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Agriculture · head to head

Lely Horizon vs Lindsay FieldNET

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
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: 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.; 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: Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Lindsay FieldNET covers Pivot Watch.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Lely Horizon and Lindsay FieldNET actually diverge.

Attributes where Lely Horizon and Lindsay FieldNET differ
AttributeLely HorizonLindsay FieldNET
Starting priceOn request$300/year
Pricing modelquotePer pivot per year plus hardware
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsWeb, iOS, Android

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 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

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.

Lely Horizon

  • A 180-cow dairy running four Astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a daynot Lindsay FieldNET
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot Lindsay FieldNET
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot Lindsay FieldNET
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot Lindsay FieldNET

Lindsay FieldNET

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

Where each one falls short

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

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.

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

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

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 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

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 Lely Horizon or Lindsay FieldNET better?
Neither clearly leads. Lely Horizon 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, Lely Horizon or Lindsay FieldNET?
Lely Horizon starts at On request and Lindsay FieldNET at $300/year.
Does Lely Horizon or Lindsay FieldNET run on more platforms?
Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. Lindsay FieldNET runs on Web, iOS, Android.
What is Lely Horizon best used for?
Lely Horizon is most often used for a 180-cow dairy running four astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a day, a farm adding vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milking, a dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one account, a lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth box. Of those, a 180-cow dairy running four astronaut robots that needs the attention list to replace walking the barn twice a day and a farm adding vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milking are not what Lindsay FieldNET is typically brought in for.
What can Lely Horizon do that Lindsay FieldNET cannot?
Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management. Lindsay FieldNET covers Pivot Watch, Pivot Control retrofit, Remote start and stop, FieldNET Advisor.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

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

Lindsay FieldNET: Is FieldNET Advisor included?

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

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.

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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