Comparison
YardLedger vs Lawn Command
A measurement-first lawn app for the same DIY homeowner — soil temperature, growing-degree days, and a growth-potential number driving what it tells you to do. YardLedger is a lawn care record that turns your own history, your grass type, and NOAA, Open-Meteo, and USDA data into a schedule — and asks you to approve every task the AI proposes before it lands on it.
What using YardLedger actually looks like
YardLedger’s workflows do not change with who we are being compared against. Each one says the plan it runs on, and what a paid plan adds to it. For what each plan costs, see the pricing page.
Write down what you put on the lawn, while you are still standing in it
FreeMows, waterings, aerations, soil tests, notes and problem spots all go in against the yard they happened to, with the date and photos — and an application carries what it actually was: the product out of your Garage and the rate you put down. 16 record types, unlimited entries, on the free tier too. This is the part everything else reads from — there is no separate "data entry" step, because the log IS the product.
- Plus adds Multiple Properties: a second yard on Plus and up to 10 on Pro, each with its own history, zones and schedule.
- Plus adds photo storage: room for 100 photos on Plus and 500 on Pro, against 30 on the free tier.
Start with a plan on day one, before you have any history at all
FreeName a grass the engine models and setting the yard up puts a starter schedule on the calendar straight away — built by the same rules-based engine behind the free public schedule generator, from that grass, your USDA hardiness zone, the date you start and how hands-on you want to be. No AI wrote it, every item is visible, and you can move or delete any of them. A mixed or unidentified lawn skips the starter plan and starts from the assistant instead. Your soil and your weather come in after that, through the watering balance and anything you ask.
- Plus adds Calendar Sync: an iCal subscription, so the schedule shows up in Google Calendar, Outlook or whatever you already keep.
Ask about your own yard, then decide what lands on the calendar
FreeAsk the assistant a question or hand it a photo of a bad patch, and it answers against that yard's own history, weather and products — proposing tasks with the reasoning attached and safety notes on any plan it builds. It proposes; you add the tasks you want, one at a time or all at once, and anything you leave alone never reaches your calendar. The monthly credit allowance is what scales with the plan: 5 a month on the free tier (15 in your first), 150 on Plus, 600 on Pro.
Draw the yard into zones, and water off a running balance rather than a weekly habit
FreeTrace the lawn on an overhead view and each zone carries its own area, grass and exposure into one running balance for the yard: Open-Meteo evapotranspiration draws it down, rainfall credits it back — the modeled figure, raised to a NOAA gauge reading where one covers you — and the soil sets how deep and how often to refill — the USDA SSURGO estimate for your coordinates where the survey covers you, a loam default where it does not. What comes back out is per zone: how long to run each one. Free accounts get the whole engine, the automatic soil resolution and a property-level override of it.
- Plus adds Sprinkler Calibration: per-zone head type, a precipitation rate measured from your own catch-cup run, root depth and slope, so a run time is your system's rather than an assumed one.
- Plus adds Weather Stations: a personal weather station (Ambient Weather, Ecowitt, Tempest, WeatherLink or Netatmo) driving your yard's conditions from readings taken at the property, and its ET too on the days the station reports enough sun, wind and humidity to compute one.
- Plus adds Sprinkler & Utility Map: pinning the sprinkler heads, valves, supply lines, drains and the main shut-off on the same overhead view, with photos and notes.
Be told about the weather that is going to cost you something
FreeFree accounts get the seasonal safety alerts — frost, winterize-now, spring irrigation startup, and the spring and fall pre-emergent windows — alongside the ordinary care reminders, on push or email.
- Plus adds Proactive Care Alerts: day-to-day weather-aware alerts that ride along with your daily reminder: when to water, when to skip for rain, spray-weather checks, and a weekly summary..
Turn on a guided program and let it bring its own steps
FreeWinterization, spring irrigation startup and yard leveling are free programs on every plan. Enable one and its steps join this yard's plan, for you to review and complete like anything else on it.
- Plus adds Premium Care Programs: crabgrass pre-emergent on soil-temperature timing and PGR on accumulated growing degree days, plus fall pre-emergent for winter weeds and grub prevention.
Time a reapplication by the weather instead of by the calendar
PlusPer-yard accrual from your local weather, so the timing moves with the season rather than the calendar: PGR sums growing degree days and reminds you when the reapplication interval comes due, and crabgrass pre-emergent watches a rolling soil temperature climbing toward the germination threshold and opens its window as it approaches.
- Pro adds Custom PGR Target: tuning that interval to this lawn — an exact GDD target, or one dialled in from your height of cut — instead of the standard fixed cadence.
Cost
Which one is cheaper?
Lawn Command, at the entry paid tier — $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr at this check, with a 7-day no-card trial. Both products also have a free tier that does not expire, so the cheapest honest comparison is to run both free plans on your own yard for a season and see which output you actually use.
- What the money buys
- YardLedgerSoftware, and only software. YardLedger sells no fertilizer, seed or chemicals and earns nothing on what you apply, so the subscription is the whole of what it bills you — product you buy wherever it is cheapest.
- Lawn CommandSoftware, on a freemium plan — the same model as YardLedger, so the two columns are like for like.
- What it costs
- YardLedgerNothing at all on Keep Track: no card, no trial clock, 1 yard, and unlimited care logging. Stay Ahead and Every Yard are ordinary monthly-or-annual software subscriptions; the current figures are on the pricing page rather than frozen into this table.
- Lawn CommandFree tier plus a paid tier at $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr, with a 7-day no-card trial.
- Free path
- YardLedgerFive tools with no signup and no card, including a schedule generator that renders a real month-by-month plan from your grass type and ZIP.
