Frequently asked questions
Things astrologers ask us before they sign up.
Every question on this page comes from a real conversation: a user interview, a support thread, a note someone sent us. We grouped them by topic so you can jump straight to the part that matters.
25 questions answered8 topic groupsUpdated September 2026
Getting started & is it for you
Getting started & is it for you.
What it costs to begin, how fast your first reading goes out, and how Astrolium compares to the free calculators you already use, whether you read full-time or just a few charts a month.
- How quickly can I get my first client reading out?
- Minutes. Enter the birth data, the chart renders in seconds, the AI drafts an interpretation you edit, and you export a branded PDF or share a link. Already keep a Solar Fire library? Export it as .aaf and import it — your back catalogue is there on day one.
- Is Astrolium worth it if I only do a few readings a month?
- Yes. The Free plan covers your first five clients with unlimited natal charts at no cost. When you want AI drafts, transits, and branded PDFs, Pro is $11/mo, built as the first paid step for readers with a handful of clients, not a full studio. You move up to Adept only when your practice grows into it.
- Why pay for Astrolium when astro.com and Astro-Seek are free?
- Those are calculators. You still copy positions into notes by hand and scatter client data across documents. Astrolium keeps charts, client records, AI drafts, and branded PDFs in one workspace, so the reading goes out faster and your history stays together. For plain charts with nothing to manage, the Free plan matches them at $0.
Pricing & billing
Pricing & billing.
What you pay, when you pay it, and what changes between plans.
- What happens to my client data if I cancel?
- Nothing is deleted. Cancelling moves the workspace to Free: you choose up to five clients to keep active, and the rest of your clients, your completed reports, and your Knowledge Base stay stored, with paid creation locked until you upgrade again. You can also take it all with you. Settings, then Data & Privacy, builds one JSON archive spanning 14 data domains: profile, clients, sessions, chart records, tags, folders, saved configs, Knowledge Base, Report Studio, brand profiles, intake, saved horary, AI conversations, and transit-alert rules. That archive is a GDPR Article 15 right-of-access export, and the screen names the handful of domains not yet in it.
- What are the exact limits on the free tier?
- 5 client profiles, unlimited natal charts, all 23 house systems, the current sky and a transit biwheel with full date navigation, practitioner notes on each client profile, PNG chart export, and 5 watermarked chart PDFs a month. That PDF is chart-only (wheel, overview, aspect grid, position tables) and the watermark cannot be switched off. Numerology is free on every plan. Not included: monthly AI credits (a $9 top-up works on any tier, Free included), Report Studio, returns, synastry, progressions, and the transit scanner. No payment method to sign up.
- Does the Astrolium free PDF have a watermark?
- Yes, and it cannot be switched off. The Free plan exports 5 watermarked chart PDFs a month: wheel, overview, aspect grid, and position tables, with the interpretive chapters withheld. Every paid tier drops the watermark and the monthly cap. Adept puts your logo, palette, and footer on the report; Master removes the Made with Astrolium mark entirely and lets you keep up to three brand profiles.
- Is there a discount for paying annually?
- Yes. Annual billing is 2 months free. Adept is $290/yr (versus $29/mo × 12 = $348). Master is $790/yr (versus $79/mo × 12 = $948). Switching from monthly to annual prorates the difference.
- Is there a free tier of Astrolium?
- Yes. The free plan covers 5 client profiles, unlimited natal charts, all 23 house systems, the current sky with a transit biwheel and full date navigation, Numerology, PNG chart export, and 5 watermarked chart PDFs a month. It is usable indefinitely, no card required. The first paid step is Pro at $11/mo, which turns on Sky with 50 AI credits a month, Report Studio, returns and synastry, and unwatermarked branded PDF export. Adept at $29 lifts the client cap and adds Horary, Electional, and the transit scanner.
- What is the Astrolium refund policy?
- 30-day money-back on annual plans, no questions. Monthly plans are non-refundable; cancellation takes effect at the next renewal. Email [email protected] from the address on file; the refund posts to the original card within 5 business days.
