THE BAZI CALCULATOR · FREE CHART AND DEEP REPORTS
One birthday. Eight characters. A whole chart.
The BaZi (八字, "eight characters") calculator turns one birthday into a full Chinese birth chart: your zodiac, four pillars (year / month / day / hour), ten gods, five-element balance, day master, and Da Yun life cycles. Everything is calculated locally in your browser by a deterministic engine — your birth data never leaves the page unless you buy a report.
What this is
Three layers, free → paid
Layer 0 — free:
your zodiac sign and its element.
Layer 1 — free:
the full chart — pillars table, five-element bars, day master, Da Yun timeline — plus a "year ahead" preview of Love / Wealth / Fortune.
Deep report — paid:
Any one section $4.99, or all seven sections for $29.99 (All Access). One payment, no subscription, no account.
The engine behind your chart is checked by automated test suites — three suites, 89 calendar assertions, anchored on publicly published charts (including the widely circulated December 26, 1893 chart) and solar-term month windows — re-run on every engine change.
Step by step
The whole path, in order
From one birthday to the full deep report — this is the entire sequence.
STEP ONEEnter your birth details
- Go to thehexagrams.com/bazi.
- Birth date — required, 1900-01-01 or later, not in the future.
- Birth time — defaults to 12:00. If you don't know it, tick "I don't know my birth hour (时辰未知)" — the time field disables and the chart is built without the hour pillar (three-pillar mode).
- Gender — required. It decides the direction of your Da Yun cycles (forward/backward pairing with the year stem's yin/yang), so the form blocks "Generate Chart" until you choose.
- Click Generate Chart.
Everything from here on is computed in the browser (lunar-typescript EightChar engine; year pillar uses the Lichun 立春 boundary — zodiac and engine never disagree; a 1893 anchor date is regression-tested).
STEP TWORead your free chart
- Your zodiac (Layer 0): "Your zodiac sign is the …" plus the year pillar GanZhi, stem/branch elements, and the lunar date. A note explains the Lichun year boundary.
- The hook: "Your zodiac is just 1 of 8 characters. Here are the other seven."
- Four pillars (Layer 1): a table with each pillar's Heavenly stem, Earthly branch, GanZhi, and Ten God (Friend / Rival / Eating God / Hurting Officer / Wealth stars / Officer / Resource stars). The day pillar's ten god reads "— (day master)". If the hour is unknown you get a three-pillar table with the hour row marked "unavailable — birth hour unknown".
- Five elements: colored bars for Metal 金 / Wood 木 / Water 水 / Fire 火 / Earth 土 with counts, and a "◇ Missing element — …" flag or "No element is missing."
- Day master: "Day master: X (element) — the day stem is 'you' in the chart."
- Life cycles (Da Yun 大运): a horizontal axis of up to 9 decade nodes (GanZhi, age range, years) with the current decade highlighted.
- An ornate compass ring (命盘环) shows the four GanZhi in their quadrants with the day master as the center seal.
STEP THREEThe year-ahead preview (free, deterministic)
- "Your year ahead" shows three cards — Love 感情 / Wealth 财富 / Fortune 运势. Each card shows one deterministic key fact computed from your chart and this year's stem (2026 is a 丙午 year):
- Love: your spouse star (wealth star for men, officer star for women).
- Wealth: your wealth star.
- Fortune: what this year's stem brings as a ten god to your day master.
- Below each key, a veiled blur promises exactly what the deep report answers ("Whether 2026 opens or tests your … is written in the deep report."). The numbers, months and verdicts are not fabricated here — they are the paid content.
- The bundle CTA sits under the cards: "Best value" → Unlock everything — $29.99 (All Access).
STEP FOURUnlock a report
- Click Unlock Love — $4.99 (or Wealth / Fortune), or Unlock everything — $29.99. First time, an email is requested (receipt only). Checkout is hosted (Subotiz) — your card never touches this site.
- After payment the site confirms on a "Finishing your order" page (polls the payment desk, up to ~4 minutes) and returns to
/bazi/?paid=<product>. - Re-generating the chart resets all unlocks — unlock again (already owned products open instantly; the entitlement token is browser-local, valid 365 days).
STEP FIVERead your deep report
- The reader panel opens below: tabs for the sections you own — Love, Wealth, Fortune, People, Day master strength, Favorable elements, Da Yun decade. Locked tabs are greyed out.
- Each section body is 3–4 short paragraphs written only from your chart's fact pack (each must cite ≥2 real values — a month label, GanZhi, year, age or count; People must cite ≥3).
- Below each core section: "What to watch" — 2–3 short observations, each backed by a concrete fact (month labels, GanZhi, spouse-palace clash warnings, decade positions).