- Lawn CommandA real free tier inside the app — one lawn zone, basic daily task cards, a mowing log, the AI Coach's Note, one AI scan a month and catalog search — plus a 7-day trial of the paid one. Nothing to try in a browser: the site's own navigation is marketing, a blog and guides, so seeing output means installing the iPhone app.
The two paid tiers do not unlock the same thing. Lawn Command's gates the depth of its measurement engine; YardLedger's adds the premium Care Programs, day-to-day weather alerts, calendar sync, GDD and a second yard. Compare what each one opens up, not just the two figures.
Where these figures come from
- Lawn Command's own pricing section publishes Pro at $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr, the yearly price billed annually.their own page, read 2026-09-25
- The US App Store listing carries two in-app purchases, both named Lawn Command Pro, at $4.99 and $39.99.app store listing, read 2026-09-25
- The free tier is published as “$0 forever” and lists six things: one lawn zone, basic daily task cards, one AI scan a month, a mowing log, the AI Coach's Note and product catalog search. The paid tier opens with a 7-day trial that takes no credit card.their own page, read 2026-09-25
- Software on a freemium plan with no product line of its own to sell — its own comparison table says to use whatever is already in your shed — and every download call to action on the site is the iOS App Store.their own page, read 2026-09-16
- The site's own navigation offers its marketing sections, a blog, three guide families and its legal pages alongside the iOS download — no calculator, estimator or other tool to try without installing.their own page, read 2026-09-16
When Lawn Command is the better choice
If you want the raw agronomic numbers on screen — soil temp, GDD, growth potential — and you would rather the day's tasks simply appear than be proposed for your approval, Lawn Command is the closer fit. It is cheaper at the entry tier, its trial takes no card, and its paid tier reads a Rachio controller directly so irrigation runs log themselves — which YardLedger has no equivalent for.
Side by side
| YardLedger | Lawn Command | |
|---|---|---|
| What you're actually buying | Software, on a freemium plan. YardLedger sells no fertilizer, seed or chemicals and earns nothing on what you apply. Plans are built against the products already in your Garage, so a recommendation can name a store brand, a generic equivalent of a premium bag, or nothing at all when the lawn does not need feeding. | Software, on a freemium plan — the same model as YardLedger, so this row is not where the two differ. |
| How a task gets scheduled | Every task arrives with the reason it is there, and nothing the assistant proposes is scheduled until you approve it. Follow the plan as it comes, or change it. | The day's task cards are generated by its trigger engine with no approval step. Cards can carry the number behind them — the site's own examples show a GDD threshold and a growth-scaled rate, though its mowing card shows only a height and a direction — but the plan is not put to you before it lands. |
| Where the data comes from | Named and linkable: NOAA National Weather Service, Open-Meteo, phzmapi.org for the USDA hardiness zone, and USDA SSURGO for soil. | Published, though in the legal pages rather than beside the numbers: the privacy policy names Apple WeatherKit and Open-Meteo for weather, and the AI disclosure names Google's Gemini API. Soil temperature is described as an estimate, with no soil dataset named. |
| Platforms | iOS, Android, and the web app — the same account on all three. | iPhone only — the App Store listing says so in as many words (“Only for iPhone”). That listing is the one download the marketing site offers, there is no Play Store listing, and the site itself is marketing and guides with no web app behind it. |
| Care logging | Unlimited care events on every tier, including the free one, across 16 record types, with photos. | Logs treatments with the rate maths done for you, plus zones and AI photo scans. The free tier is not just a logbook — it publishes daily task cards, a mowing log, the Coach's Note and one AI scan a month on one zone. Pro is where the 37-trigger engine, the advanced task types, product inventory, analytics, CSV export and the Rachio controller feed sit. |
| Pricing | A free tier that does not expire and needs no card: 1 yard, unlimited care logging, the personalized seasonal schedule, three guided care programs, and frost and winterize alerts. Stay Ahead adds the premium care programs, day-to-day weather alerts, calendar sync, GDD, and a second yard. Current prices are on the pricing page. | Free tier plus a paid tier at $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr, with a 7-day no-card trial. |
| Try it before an account | Five free tools with no signup, including a schedule generator that renders a real month-by-month plan from your grass type and ZIP. | No no-signup interactive tool — the site is marketing, a blog and guides; seeing output means installing the app. |
Lawn Command details last checked 2026-09-16. Products change — if something here is out of date, tell us and we'll correct it.
Common questions
Is YardLedger or Lawn Command better for a first-time lawn owner?
YardLedger keeps the agronomy under the hood but tells you why each task is on the list, which suits someone who wants to understand what they are doing while they do it. Lawn Command puts the raw numbers — soil temperature, growing-degree days, growth potential — on screen and schedules for you, which suits someone who already reads those numbers.
Does YardLedger schedule tasks automatically like Lawn Command?
YardLedger never adds AI-proposed work to your schedule on its own, and that is deliberate. The Yard Assistant proposes a plan with its reasoning attached, and nothing is added to your schedule until you have seen it. Recurring reminders you set up yourself do repeat on their own; AI-proposed work does not.
Which one is cheaper?
Lawn Command's paid tier is cheaper at $4.99/mo or $39.99/yr. Both products have a genuinely free tier that does not expire, so the honest way to compare them is to use both free plans on your own yard for a season.
Can I use YardLedger on Android?
YardLedger works on Android: it runs on iOS, Android, and in a browser with the same account across all three. Lawn Command is iPhone-only at this check — there is no Play Store listing and no web app.
Decide on your own lawn, not ours.
Generate a real month-by-month schedule for your grass type — free, no account, no card — and see whether the output is the kind you want.
