GEA DairyNetvs
DairyComp
DairyComp: If the dairy wants the North American standard herd record and does not care about parlour vendor alignment
GEA DairyNet
Modular herd and farm management software for dairies running GEA milking equipment
As of 1 September 2026, GEA DairyNet's pricing is not published; the vendor quotes on request. GEA's successor to DairyPlan C21, sold as monthly modules priced by the number of animals actually using each function. Softwr lists it under Agriculture. GEA DairyNet is made by GEA Group, available on Windows, Web, iOS, Android.
Overview
What GEA DairyNet does
GEA DairyNet is the herd and farm management layer for GEA Farm Technologies milking and barn equipment. It replaces DairyPlan C21, the Windows product GEA sold for decades, with a modular system that combines on-premise operation with cloud services for analysis, updates and remote access. The core herd module holds animal records, lactation and reproduction data, health events and group management. Around it sit modules for milking system monitoring, feeding, CowScout activity and rumination monitoring, and youngstock, each of which can be added or dropped. The pricing model is the fact that changes a shortlist. GEA charges per module, and the cost of a module is based on the number of animals that actually use that module's functions rather than the total herd. A 500 cow dairy that only puts 180 heifers on the youngstock module pays for 180, and the subscription can be cancelled monthly. That is more granular than the flat per-cow licences most competitors charge, and it rewards dairies that are honest about which features they will use. Set against that, the one-time investment in sensors, barn hardware and installation is not part of the software price and is where the money actually goes, and no figures are published for any of it. The buyer is a dairy that has already committed to GEA equipment: DairyRobot R9500 boxes, DairyProQ rotaries, conventional GEA parlours or CowScout tags. DairyNet reads that hardware natively and the value is in the loop between what the equipment measures and what the software tells the herd manager to do. On a mixed-vendor barn it is much less compelling, because the sensor integrations that justify it are GEA-specific. The trade-off is depth inside one manufacturer's ecosystem against being locked to that manufacturer for the barn's working life.
What people use it for
- A dairy replacing an ageing DairyPlan C21 installation on existing GEA milking equipment
- A robot barn running DairyRobot R9500 boxes that wants robot data and herd records in one place
- A dairy adding CowScout activity monitoring and needing heat alerts to land in the herd software automatically
- A herd manager who wants to pay for a youngstock module covering only the heifers rather than the whole herd
Related searches
The honest half
Where it falls short
Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about GEA DairyNet.
- The value depends on GEA hardware, so a barn with mixed-vendor parlours, sensors or feeders loses most of the native integration that justifies the software.
- Nothing is published: not module prices, not per-animal rates, not installation costs, so every comparison against DeLaval or Lely requires a dealer quote and there is no way to sanity check it.
- Per-module per-animal pricing is granular but also means costs climb quietly as you add modules and grow the herd, and the monthly cancellation option does not help once the barn depends on a module.
- It is a successor to DairyPlan C21 rather than a rewrite of the category, so dairies migrating carry across conventions and data structures that predate cloud software and the transition itself needs dealer time.
- GEA sells only through authorised partners, so support quality, installation competence and how quickly you get a fault fixed are determined by your regional dealer rather than by GEA.
Cross-shopped
What people choose instead of GEA DairyNet
Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.
- GEA DairyNetvsHerdwatch
Herdwatch: If the operation is small and needs mobile compliance records rather than barn equipment integration
- GEA DairyNetvsSMARTBOW
SMARTBOW: If the priority is cow monitoring and real-time location rather than a full herd management system
Pricing
What GEA DairyNet costs
Taken from the vendor's own pricing page. Prices move, so check before you buy.
GEA DairyNet
On request
- Priced per module, by the number of animals using that module
- Modules can be cancelled monthly
- One-time cost for sensors, system technology and installation quoted separately
- Quoted only through authorised GEA sales partners
Capabilities
Features
Herd module
Animal records, lactation, reproduction, health events and group management
System monitoring
Live status and alarms from GEA milking systems, robots and rotaries
CowScout integration
Activity, rumination and eating time from GEA ear tags and neck tags
Feeding module
Ration allocation and concentrate feeding tied to individual animal performance
Youngstock module
Separate tracking for calves and heifers with its own animal count
Cloud data history
CowScout Cloud extends stored data history beyond the on-premise limit
Modular subscription
Add or cancel individual modules monthly rather than buying a whole suite
Answered, with sources
Questions people ask
Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.
Does DairyNet replace DairyPlan C21?
Yes. It is the successor product, built on the same decades of DairyPlan development but restructured into cloud-connected modules.
How is it priced?
Per module, with each module priced on the number of animals actually using that module's functions. Modules can be cancelled monthly. No rates are published.
Will it work with non-GEA milking equipment?
Basic herd records will, but the sensor, robot and parlour integrations that make it worth buying are GEA-specific.
Is the software cost the main expense?
No. The one-time investment in sensors, system technology and installation is the larger figure, and it is quoted separately by the sales partner.
Keep looking
Where to go from GEA DairyNet
- GEA DairyNet alternativesEvery product people weigh against it
- GEA DairyNet pricingPlans, floors and what the tiers exclude
- GEA DairyNet badgesWhich rules it meets, and the figure behind each
- All Agriculture softwareThe full category
- Best Agriculture softwareThe shortlist, and how it was cut
Best Agriculture software for
Compare GEA DairyNet with
- DairyComp
- Herdwatch
- SMARTBOW
- Lely Horizon
- Halter
- Nedap Livestock Management
- Allflex Livestock Intelligence
- Connecterra
- CattleMax
- Nofence
- Gallagher eShepherd
- fieldmargin
- Proagrica
- Produce Pro
- Raven Slingshot
- Reinke ReinCloud
- Tend
- Teralytic
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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for GEA DairyNet, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.
More on GEA DairyNet
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