Just a note: This is not a sponsored post and I am not receiving any affiliate fees for featuring these apps I use. If you main intend is to look for a quick and reliable BaZi calculator, I’ve provided one here: Sean Chan’s Free BaZi Calculator.
If you’re a Chinese metaphysics enthusiast looking to study BaZi or Zi Wei Dou Shu on your own, it’s important to get the right tools to help you along. I don’t think anyone wants to use their fingers and palms to do the calculators these days.
As a practitioner, I’m always generating clients’ charts and pasting them in my emails as I work on my reports. A lot of my readers have been asking me lately what is the app that I use to plot my charts and why did I choose the app I’m using in particular when so many are available online. The very simple reason is that I feel that the app I’m currently using is the best one I’ve ever come across, developed by a company that specializes in creating software for the metaphysics field. As I plot charts almost every day, having a BaZi calculator in the form of an app is way more feasible than having to log on to some website to generate it. Besides, the online calculators really aren’t that user-friendly in my opinion.
Don’t Waste Your Money On Yearly Subscriptions
I’ve noticed that some commercialized practitioners get you to pay almost $1000 a year to subscribe to their professional version of their calculator
Please do not waste your money on those.
Those calculators aren’t even good to begin with and the subscription price is just ridiculous. It’s targetted at the ignorant consumers who aren’t able to do proper research on the available options out there. For the kind of price they charge, you can get yourself an iPad and all the apps I use for my BaZi consultations at a fraction of the price.
Heck, you can even use the money to pay for a Chinese language lesson so that you can use the best calculators available.
The BaZi & Zi Wei Dou Shu Calculators I Can Absolutely Vouch For
This app I use is called 十三行八字 and is available in the iTune store. Do note that this is a paid app, and the iPhone version and iPad version of it are sold separately. The iPad version is able to plot the chart to the hour (流時) whereas the iPhone version can only show you up to the month (流月). You may have stumbled upon online calculators on different websites – rest assured that all of them can be used for plotting a chart because the chart follows a formula, so there isn’t such a thing as one calculator being more accurate than another. What’s most important is user-friendliness. They also constantly update this app, and it’s very reliable. The only downside for this app is that it’s only available in Chinese, so it may not be as accessible as an English one. A lot of the English calculators out there don’t capture the essence of BaZi, and a lot of useful information of the chart does get missed out.
I have this app installed on both my iPhone and iPad – yes, I paid for both – and as I carry my phone with me all the time, I can whip it out anytime and generate a chart immediately during social occasions where this skill of mine plays the role of a very effective ice-breaker.
What I love about this app is its user-friendliness. You can click on the different ‘Luck Pillars’ (大運 and 流年運) and it will show the interactions between the current ‘Luck Pillar’ and the natal chart, making it extremely easy for you to identify combinations and clashes required for analysis. This option to select the current ‘Luck Pillar’ clears out the clutter and helps you to focus on the current period before moving on to the next one. Most online calculators don’t have this feature to select a particular period and zooming into it, instead, they list everything out and bombarding the user with too much information. It’s not a big deal for someone who is already familiar with BaZi, but for a beginner who is still new to this, this huge flood of information and Chinese characters can feel rather daunting, and it is an unnecessary distraction which may cause newcomers to miss out on certain important traits of the chart. It’s hard to analyze a chart while having to refer back to your textbooks for the combinations and clashes, so this app does it for you. It also lists the 十二長生 and ancillary stars (神煞) for your which is a critical component in BaZi analysis.
You can download the apps I use for my consultations below. Do note again that the iPhone version and iPad version of the apps are sold separately. If you wish to get both BaZi and Zi Wei Dou Shu calculators, there is a bundle at a cheaper price, but it is bundled by iPhone and iPad:
iPhone Bundle: 十三行八字紫微套件 for iPhone – Firm 13 Limited
iPad Bundle: 十三行八字紫微套件 for iPad – Firm 13 Limited
If you wish to purchase separately, you can choose from the list below.
I use these apps exclusively for my consultations and lessons because it’s great not only for practitioners but for beginners as well, allowing them to generate charts at ease and familiarizing themselves with the different combinations and clashes while I break down the chart and explain how the analysis is performed. I have not come across any other online calculator or application as advanced and user-friendly as this one, and I do highly recommend it is you’re an avid learner of BaZi. You don’t have to go through the trouble of logging onto a website and keying the birth details on a small screen when you have this app. My students have not come across this app because you have to type in Chinese in the Apple store to find it, and it’s not something that comes intuitively as most people just key in “bazi calculator”. Feedback for this app has been really good, and my students find it extremely helpful as they study BaZi. If you’re thinking of investing in an app to further your studies of metaphysics, I would highly recommend this BaZi calculator.
Speaking of which, don’t be afraid to reach out if you’re ever thinking of taking up BaZi lessons! I’ll write an entry on how my knowledge in metaphysics has helped me make better decisions in my next entry, and I hope you’ll be able to appreciate how this ancient knowledge is still applicable even till today!
– Sean
