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Agriculture · head to head

Farmers Edge vs Soil Scout

Farmers Edge logo

Farmers Edge

Agriculture

Global leader in digital agriculture

From
$29/month
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Soil Scout logo

Soil Scout

Agriculture

Buried wireless soil sensors with a ten to twenty year battery and no cables to the surface

From
On request
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: Farmers Edge farmers Edge priced its FarmCommand platform per acre rather than per seat, with tiers from $1.50 CAD per acre for basic imagery-only monitoring up to $6.00 CAD per acre for variable rate fertility prescriptions, meaning cost scales directly with farm size rather than user count (archived pricing page, 5 April 2020); Soil Scout sensors are unserviceable once buried, so a failed or drifting unit means excavation and the confidence you place in a single reading has no easy verification.
  • They diverge on capability: Farmers Edge covers Satellite imagery, Soil Scout covers Fully buried sensors.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Farmers Edge and Soil Scout actually diverge.

Attributes where Farmers Edge and Soil Scout differ
AttributeFarmers EdgeSoil Scout
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelsubscriptionquote
PlatformsWeb, Ios, AndroidWeb
Founded2005Unknown

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 Edge

  • Satellite imagery
  • Weather stations
  • Variable rate
  • Carbon credits
  • Soil sampling
  • John Deere
  • CLAAS
  • Major equipment brands

Only in Soil Scout

  • Fully buried sensors
  • Ten to twenty year battery
  • Underground radio
  • Dual depth sensing
  • Moisture, temperature and salinity
  • Soil Scout Hub
  • Web service API
  • Long base station range

What people use each for

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

Farmers Edge

  • Precision agriculturenot Soil Scout
  • Carbon programsnot Soil Scout
  • Data analyticsnot Soil Scout

Soil Scout

  • A golf course monitoring greens moisture where a surface-mounted probe would be hit by mowers and playnot Farmers Edge
  • A stadium pitch under a closed roof where hand-held probing is impractical during the seasonnot Farmers Edge
  • A research plot needing consistent multi-year soil data below cultivation depthnot Farmers Edge
  • An irrigated field where a surface logger would not survive tillage or a spray boomnot Farmers Edge

Where each one falls short

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

Farmers Edge

  • Farmers Edge priced its FarmCommand platform per acre rather than per seat, with tiers from $1.50 CAD per acre for basic imagery-only monitoring up to $6.00 CAD per acre for variable rate fertility prescriptions, meaning cost scales directly with farm size rather than user count (archived pricing page, 5 April 2020)

Soil Scout

  • Sensors are unserviceable once buried, so a failed or drifting unit means excavation and the confidence you place in a single reading has no easy verification.
  • No pricing is published at all, which makes it hard to justify against commodity probes that quote openly, and per-sensor cost is well above the alternatives.
  • It measures but does not control, so tying moisture readings to actual irrigation decisions requires either manual interpretation or a separate integration project with the control system.
  • Underground radio range depends on soil type and moisture; heavy wet clay attenuates the signal and can force more base stations than the headline kilometre figure suggests.
  • The company is small and Finland-based, so outside its established golf and sports turf distribution the support, spares and installation expertise depend entirely on whether a competent local distributor exists.

Pricing, plan by plan

Farmers Edge

$29/month
  • FarmCommandFree
    • Custom pricing
    • Satellite imagery
    • Variable rate
  • EnterpriseFree
    • Custom pricing
    • Carbon programs
    • Full suite

Soil Scout

On request
  • Soil Scout$undefined/year
    • Sensors and base station quoted per site
    • Hub subscription terms quoted with the hardware
    • No individual sensor data plans required

Which should you pick?

Choose Farmers Edge if

  • You need satellite imagery.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want weather stations.
Farmers Edge review

Choose Soil Scout if

  • You need fully buried sensors.
  • You also want ten to twenty year battery.
Soil Scout review

Questions people ask

Is Farmers Edge or Soil Scout better?
Neither clearly leads. Farmers Edge starts at $29/month and Soil Scout at On request, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Farmers Edge or Soil Scout?
Farmers Edge starts at $29/month and Soil Scout at On request.
Does Farmers Edge or Soil Scout run on more platforms?
Farmers Edge runs on Web, Ios, Android. Soil Scout runs on Web.
What is Farmers Edge best used for?
Farmers Edge is most often used for precision agriculture, carbon programs, data analytics. Of those, precision agriculture and carbon programs are not what Soil Scout is typically brought in for.
What can Farmers Edge do that Soil Scout cannot?
Farmers Edge covers Satellite imagery, Weather stations, Variable rate, Carbon credits. Soil Scout covers Fully buried sensors, Ten to twenty year battery, Underground radio, Dual depth sensing.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Soil Scout: How long do the sensors last?

Up to ten years for the Happi100 and up to twenty for the Hydra100, buried, with no battery replacement.

Soil Scout: Do the sensors need mobile data plans?

No. Sensors transmit to a base station through the soil, and only the base station uses a cellular modem.

Soil Scout: Can it control irrigation directly?

No. It is a measurement and alerting system; controlling valves needs an integration with your irrigation controller through the API.

Soil Scout: What happens if a buried sensor fails?

You dig it up. There is no remote service option, which is the trade-off for having nothing above ground to damage.

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