:::note
**TL;DR**
- An astrology API is calculation infrastructure: it turns a birth moment into structured chart, horoscope, and compatibility data so you do not write an ephemeris engine yourself.
- Evaluate on six axes: domain coverage, verifiable accuracy, MCP transport, pricing model, SDK and documentation quality, and licensing.
- The three public incumbents most developers shortlist in 2026 are RoxyAPI (multi-domain, flat pricing), AstrologyAPI (deep astrology suite, credit wallet), and Prokerala (Vedic-led, credit wallet).
- See how the breadth, pricing, and AI-readiness line up with [RoxyAPI](/products "RoxyAPI multi-domain spiritual data API for developers"), then decide on the facts.
:::

Choosing an astrology API is a structural decision, not a line item. Pick a single-tradition provider and you may stitch three vendors, three auth schemes, and three bills the day you add tarot or numerology. Pick a credit wallet and your monthly cost moves with whatever endpoints your users happen to hit. This guide is a neutral buyer walkthrough. It defines what the category is, what actually matters when you evaluate, and how three publicly available providers compare on coverage, accuracy, AI integration, and price. Every competitor number here was checked on the live public site of each provider in June 2026, with the source URL recorded. Where a fact could not be verified, it was left out rather than guessed.

## What makes an astrology API production grade in 2026

A production-grade astrology API turns a date, time, and place into structured calculation output: planetary positions, houses, aspects, dashas, compatibility scores, and horoscopes. The differentiators sit on six axes. Score every candidate, including the one you already favor, against all six before you commit.

- **Domain coverage**: how many insight domains one key covers. Single-domain providers force a second and third integration when your roadmap grows past astrology.
- **Verifiable accuracy**: position math validated against a reference such as NASA JPL Horizons, ideally a public benchmark you can clone and run, not a marketing adjective.
- **MCP transport**: for AI agents, whether the Model Context Protocol server is remote Streamable HTTP (works on any hosted platform) or local stdio (only on a developer laptop).
- **Pricing model**: flat per-request versus a credit wallet where endpoints cost different amounts and the monthly bill is hard to project.
- **SDKs and documentation**: typed SDKs and a live OpenAPI playground beat a Postman export that drifts from the running API.
- **Licensing**: ask any vendor what calculation engine sits underneath. A Swiss Ephemeris dependency carries AGPL copyleft that can reach a network service, so clean commercial licensing matters.

Ready to evaluate against live data? [RoxyAPI](/products/astrology-api "RoxyAPI Western Astrology API with natal charts, transits, synastry") covers 12 domains under one key. [See pricing](/pricing "RoxyAPI pricing tiers from 39 dollars per month").

## How RoxyAPI, AstrologyAPI, and Prokerala compare

Three providers are public, self-serve, and broad enough to shortlist for production: RoxyAPI, AstrologyAPI, and Prokerala. Other vendors exist (single-tradition Vedic specialists, free-tier hobby projects, regional calculators), but they cover one tradition or gate breadth behind separate products. Every cell below was read from the live site of each provider in June 2026.

| Axis | RoxyAPI | AstrologyAPI | Prokerala |
|---|---|---|---|
| **Primary focus** | Multi-domain insight platform | Deep astrology suite | Vedic-led astrology and Panchang |
| **Best-fit market** | Global, Western and multi-region | India and South Asia | India and South Asia |
| **Domains** | 12 (Western, Vedic with KP and panchang, Numerology, Tarot, Human Design, Forecast, Biorhythm, I-Ching, Crystals, Dreams, Angel Numbers, Location) | Birth chart, Kundali, horoscopes, transits, progressions, AstroCartoGraphy, Human Design, Palmistry, Numerology, Tarot, KP and Lalkitab | Vedic, Western, Numerology, KP, Panchang, regional calendars |
| **Provider-stated endpoint count** | 145+ across 12 domains | 300+ endpoints | Per-feature credit catalog |
| **Exclusive coverage** | Tarot, I-Ching, Dreams, Crystals, Angel Numbers, Biorhythm, cross-domain Forecast | Palmistry, AstroCartoGraphy, secondary progressions | Regional Indian calendars (Tamil, Malayalam, Vikram Samvat, and more) |
| **Remote MCP** | Yes, 145+ tools (one per endpoint) across 12 per-domain servers plus a docs server, Streamable HTTP | Yes, single endpoint, 109 tools | None listed |
| **Pricing model** | Flat, 1 request equals 1 unit, all domains every plan | Unified credit wallet, pay per call | Credit wallet, per-endpoint credit cost |
| **Public accuracy benchmark** | Yes, MIT-licensed, runnable | None published | None published |
| **SDKs** | Typed TypeScript, Python, PHP, generated from the OpenAPI spec | Sample clients in several languages | Sample clients (PHP, C#, Python, Ruby) |
| **Live OpenAPI playground** | Yes, per-domain specs, Scalar | Sandbox and Postman | Docs and demo |
| **Multi-language** | 8 languages on 10 of 12 domains | Horoscopes in 22+ languages | 5 Indian languages |
| **Drop-in UI components** | Yes, @roxyapi/ui (MIT, shadcn registry) | None documented | None documented |
| **Free MIT templates** | Yes (chatbot, kundli, tarot, more) | None documented | None documented |

