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Agriculture · head to head

CropX vs Lely Horizon

CropX logo

CropX

Agriculture

Soil intelligence for precision irrigation

From
$29/month
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: CropX no pricing information is published; customers must request a demo and contact sales.; 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: CropX covers Soil moisture sensing, 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 CropX and Lely Horizon actually diverge.

Attributes where CropX and Lely Horizon differ
AttributeCropXLely Horizon
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, Android, HardwareWeb, iOS, Android, Windows
Founded2015Unknown

Identical on both: 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 CropX

  • Soil moisture sensing
  • Irrigation scheduling
  • Salinity monitoring
  • Root zone analysis
  • Weather integration
  • Valley Irrigation
  • Lindsay
  • Netafim

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.

CropX

  • Scheduling irrigation from continuous soil moisture sensor readingsnot Lely Horizon
  • Monitoring disease risk and crop nutrition against in-field weather datanot Lely Horizon
  • Combining sensor, weather and satellite data in a single farm management systemnot 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 CropX
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot CropX
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot CropX
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot CropX

Where each one falls short

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

CropX

  • No pricing information is published; customers must request a demo and contact sales.
  • Pricing likely depends on number of sensors, fields, farms, and users, but no rate structure is disclosed.

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

CropX

$29/month
  • Basic$250/sensor/year
    • Soil moisture
    • Temperature
    • Basic analytics
  • Advanced$500/sensor/year
    • Full analytics
    • Irrigation recommendations
    • API access

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 CropX if

  • You need soil moisture sensing.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android, Hardware.
  • You also want irrigation scheduling.
CropX 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 CropX or Lely Horizon better?
Neither clearly leads. CropX starts at $29/month and Lely Horizon at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, CropX or Lely Horizon?
CropX starts at $29/month and Lely Horizon at On request.
Does CropX or Lely Horizon run on more platforms?
CropX runs on Web, Ios, Android, Hardware. Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
What is CropX best used for?
CropX is most often used for scheduling irrigation from continuous soil moisture sensor readings, monitoring disease risk and crop nutrition against in-field weather data, combining sensor, weather and satellite data in a single farm management system. Of those, scheduling irrigation from continuous soil moisture sensor readings and monitoring disease risk and crop nutrition against in-field weather data are not what Lely Horizon is typically brought in for.
What can CropX do that Lely Horizon cannot?
CropX covers Soil moisture sensing, Irrigation scheduling, Salinity monitoring, Root zone analysis. Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

CropX: How much does CropX cost?

CropX does not publish pricing online. The company uses a custom, quote-based pricing model. Customers must send a message to request a demo, and the local sales team will provide a customized quote based on their specific farm management needs.

Source
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.

CropX: What is CropX's pricing model?

CropX uses a sales-driven, quote-based pricing model for enterprise farm management software. Pricing is customized based on factors like number of sensors, farms, fields, users, and specific feature modules required rather than using standardized tiers.

Source
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.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

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

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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