Softwr

Agriculture · head to head

Farmers Business Network (FBN) vs Lely Horizon

Farmers Business Network (FBN) logo

Farmers Business Network (FBN)

Agriculture

Farmer-to-farmer network and marketplace

From
$700/year
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: Farmers Business Network (FBN) the Internet Archive's capture of Farmers Business Network's homepage on 2 January 2021 stated core FBN membership is free, with fees applying only to add-on services such as FBN Direct input purchases, crop marketing advisory, brokerage, financing and insurance, each offered by separately licensed FBN subsidiary entities.; 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: Farmers Business Network (FBN) covers Seed performance analytics, 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 Farmers Business Network (FBN) and Lely Horizon actually diverge.

Attributes where Farmers Business Network (FBN) and Lely Horizon differ
AttributeFarmers Business Network (FBN)Lely Horizon
Starting price$700/yearOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb, iOS, Android, Windows
Founded2014Unknown

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 Farmers Business Network (FBN)

  • Seed performance analytics
  • Input price transparency
  • Direct input purchasing
  • Yield analytics
  • Crop marketing tools
  • Farm financing
  • Agronomic insights
  • Farmer network access

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.

Farmers Business Network (FBN)

  • Input purchasingnot Lely Horizon
  • Seed selectionnot Lely Horizon
  • Price comparisonnot Lely Horizon
  • Farm financingnot Lely Horizon
  • Market insightsnot 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 Farmers Business Network (FBN)
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot Farmers Business Network (FBN)
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot Farmers Business Network (FBN)
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot Farmers Business Network (FBN)

Where each one falls short

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

Farmers Business Network (FBN)

  • The Internet Archive's capture of Farmers Business Network's homepage on 2 January 2021 stated core FBN membership is free, with fees applying only to add-on services such as FBN Direct input purchases, crop marketing advisory, brokerage, financing and insurance, each offered by separately licensed FBN subsidiary entities.

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

Farmers Business Network (FBN)

$700/year
  • FBN Membership$700/year
    • Access to FBN Analytics
    • Seed performance data
    • Chemical price transparency
  • FBN DirectFree
    • Transparent input pricing
    • Direct-to-farm delivery
    • Seed & crop protection

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 Farmers Business Network (FBN) if

  • You need seed performance analytics.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want input price transparency.
Farmers Business Network (FBN) 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 Farmers Business Network (FBN) or Lely Horizon better?
Neither clearly leads. Farmers Business Network (FBN) starts at $700/year and Lely Horizon at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Farmers Business Network (FBN) or Lely Horizon?
Farmers Business Network (FBN) starts at $700/year and Lely Horizon at On request.
Does Farmers Business Network (FBN) or Lely Horizon run on more platforms?
Farmers Business Network (FBN) runs on Web, Ios, Android. Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
What is Farmers Business Network (FBN) best used for?
Farmers Business Network (FBN) is most often used for input purchasing, seed selection, price comparison, farm financing. Of those, input purchasing and seed selection are not what Lely Horizon is typically brought in for.
What can Farmers Business Network (FBN) do that Lely Horizon cannot?
Farmers Business Network (FBN) covers Seed performance analytics, Input price transparency, Direct input purchasing, Yield analytics. Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

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.

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.

Share

Related pages

More on Farmers Business Network (FBN)

More on Lely Horizon

Keep looking

Other head to heads