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Agriculture · head to head

Farmbrite vs Lely Horizon

Farmbrite logo

Farmbrite

Agriculture

Farm record keeping, livestock and crop management for small and mid-sized operations

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: Farmbrite tiers are capped on active animal counts, so herd growth rather than headcount growth forces an upgrade, and a good calving season can push a farm into the next price band mid-year.; 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: Farmbrite covers Livestock records, 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 Farmbrite and Lely Horizon actually diverge.

Attributes where Farmbrite and Lely Horizon differ
AttributeFarmbriteLely Horizon
Starting price$29/monthOn request
Pricing modelPer month by farm and animal countquote
PlatformsWeb, iOS, AndroidWeb, iOS, Android, Windows

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 Farmbrite

  • Livestock records
  • Grazing management
  • Crop and field planning
  • Farm accounting
  • Traceability
  • Team scheduling and timesheets
  • Inventory
  • Direct sales storefront

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.

Farmbrite

  • A family farm keeping treatment and withdrawal records that an organic or grass-fed certifier will inspectnot Lely Horizon
  • A grazing operation planning pasture rotation and stocking rates without building another spreadsheetnot Lely Horizon
  • A diversified market garden that sells direct and wants planning, harvest records and a small storefront in one placenot Lely Horizon
  • A small ranch that needs individual animal history and genealogy but cannot justify an enterprise herd platformnot 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 Farmbrite
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot Farmbrite
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot Farmbrite
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot Farmbrite

Where each one falls short

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

Farmbrite

  • Tiers are capped on active animal counts, so herd growth rather than headcount growth forces an upgrade, and a good calving season can push a farm into the next price band mid-year.
  • The plans are split into separate Livestock, Crop and Complete product lines, so an operation that starts on a crop plan and later adds stock pays the combined rate rather than a small increment.
  • The accounting module is built around United States Schedule F tax reporting, so farms elsewhere get bookkeeping with a tax output they cannot file.
  • There is no precision agriculture layer at all, meaning no machine telemetry, no variable-rate prescriptions and no yield-map import, so anyone running guidance hardware maintains a second platform alongside it.
  • Offline capability in the mobile app is limited, and record keeping in paddocks or sheds without signal ends up being written down and re-entered later, which is exactly the workflow the software is meant to remove.

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

Farmbrite

$29/month
  • Livestock Essentials$29/month
    • Up to 300 active animals
    • Health, treatment and growth records
    • Genealogy and breeding
  • Complete Essentials$59/month
    • Crops and livestock together
    • Up to 300 active animals
    • Grazing management
  • Complete Performance$79/month
    • Up to 2,000 animals
    • Unlimited team members
    • Feed tracking and breeding performance
  • Complete Premium$109/month
    • 5,000 or more animals
    • Unlimited inventory and custom fields
    • Timesheets and audit tracking

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 Farmbrite if

  • You need livestock records.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want grazing management.
Farmbrite 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 Farmbrite or Lely Horizon better?
Neither clearly leads. Farmbrite 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, Farmbrite or Lely Horizon?
Farmbrite starts at $29/month and Lely Horizon at On request.
Does Farmbrite or Lely Horizon run on more platforms?
Farmbrite runs on Web, iOS, Android. Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows.
What is Farmbrite best used for?
Farmbrite is most often used for a family farm keeping treatment and withdrawal records that an organic or grass-fed certifier will inspect, a grazing operation planning pasture rotation and stocking rates without building another spreadsheet, a diversified market garden that sells direct and wants planning, harvest records and a small storefront in one place, a small ranch that needs individual animal history and genealogy but cannot justify an enterprise herd platform. Of those, a family farm keeping treatment and withdrawal records that an organic or grass-fed certifier will inspect and a grazing operation planning pasture rotation and stocking rates without building another spreadsheet are not what Lely Horizon is typically brought in for.
What can Farmbrite do that Lely Horizon cannot?
Farmbrite covers Livestock records, Grazing management, Crop and field planning, Farm accounting. Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Farmbrite: Does Farmbrite charge per user?

Not on most tiers. Essentials caps team members at five or ten depending on the plan, and Performance and Premium allow unlimited team members. Cost is driven by animal count instead.

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.

Farmbrite: Can it replace a precision agriculture platform?

No. There is no equipment telemetry, prescription writing or yield-map import, so it sits alongside those tools rather than replacing 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.

Farmbrite: Is there a discount for new farmers?

Yes. Farmbrite publishes discounts of up to 50 percent for three years for new farmers and up to 65 percent for non-profits.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

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

Farmbrite: Can I run both crops and livestock?

Yes, on the Complete plans. The separate Livestock and Crop plans only cover their own side.

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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