AI assistant
AI assistant.
What the AI knows, what it leaves to you, what languages it speaks, and how we keep it grounded in the chart in front of it.
- Is Astrolium's AI just ChatGPT writing astrology?
- No. Astrolium runs Google Gemini (via OpenRouter) grounded in your own Knowledge Base, the interpretation rules and notes you upload, not free-form generation. The reading follows your method, citing the chart positions it reads from. Internal QA shows the output matches manually-written paragraphs for sect, dignity, house, and aspect at over 92%.
- Can I trust the AI to write a reading I'll show a paying client?
- The AI drafts from the actual chart and your method, then cites the positions it read: sect, dignity, house, aspect. You review and edit before anything reaches a client. Treat it as a fast first draft that follows your rules, not an oracle that replaces your judgment. Nothing leaves your workspace on its own.
- Which languages does Astrolium's AI interpretation support?
- Three separate lists, and they are not the same one repeated. The Astrolium interface itself ships in English and Russian. Sky, the AI assistant, replies in English, Russian, Spanish, German, French, or Italian, picked from a dropdown in AI settings. Report Studio writes the client-facing document in seven: English, Russian, Ukrainian, Spanish, French, German, and Brazilian Portuguese. That last list is independent of your own interface language, so you can work in English and hand the finished reading to a client in theirs.
- I don't want AI in my reading. Can I turn it off?
- Yes. The AI assistant is opt-in and clearly labeled; nothing is generated unless you ask, and the Free plan comes with no AI credits. Astrolium runs fully without it: chart calculation, the client roster, and PDF reports all work AI-free. Your technique settings stay first-class, not a modern default. You choose the house system (23 of them), tropical or sidereal zodiac, your aspect orbs, lots, and fixed stars, and the chart respects the school you set (Hellenistic, traditional, or modern), which drives the dignities and orbs it uses.
- Does the AI work out of the box, or do I have to feed it my own rules first?
- It works the moment you open a chart, reading from classical technique: sect, dignity, houses, aspects. If you have your own interpretation style, Adept and Master let you upload notes to a Knowledge Base so drafts follow your method. That step is optional. Nothing is required before your first reading.
Calculation engine & accuracy
Calculation engine & accuracy.
The math under the hood: Swiss Ephemeris, 23 house systems, sidereal & tropical, fixed stars, asteroids, historical timezones.
- Can Astrolium calculate houses for high-latitude births?
- Yes. Above 66° latitude, Placidus and other quadrant systems can fail on certain dates. Astrolium auto-detects the condition and suggests Porphyry or Whole Sign with an inline tooltip, both of which resolve at any latitude.
- Does Astrolium support birth-time rectification?
- Yes, on Pro. The Rectification Wizard takes a candidate time range plus at least three dated life events, then scores every candidate minute on how closely its transits, progressions, and solar-arc directions track what actually happened. What comes back is a cluster rather than a verdict: when the top times group between 14:10 and 14:26, the wizard shows that range and says to present it. It flags twin times that score within a hair of each other, warns you when no event crossed the strong-correlation threshold, and files whatever you choose as a working estimate. It never claims to have found the true birth time.
- Does Astrolium use the Swiss Ephemeris?
- Yes. Astrolium calculates all charts on the Swiss Ephemeris engine, the same arc-second accuracy used by Solar Fire and academic research. Chart calculations complete in under 300ms across 23 house systems, asteroids, Arabic parts, and fixed stars.
- How does Astrolium handle pre-1900 birth times?
- IANA tzdb covers 1500 to present. For dates before a city's first legal timezone adoption, Astrolium auto-falls back to Local Mean Time (LMT) computed from longitude. No manual offset entry.
Switching from other tools
Switching from other tools.
Coming from Solar Fire, Astro Gold, or astro.com: what imports, how the cost stacks up against a desktop license, and what the first 30 days look like.