The honest read: AstrologyAPI leads on raw endpoint count and has the longest track record in the Vedic and matrimonial space, with named enterprise logos. Prokerala is the depth pick for South Asian calendar and Panchang features in regional languages. RoxyAPI leads on domain breadth under one key, pricing transparency, public accuracy verification, and typed SDKs generated from a live spec. On geography, AstrologyAPI and Prokerala are both rooted in the Indian market, with deep Vedic, matrimonial, and regional-language coverage that suits South Asian audiences, while RoxyAPI is built global-first for Western and multi-region apps and ships eight-language output across most domains. None of the three is the universal winner. The right pick depends on what you are building.

A note on counting, because the totals above are not directly comparable across providers. AstrologyAPI lists birth chart, kundli, horoscopes, transits, progressions, KP, and Lalkitab as separate APIs, and Prokerala lists per-feature credit items; most of those are facets of a single astrology tradition. RoxyAPI groups them: its Western Astrology and Vedic Astrology domains already include birth charts, kundli, panchang, dasha, KP sub-lords, transits, synastry, and Guna Milan matching, organized as two domains rather than a dozen separate line items. So the RoxyAPI count of 12 is twelve genuinely distinct categories, two of them astrology (Western and Vedic) and ten more spanning numerology, tarot, human design, forecast, biorhythm, I-Ching, crystals, dreams, angel numbers, and location, not one astrology surface split into many entries. The practical takeaway when comparing any two providers: count the distinct capabilities your app actually needs, not the headline domain or endpoint number.

## What each provider actually costs

Pricing is where the three diverge most, because two of them use credit wallets and one uses flat per-request billing. The sticker price tells you little. What matters is the cost to cover every domain your app needs at the volume it runs. RoxyAPI publishes flat tiers; AstrologyAPI and Prokerala publish credit wallets where each endpoint draws a different number of credits.

RoxyAPI flat tiers, every domain included on every plan, 1 request equals 1 unit:

| Plan | Monthly requests | Price | Effective per request |
|---|---:|---:|---:|
| Starter | 25,000 | $39/mo | $0.00156 |
| Professional | 200,000 | $149/mo | $0.00075 |
| Business | 750,000 | $349/mo | $0.00047 |
| Enterprise | 3,000,000 | $699/mo | $0.00023 |

Two structural notes from this table. Adding a domain does not change the bill: Starter at $39 already includes all 12 domains, so tarot, numerology, or biorhythm cost zero extra. And the effective per-request cost falls about 6.7x from Starter to Enterprise. Annual billing lowers the monthly rate further (Starter $389/yr, Professional $1,489/yr).

The two credit-wallet models work differently. **AstrologyAPI** runs a single unified credit wallet that covers every API (Indian, Western, Horoscope, PDF), with 100 free calls on signup and no monthly commitment: you top up and pay per call. **Prokerala** offers a forever-free tier plus a credit wallet, where credits reset monthly and do not carry forward, and each endpoint draws a published credit amount. On Prokerala that amount ranges widely: a basic Panchang call is 10 credits, a birth chart is 50, a Mangal Dosha check is 30, a full Kundli is 50 to 300, a daily horoscope is 250, and a regional calendar call is 2,000 (top-up: 100,000 credits for 2,500 rupees). A horoscope-heavy day and a calendar-heavy day on the same wallet cost very differently, so the monthly total is harder to project than a flat per-request plan. On authentication, RoxyAPI uses a single X-API-Key header; AstrologyAPI uses HTTP Basic auth with a userId and apiKey pair (both verified June 2026).

## Why MCP transport matters more than MCP presence

By 2026 several providers ship something MCP-shaped, so the useful question is not whether a provider has MCP but what transport it uses. Remote Streamable HTTP is a hosted endpoint: any agent on any platform points at the URL, passes a key, and is calling tools in seconds. Local stdio is a wrapper the developer installs and runs as a local process, which hosted automation platforms cannot reach.

Two of the three providers here ship remote MCP. RoxyAPI exposes one MCP tool for every endpoint, so the tool count tracks the full API at more than 145 tools, served across 12 per-domain Remote MCP servers over Streamable HTTP (for example `/mcp/astrology`) plus a dedicated docs MCP server for setup questions, all authenticated with the same X-API-Key as the REST API, so there is no second credential to manage. AstrologyAPI runs a single Remote MCP endpoint exposing 109 tools across Vedic and Western systems, authenticated with a custom header. Prokerala lists no MCP server on its developer site as of June 2026. Among the unnamed single-tradition vendors, several ship local stdio wrappers, which work for a personal Cursor or Claude Desktop session but not for a hosted agent your end users reach. If your agents run on a server or an automation platform, remote transport is the line that decides whether the integration is even possible. See the [RoxyAPI MCP guide](/docs/mcp "RoxyAPI MCP setup guide for AI agents and IDE assistants") for the full transport documentation.

