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Agriculture · head to head

Lely Horizon vs Tend

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
Tend logo

Tend

Agriculture

Crop planning and record keeping for small diversified market farms, priced in flat tiers rather than by acre

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Only Tend has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
  • 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.; Tend the free tier keeps only three years of history and 500 MB of storage, so a grower who stays on it loses the multi-season comparison that makes crop planning software worth having in the first place.
  • They diverge on capability: Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Tend covers Visual crop planning.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 1 September 2026.

Where they differ

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

Attributes where Lely Horizon and Tend differ
AttributeLely HorizonTend
Starting priceOn requestFree
Pricing modelquotePer month by user count
Free tierNoYes
PlatformsWeb, iOS, Android, WindowsWeb, iOS, Android

Identical on both: 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 Tend

  • Visual crop planning
  • Growing templates
  • Crop library
  • Task management
  • Harvest and inventory tracking
  • CSA and sales storefront
  • Financial reporting
  • AI credits

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

Tend

  • A three-acre market garden running weekly lettuce successions that needs the seeding calendar to generate itself from the harvest targetnot Lely Horizon
  • A cut-flower farm planning bed space against wedding orders months aheadnot Lely Horizon
  • A CSA operation managing 150 member shares alongside the planting plan that has to fill themnot Lely Horizon
  • A two-person farm replacing a spreadsheet and a whiteboard without paying a per-acre platform's minimumnot 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.

Tend

  • The free tier keeps only three years of history and 500 MB of storage, so a grower who stays on it loses the multi-season comparison that makes crop planning software worth having in the first place.
  • Data retention is a paid feature at every level below Ultimate, which is an unusual thing to meter: a farm that downgrades from Pro to Free after a bad year risks losing records it may need for organic certification audits.
  • There is no machinery, telematics, soil sampling or variable-rate capability at all, so any operation that adds broadacre ground has to run a second platform rather than extend this one.
  • AI features are metered in credits rather than included, and the allowances are small at the lower tiers, so the assistant becomes something you ration rather than rely on.
  • The company is small and privately held with a narrow customer base, which means integrations outside payments and basic accounting are thin and a request for a connector to a regional distributor or certifier is unlikely to be built.

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

Tend

Free
  • FreeFree
    • 1 user
    • 25 AI credits per month
    • 3 years data retention
  • Pro$30/month
    • 5 users
    • 500 AI credits per month
    • 7 years data retention
  • Ultimate$75/month
    • Unlimited users
    • 2,500 AI credits per month
    • Unlimited data retention
  • Enterprise$400/month
    • Unlimited users
    • 10,000+ AI credits per month
    • 250 GB storage and up

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 Tend if

  • You need visual crop planning.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, iOS, Android.
  • You also want growing templates.
Tend review

Questions people ask

Is Lely Horizon or Tend better?
Neither clearly leads. Lely Horizon starts at On request and Tend at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, Lely Horizon or Tend?
Tend has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at On request for Lely Horizon and Free for Tend.
Does Lely Horizon or Tend run on more platforms?
Lely Horizon runs on Web, iOS, Android, Windows. Tend runs on Web, iOS, Android.
Can I use Tend for free?
Yes. Tend has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Lely Horizon starts at On request.
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 Tend is typically brought in for.
What can Lely Horizon do that Tend cannot?
Lely Horizon covers Per-cow milking data, Health and fertility alerts, Work list generation, Feed management. Tend covers Visual crop planning, Growing templates, Crop library, Task 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.

Tend: Does Tend charge by the acre?

No. Pricing is flat by user count, and there are no acreage or crop limits on any tier including the free one. That is the main reason small growers pick it over broadacre platforms.

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.

Tend: Can Tend handle a CSA?

Yes, including member share management and a farm-stand storefront, though payment processing runs through a third party.

Lely Horizon: What happened to T4C?

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

Tend: Is it suitable for a 500 acre grain farm?

No. There is no machinery data, no prescription writing and no as-applied reporting. It is built for high-crop-count, low-acreage operations.

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.

Tend: What happens to my records if I cancel?

Export before you cancel. Retention limits apply per tier, and the free tier keeps three years, so downgrading is not a safe archive strategy.

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