- How does Astrolium pricing compare to Solar Fire?
- Solar Fire is a $360 one-time Windows license. Add version upgrades, and Parallels if you are on a Mac, and five years lands somewhere between $520 and $700. Astrolium runs $0 to $79 a month in any browser. Adept at $29 covers unlimited clients, Sky with 300 AI credits a month, Horary and Electional, the transit scanner, and unwatermarked branded PDFs. On license cost alone Solar Fire is cheaper. The trade is a Windows VM and a static report against cloud sync, no installs, ongoing updates, and the client tooling Solar Fire has never shipped.
- Can I import my Solar Fire chart library into Astrolium?
- Yes. Astrolium supports Solar Fire import on every paid and free tier — export your charts from Solar Fire as .aaf (File → Export), then drag the export onto the Astrolium dashboard. 1000+ client charts move over in under 60 seconds with notes and aspect catalogs intact.
Platforms & compatibility
Platforms & compatibility.
Browser, Mac, Windows, iPad, iPhone, Android. The short version: web first, native shells where they earn their keep.
- Does Astrolium work on Mac and iPad?
- Yes. Astrolium runs in any modern browser on Mac, Windows, Linux, iPad, and Android. No app install, no separate license per device. Unlike Solar Fire, which is Windows-only, you can move between any of your devices with a single account.
- Is there a native iOS or iPad app?
- No, Astrolium runs in the browser. That used to mean it worked on an iPad and merely survived on a phone. After a hardening pass that went through the workspace surface by surface, the full practitioner workspace is usable on a phone: chart interaction and Ask AI on the natal wheel, the astrocartography map, place search that stays above the keyboard, the tab strip, horary fields, solar-return and Report Studio actions. iPad Safari and iPad Chrome remain the comfortable way to read a dense chart away from the desk. A native iOS app is a candidate, not a commitment.
Data, privacy & security
Data, privacy & security.
Where client birth data lives, how it's encrypted, what we keep if you cancel, and how the GDPR side works.
- How is client birth data stored and protected?
- Client data is encrypted at rest with AES-256, hosted in the EU on Hetzner (Frankfurt primary, Dublin replica), and served over TLS 1.3. Sub-processors are named in the DPA: Vercel, Hetzner, OpenRouter (Google Gemini, inference only, zero retention), Elastic, Google, Stripe, Postmark, Cloudflare, and our analytics providers; the full table sits on the privacy page. GDPR protections apply globally. Getting the data back out is one archive covering 14 data domains, framed as a GDPR Article 15 right-of-access export rather than a chart dump. The SOC 2 Type II audit is in flight, with attestation targeted for Q3 2026.
Teams, seats & white-label
Teams, seats & white-label.
For when your practice grows into a studio: shared seats, who on your team can see what, and running Astrolium under your own branding.
- Can I add team members to Astrolium?
- Yes, on Master. The $79/mo tier includes 3 seats on one shared client roster, drawing on one shared pool of AI credits. There is a single owner, who holds full access plus billing and branding, and Assistant seats for the people who run the practice around the readings: scheduling, intake, follow-up. An assistant starts with business details and birth data. The owner can widen a seat to charts or session notes, read-only, one class at a time, and every change is recorded. Extra seats cost $21/mo, added or removed whenever you like, with a prorated credit on the next invoice.
- Can I white-label Astrolium for my practice?
- Branding runs on a ladder. Adept puts your logo, palette, and footer on the reports and share links clients see. Master adds the rest: the Made with Astrolium mark comes off, you get up to three brand profiles, and the profile you mark as default carries your custom domain, so a shared chart reads charts.yourpractice.com. Two things to know before you promise a client anything. Branding is captured at the moment a link or report is minted, so editing it later will not re-brand what you already sent. And built-in PDF reports still show a monogram rather than your full logo.
Still chewing on a question?
Email [email protected] and a human gets back inside one working day. Or jump in and try it — the answer is usually in the product.