- Key-month lists carry per-section labels: Key months (Love), Money windows (Wealth), Supportive months (Fortune).
- The 12-month timeline grid maps the current year month by month with tones — 🟢 Good window / 🟡 Watch / ⚪ Neutral. Click a month cell to expand its one-line judgement. Tones are deterministic (a caution month inside a wealth window is downgraded to neutral so the axis never contradicts the section texts); only the sentence wording is AI, with a deterministic template as fallback.
- Every report ends with: "For entertainment and self-reflection only. This is not professional advice — not medical, psychological, legal or financial advice."
Free vs paid — the exact boundary
What stays free, what costs $4.99 / $29.99
| Free (chart + preview) | Deep report | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $0 — unlimited | Any one section $4.99; all seven at once $29.99 |
| What you get | Zodiac, four pillars, ten gods, five-element counts, day master, Da Yun axis, year-ahead key facts (deterministic, veiled) | Full written sections: the three above + People & relationships (人际: benefactors = resource stars, competitors = peer stars, backing = officer stars, anchored to pillar palaces) + Day-master strength (score + rule) + Favorable elements (喜用神) + Da Yun decade year by year (turning years marked 转折年) + 12-month timeline + watch lists |
| Entitlement | None needed | bazi_<love/wealth/fortune> per single; bazi_bundle token covers all three singles too. Token = HMAC orderNo.product.exp, browser localStorage (thx_ent_*), 365 days |
| Server gate | — | POST /api/bazi-report returns 402 payment_required without a valid token in X-Entitlement (local/dev requests bypass) |
| Input scope | Date ≥1900, time optional, gender required — validated server-side on every report request | Same |
| Region limits | None | Checkout blocked for JP / TH / MX |
| Refund / re-read | — | 14-day refund; report regenerated free with a corrected birth time within 30 days (reply to delivery email) |
Details verified in source
- The chart itself is never paywalled — the client computes it locally; no data is sent for the free layers. Only the written sections call
POST /api/bazi-report(with your birth data + gender + section id). - AI fact discipline: the server builds a deterministic fact pack (pillars, ten gods, five-element counts, day-master strength with its transparent rule, favorable/unfavorable elements, Da Yun decade + turning years, Liu Nian, 12 solar-term month windows, pillar palaces, caution months, branch-clash check). The LLM may only cite exact pack values; every section is validated for minimum citations and numeric grounding before it is accepted, otherwise a deterministic fallback is written from the pack. The love section must carry a "not advice" statement. Per-section calls (not one giant call) to avoid truncation; timeline lines are a separate call (≤18 words).
- Month windows come from
lib/bazi/months.ts— wealth / love / support months selected by ten-god rules, with a fallback rule so a section never ships empty. - Bundle pricing is honest by design: 3 × $19.99 = $59.97 vs bundle $59.99 — the pricing page says outright the bundle is two cents more and exists for the shared twelve-month axis, not a discount.
A straight answer
"Hints" and admin access — verified status
There is no hint button and no admin panel in this tool. The only "hints" are helper copy and the veiled blurbs on the year-ahead cards (which are deliberate purchase promises, not answers). The only privileged access is a developer-only local bypass: browser and server both whitelistlocalhost / private LAN IPs (IS_LOCAL / isLocalRequest), under which unlocks skip checkout and reports are even pre-generated in the background for instant opening. On the live domain this never matches — every real user goes through checkout.
Common questions
Asked before you buy
Is my birthday sent anywhere?
For the free chart: no — it is computed in your browser. Only when you unlock a report is your birth data sent to /api/bazi-report to generate the written sections.
What if I don't know my birth hour?
Tick "I don't know my birth hour" — the chart renders in three-pillar mode (hour row marked unavailable) and the report sections are computed and written from three pillars.
Can I buy one section and add others later?
Yes — each $4.99 purchase unlocks exactly that section permanently; buying several separately equals what All Access covers (allle token also covers singles, so re-unlocking works either way).
Why is gender required?
Da Yun (life cycles) run forward or backward depending on the year stem's yin/yang combined with the querent's gender — the chart is unambiguous only with it.
What does the report actually promise?
Nothing time-certain. It names the shape of the year from your chart — months that open, months to hold, which sections of life the year's stem touches — and is expressly "not professional advice".
That is the whole tool
Free chart, honest paid reports
The chart is always free and always local. The written sections are $4.99 each, or all seven for $29.99 — one payment, no subscription, 14-day refund.
For entertainment and self-reflection only. This is not professional advice — not medical, psychological, legal or financial advice.