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Ag Leader AgFiniti / SMS vs Farmers Business Network
Both rows from the comparison table, set side by side. Nothing here is a recommendation; the facts are the vendors' own public statements, cited on each product page.
Capabilities
Ag Leader AgFiniti / SMS describes 3 of 10 capabilities (2 partial); Farmers Business Network describes 5 (1 partial). They differ on ai assistant, grain marketing, field maps & agronomy, inputs, weather, equipment data, elevator / buyer connection. Both describe mobile app.
| Capability | Ag Leader AgFiniti / SMS | Farmers Business Network |
|---|---|---|
| AI assistant | ○ No | ● Yes |
| Accounting | ○ No | ○ No |
| Grain marketing | ○ No | ● Yes |
| Field maps & agronomy | ● Yes | ◐ Partial |
| Inputs | ◐ Partial | ● Yes |
| Labor & staff | ○ No | ○ No |
| Weather | ◐ Partial | ? Unverified |
| Equipment data | ● Yes | ? Unverified |
| Elevator / buyer connection | ○ No | ● Yes |
| Mobile app | ● Yes | ● Yes |
Ag Leader AgFiniti / SMS: AgFiniti: field mapping, yield analysis, real-time prescriptions, remote view/control of Ag Leader InCommand displays, combining maps from third-party displays; Essentials tier syncs files with John Deere Operations Center, Climate FieldView and 'CNH third-party applications', plus an AgFiniti API. SMS Basic/Advanced desktop: 'File processing from most precision ag displays', crop plans, guidance lines, prescriptions, prescription budget tool, weather history, Sentinel satellite imagery, profit/loss mapping and multi-year analysis (Advanced). Inputs 'partial' = prescriptions/budget tool, not purchasing. Weather 'partial' = weather history in SMS. Mobile: AgFiniti Mobile for iPad and AgFiniti apps on App Store / Google Play; SMS Mobile for field data collection. Ag Leader is primarily a precision-ag display/hardware maker (about 75% aftermarket, 25% OEM sales per Farm Equipment, 2024).
Farmers Business Network: Norm is FBN's AI advisor for agronomy/farm-management questions (FBN calls it a proprietary LLM; site warns 'Norm can make mistakes'). FBN Direct sells crop protection, fertilizer, seed, animal health, feed and supplies direct-to-farm. FBN Crop Marketing lets members 'review local bids, manage contracts, scale tickets, and even receive payments' with grain buyers. FBN Finance offers land loans, operating lines 'of up to $5 million', equipment loans. Agronomy analytics are benchmarking/seed-performance insights from member data rather than a full field-mapping tool.
Price, data and ownership
| Ag Leader AgFiniti / SMS | Farmers Business Network | |
|---|---|---|
| Company | Ag Leader Technology, Inc. | Farmer's Business Network, Inc. |
| Category | equipment-machine data | input purchasing |
| What the AI does | None | Generic assistant — Norm answers agronomy and farm-management questions; FBN's pages do not state that it reads a member's own records. |
| Pricing model | Subscription | Free |
| Published price | AgFiniti: free tier ('FREE', create an account); AgFiniti Essentials '$420' per year ('Prices shown in USD'), includes 6000 acres and 250 GB cloud storage; Prescriptions and Multi-Year Analysis license '$0.35/ac'. SMS Basic '$995' one-time plus '$280 yearly maintenance fee'; SMS Advanced '$2,995' one-time plus '$815 yearly maintenance fee'; SMS Mobile price not listed. All from agleader.com, accessed 2026-10-25. | 'Membership is free.' 'Fees may apply for certain product and service offerings other than FBN membership.' (fbn.com, accessed 2026-10-25). Norm pricing not published. |
| Your data | Ag Leader's 'Puts YOU in Control of Your Data' page states 'the grower owns the data, period', that data stays private unless the grower chooses to share it with third parties, and that Ag Leader does not sell seed or chemicals or lease farmland and so has no commercial motive to profit from grower data ('you're always in control'); the AgFiniti data privacy policy page itself could not be fetched on 2026-10-25. | FBN states 'all data provided to FBN always remains the data of the farmer contributing it' and 'FBN has never — and will never — sell member data', nor share it with seed or input companies; member data is anonymized and used in aggregated analytics. |
| Crops and regions | Crop-agnostic (row crops, yield monitoring origin); global via dealers; US-only soil survey import in SMS | US and Canada; 117,000+ member farms, 187M acres (July 2025 release); row crops and livestock |
| Farm size | Not published | Not published |
| Ownership | Private — private | Private, investor-backed — VC-backed private |
| What else they sell | Equipment maker — part of equipment maker | Ag retailer / fintech — part of ag retailer/fintech |
| Headquarters | Ames, Iowa (US) | San Francisco, CA (US) |
| Built and supported | US-built ('American-made brand'), family-owned; worldwide dealer network with offices in the Netherlands, Australia and Brazil; US product support | US-built; US and Canada support (online, phone, on-farm per fbn.com) |
| Founded | 1992 | 2014 |
| Status | Active; AgFiniti and SMS both currently sold on agleader.com. | Active. July 2025 raise tied to expanding Norm AI into crop marketing, finance and risk management. |
| Confidence | verified | partially verified |
| Last reviewed | 2026-10-25 | 2026-10-25 |
Prices are quoted as shown on the vendor page on the review date and change often. Sources with access dates are on each product page: Ag Leader AgFiniti / SMS and Farmers Business Network. Request a correction.