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Agriculture · head to head

Lely Horizon vs MyJohnDeere

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
MyJohnDeere logo

MyJohnDeere

Agriculture

Connected farm management by John Deere

From
$29/month
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.; MyJohnDeere myJohnDeere is now branded John Deere Operations Center; access to the actual platform (myjohndeere.deere.com) requires an Okta single sign-on login with no public trial or pricing path, per the vendor's own marketing page and login redirect.
  • They diverge on capability: Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, MyJohnDeere covers Equipment connectivity.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which Lely Horizon and MyJohnDeere actually diverge.

Attributes where Lely Horizon and MyJohnDeere differ
AttributeLely HorizonMyJohnDeere
Starting priceOn request$29/month
Pricing modelquotesubscription
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsWeb, Ios, Android
FoundedUnknown1837

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 MyJohnDeere

  • Equipment connectivity
  • Operations Center
  • Variable rate
  • Field analyzer
  • AutoTrac
  • Climate FieldView
  • Granular
  • Raven

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 MyJohnDeere
  • A farm adding Vector automatic feeding that wants ration delivery driven by the same cow data as milkingnot MyJohnDeere
  • A dairy manager tracking transition cow health across two sites from one accountnot MyJohnDeere
  • A Lely advisor benchmarking a client's robot utilisation against comparable farms before recommending a fourth boxnot MyJohnDeere

MyJohnDeere

  • Equipment managementnot Lely Horizon
  • Data integrationnot Lely Horizon
  • Precision farmingnot 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.

MyJohnDeere

  • MyJohnDeere is now branded John Deere Operations Center; access to the actual platform (myjohndeere.deere.com) requires an Okta single sign-on login with no public trial or pricing path, per the vendor's own marketing page and login redirect.

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

MyJohnDeere

$29/month
  • BasicFree
    • Equipment connectivity
    • Basic data
    • JDLink
  • Premium$1200/year
    • Full Operations Center
    • Advanced analytics
    • Prescriptions

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 MyJohnDeere if

  • You need equipment connectivity.
  • You work on Web, Ios, Android.
  • You also want operations center.
MyJohnDeere review

Questions people ask

Is Lely Horizon or MyJohnDeere better?
Neither clearly leads. Lely Horizon starts at On request and MyJohnDeere at $29/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Lely Horizon or MyJohnDeere?
Lely Horizon starts at On request and MyJohnDeere at $29/month.
Does Lely Horizon or MyJohnDeere run on more platforms?
Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. MyJohnDeere 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 MyJohnDeere is typically brought in for.
What can Lely Horizon do that MyJohnDeere cannot?
Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management. MyJohnDeere covers Equipment connectivity, Operations Center, Variable rate, Field analyzer.

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.

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