seasons.
  • Geographic coverage follows where the aircraft fly, which concentrates the service in California and a handful of other regions and leaves growers elsewhere on satellite-only products.
  • The company rebranded from Ceres Imaging to CeresAI, so older contracts, integrations and search results use the previous name and buyers checking references need to know both.
  • It flags problems but does not fix them; without an agronomist or manager committed to acting on every alert, the imagery becomes an expensive subscription nobody opens.

Lindsay FieldNET

  • The subscription is per pivot per year and permanent, so a thirty pivot farm carries roughly a five-figure annual bill on top of the retrofit hardware and never owns the capability outright.
  • The Pivot Control retrofit is around $1,700 a unit before installation, which on an older or low-value pivot can approach a meaningful fraction of what the machine is worth.
  • FieldNET Advisor is priced separately from control, so the scheduling intelligence that justifies the platform is an additional line item rather than part of the subscription.
  • Cellular coverage decides whether it works; pivots in a coverage hole get intermittent control and alerts, which is the worst possible failure mode for a system you have stopped driving out to check.
  • Support and installation run through Lindsay dealers, so a farm in a territory with a weak dealer gets slow retrofits and slow fault resolution regardless of what the platform can do.

Pricing, plan by plan

CeresAI

On request
  • CeresAI$undefined/year
    • Priced per acre for a defined season of flights
    • Flight cadence and imagery types set the rate
    • Minimum acreage applies in most regions

Lindsay FieldNET

$300/year
  • Pivot Watch$undefined/year
    • Monitoring only, no remote control
    • Lower annual subscription than control tiers
    • Device purchased per pivot
  • Pivot Control$300/year
    • Approximately $300 per pivot per year
    • Retrofit unit around $1,700 plus installation
    • Full remote start, stop, speed and endgun control
  • FieldNET Advisor$undefined/year
    • Irrigation scheduling and decision support
    • Priced separately on top of control subscription
    • Uses soil, crop stage and weather inputs

Which should you pick?

Choose CeresAI if

  • You need aerial multispectral capture.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want thermal water stress.
CeresAI review

Choose Lindsay FieldNET if

  • You need pivot watch.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want pivot control retrofit.
Lindsay FieldNET review

Questions people ask

Is CeresAI or Lindsay FieldNET better?
Neither clearly leads. CeresAI starts at On request and Lindsay FieldNET at $300/year, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CeresAI or Lindsay FieldNET?
CeresAI starts at On request and Lindsay FieldNET at $300/year.
Does CeresAI or Lindsay FieldNET run on more platforms?
Both run on Web, iOS, Android, so platform support will not decide this one for you.
What is CeresAI best used for?
CeresAI is most often used for an almond grower finding blocked emitters across thousands of trees without walking every row, a wine estate managing deficit irrigation block by block to hit a target fruit composition, a farmland investment manager verifying tenant irrigation practice on ground it owns, a citrus operation targeting nitrogen applications to the parts of a block that actually need it. Of those, an almond grower finding blocked emitters across thousands of trees without walking every row and a wine estate managing deficit irrigation block by block to hit a target fruit composition are not what Lindsay FieldNET is typically brought in for.
What can CeresAI do that Lindsay FieldNET cannot?
CeresAI covers Aerial multispectral capture, Thermal water stress, Irrigation fault detection, Nitrogen and chlorophyll. Lindsay FieldNET covers Pivot Watch, Pivot Control retrofit, Remote start and stop, FieldNET Advisor.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

CeresAI: Is Ceres Imaging still trading?

Yes, under the name CeresAI following a rebrand in 2024. The aerial imagery service continues and the company has taken further funding since.

Lindsay FieldNET: Does FieldNET only work with Zimmatic pivots?

No. FieldNET Pivot Control is built to retrofit almost any electric pivot, and mixed fleets of Valley, Reinke and Zimmatic machines run in one account.

CeresAI: How is it priced?

By the acre for a season of imagery. The rate depends on crop, region and how many flights the programme includes.

Lindsay FieldNET: What does it cost per pivot?

Around $1,700 for a Pivot Control unit plus installation, then roughly $300 per pivot per year. Pivot Watch monitoring is cheaper on both.

CeresAI: Why pay for aircraft when satellites are free?

Resolution and thermal. Public satellite imagery cannot resolve individual trees or reliably detect a single blocked emitter; aerial thermal capture can.

Lindsay FieldNET: Is FieldNET Advisor included?

No. Advisor is the scheduling and decision support layer and is quoted separately from remote control.

CeresAI: Does it work on broadacre cereals?

Technically yes, commercially rarely. The per-acre fee is designed against permanent crop and irrigated margins.

Lindsay FieldNET: What happens if the cellular signal drops?

You lose remote control and alerting until it returns, which is why coverage should be checked at each pivot before committing.

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