How astrology became a big bucks business in India
In today’s Finshots we trace the journey of how astrotech became a billion dollar industry in India.
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The Story
The internet really has changed our lives for the better. Traditional businesses that once operated largely offline have found a much bigger platform to reach customers and grow. And it has hardly left any stone unturned, not even something as unexpected as astrology.
For decades, astrology was something people practised outside temples, in their homes or in small shops. But the rise of platforms connecting astrologers with people looking to consult them has catapulted it into an industry that some estimate could be worth as much as $7 billion. Of course, that’s not really an official number . But it gives you a sense of the scale of the industry’s growth.
And if you still find that hard to believe, consider AstroTalk. The bootstrapped company, which started in 2017, became a unicorn (reached a valuation of $1 billion) just a few months ago. So, if nothing else, we can safely say that astrology is at least a billion-dollar industry in India.
So, how did we get here?
The simplest way to put it is that startups realised faith was a huge market in India, and there was a gap in how astrologers connected with their clients. Until then, they had to largely rely on advertisements or word of mouth to find customers. So, building a marketplace that connected the two sides was a fairly straightforward way to solve the problem. That’s why, about a decade ago, several startups, including AstroTalk, mushroomed to take on older, more traditional players such as Astrosage and GaneshaSpeaks.
But the real boom seems to have come during the pandemic. There’s a famous quote by philosopher and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell that goes, “Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.” And the pandemic was a time when people were struggling with uncertainty around their health, lives and businesses. Naturally, many wanted to know when things would finally turn around. So they turned to astrotech, the marriage of astrology and technology. After all, when you couldn’t step out of your home, it was much easier to sit on your couch and connect with an astrologer through an app.
And that seems to have been an inflection point. As time went by, repeat users on astrotech platforms began spending three times as much each month. This caught the attention of venture capitalists (VCs), who saw an unusual market taking off. For instance, Left Lane Capital, a New York-based venture capital firm, invested $20 million in AstroTalk in 2024.
Sidebar: We’ll use AstroTalk as an example quite often because it recently became a unicorn. But this isn’t a story about just one company.
And that money helped astrotech startups scale up. They began spending more on technology, operations, marketing and hiring. To put things in perspective, just a year after Left Lane’s investment, AstroTalk’s total expenses had more than doubled, from ₹542 crore in FY24 to ₹1,129 crore in FY25. It also realised that the opportunity wasn’t limited to India and began expanding internationally. And that turned out to be a smart move because it could charge international customers significantly more than Indian ones. As a result, this segment contributed around 20% and 37% of its operating revenue in FY25 and FY26, respectively.
The second factor that helped the industry take off was the growing interest among young people in turning to astrology for answers about their lives, particularly their relationships and careers. Apparently, around 84% of AstroTalk’s 7 crore users are below 35 years of age. And the most frequently asked question on the platform is, “When will my ex come back?” Besides, nearly 65% of its revenue comes from users seeking advice about marriage.
And one way to keep these young users hooked is to offer them a few free minutes of advice at the beginning of a consultation. The advice might tell them exactly what they want to hear, before ending on a cliffhanger that nudges them to pay for more. These consultations, by the way, can cost as much as ₹250 per minute when you’re speaking to popular or celebrity astrologers. But AstroTalk’s average order value for consultations is around ₹210.
You can imagine how attractive this arrangement is for astrologers too. These platforms can potentially offer them three times the earnings they might make by practising independently. Sure, they have to part with a cut of their earnings to the platform. But even after that, the arrangement can be lucrative enough to bring more astrologers on board.
But if all this makes you think the business is only about consultations, there’s another side to it. Astrotech platforms have also started selling products like certified gemstones, crystals, jewellery and Vastu (Indian traditional system of architecture or spatial design) products. These are sold through their own platforms as well as marketplaces such as Amazon, Flipkart and Blinkit. It’s still a relatively small business, contributing less than 10% of AstroTalk’s operating revenue. But it has quadrupled to ₹166 crore in FY26.
And finally, there’s one more ingredient in this astrotech boom recipe: the growing interest in astrology among people who trade and invest in financial markets.
Of course, this isn’t entirely new. The best example is Muhurat Trading, when Indian stock exchanges open for a special trading session timed around an auspicious hour on Diwali. The tradition is rooted in the belief that planetary alignments can bring good fortune, particularly as it marks the beginning of the traditional financial year.
But astrology’s influence on financial markets goes well beyond this annual ritual. Even if you go back to around the 2008 financial crisis, self-styled financial astrologers had already secured prime-time TV slots, set up websites and call centres, and started influencing retail investors’ decisions.
There’s also another interesting pattern here. Searches for astrology tend to spike when markets fall. For instance, when the pandemic hit, Business Standard reported that Google searches for “astrology” had reached peak popularity. Some astrologers also began receiving 25-30% more calls. And as the astrotech industry grew, this interest found its way onto television too, with financial channels such as ET Now and CNBC Awaaz inviting astrologers to comment on the markets.
Naturally, this caught the attention of market regulator SEBI, which has pulled up, fined and even banned people offering stock tips based on astrology.
You’d think that would put a damper on the whole thing. But not quite. Astrologers can still work around these restrictions by predicting broad sectoral trends instead of giving stock specific trading recommendations.
And with financial markets not having the best of times lately, you can imagine how this could translate into more money for astrotech platforms. AstroTalk’s numbers already paint an encouraging picture. In just the past year, its revenue surged by a whopping 55% to ₹1,823 crore in FY26. And its net profit jumped from ₹22 crore to ₹222 crore!
And AI could potentially accelerate this growth even further. That’s because AI can sift through astrological data and perform the complex calculations involved in astrology. This means platforms can use it to answer a much larger volume of questions than human astrologers could possibly handle on their own.
So yeah, that’s how astrology went from being a largely offline practice to a booming technology-enabled business. And whether AI will trigger yet another inflection point for the industry is something we’ll have to wait and see.
Until then…
If you know someone who turns to astrology for just about everything in life, share this story with them on WhatsApp, LinkedIn or X. It might help them understand just how much they’re contributing to the booming astrotech industry!
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Source: finshots.in