## How to make your first call with location first

Every coordinate-dependent endpoint (natal chart, horoscope, panchang, dasha, synastry, compatibility) needs latitude, longitude, and timezone. The correct pattern is to resolve the birth city first, then feed those values into the chart endpoint, so users never type coordinates. Here is the two-step call against the live RoxyAPI surface, with the request fields taken straight from the OpenAPI spec.

```bash
# 1. Resolve the birth city to coordinates and an IANA timezone
curl -s "https://roxyapi.com/api/v2/location/search?q=Mumbai" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY"
# -> cities[0] = { latitude, longitude, timezone: "Asia/Kolkata", ... }

# 2. Generate the natal chart with those coordinates
curl -s -X POST "https://roxyapi.com/api/v2/astrology/natal-chart" \
  -H "X-API-Key: YOUR_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"date":"1990-07-15","time":"08:30:00","latitude":19.0760,"longitude":72.8777,"timezone":"Asia/Kolkata"}'
```

The chart response returns `planets`, `houses`, `aspects`, `ascendant`, `midheaven`, and a `summary`, as structured JSON you normalize into your own schema. Browse the full request and response shapes in the interactive [API reference](/api-reference "interactive RoxyAPI documentation with live endpoint testing"), which ships a working test key so you can run calls before subscribing.

## Which provider should you choose

There is no single best astrology API; there is a best fit for your requirements. Use this as a decision map. Each option, including building it yourself, wins in a specific case.

**Choose RoxyAPI when** you serve a global or Western-first audience, you need several insight domains under one key (Western and Vedic astrology plus tarot, numerology, dreams, I-Ching, biorhythm, or human design), you want flat per-request pricing with no credit math, you are wiring AI agents into hosted platforms and want remote per-domain MCP with one key, you need a public accuracy benchmark to audit before signing, or you want to ship fast with typed SDKs, drop-in [UI components](/ui "drop-in @roxyapi/ui components for charts, kundli, panchang, and tarot") (MIT web components with a shadcn registry), and free MIT [templates](/starters "free open-source MIT astrology templates including AI chatbot, Vedic kundli, tarot, numerology, dreams") you clone and white-label.

**Choose AstrologyAPI when** your product centers on the Indian or South Asian market, you want the largest single astrology endpoint catalog, you need specialized surfaces like AstroCartoGraphy, secondary progressions, or palmistry, you are comfortable with a credit wallet and pay-per-call billing, or you value a long incumbent track record with named enterprise clients.

**Choose Prokerala when** your app is Vedic-first for the South Asian market, you need regional calendars and Panchang in Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu, or Hindi, you want PDF report artifacts, or a forever-free tier matters for prototyping a single-domain build.

**Build it yourself when** you need exactly one domain, you have in-house astrology and ephemeris expertise, your accuracy requirements are niche enough that a general API will not match them, and you can take on the licensing question directly (if you reach for Swiss Ephemeris, the AGPL copyleft can attach to your network service, so confirm your obligations first). For a single fixed calculation you control end to end, owning the code can be the right call. For breadth, cross-domain consistency, and verified accuracy across many traditions, that build is months of work, not a weekend.

## Accuracy is a public claim or it is marketing

:::stat 16 arcsec
**Median planetary position difference** versus NASA JPL Horizons DE441 across 210 reference points and 21 birth charts (max 32 arcsec, Moon 3 arcsec), in a public MIT-licensed benchmark you can clone and run. Full methodology at [/methodology](/methodology "RoxyAPI testing methodology and ephemeris validation").
:::

Astrology APIs claim accuracy constantly; few publish a benchmark you can audit. Of the three providers here, RoxyAPI is the one with a public MIT-licensed accuracy repository you can clone, run, and check before you sign up. It cross-references position output against NASA JPL Horizons DE441, the same physics reference professional astronomy tools use, and reports both median and worst-case arcsecond deviation (16 arcsec median, 32 arcsec max). The other two report no public reproducible benchmark, which does not mean their math is wrong, only that you cannot independently verify it. For anything where calculation accuracy is load-bearing (dasha timing, KP cusps, transit windows), ask for a benchmark you can run, from any vendor. The [public gold-standard tests writeup](/blogs/how-we-test-astrology-api-accuracy-828-gold-standard-tests "how RoxyAPI tests astrology accuracy with gold standard tests") documents the full verification methodology.

## FAQ

**What is the best astrology API for developers in 2026?**
For most developers building a modern app, RoxyAPI is the strongest pick: 12 insight domains under one key, flat per-request pricing, Remote MCP for AI agents, typed TypeScript, Python, and PHP SDKs, and a public MIT-licensed accuracy benchmark you can run before you pay. It is the only one of the three that bundles astrology with tarot, numerology, dreams, and more, and the only one publishing a reproducible accuracy benchmark. A single-domain Vedic build for the India market can also be served by a credit-wallet incumbent, but for breadth, predictable billing, and AI-native tooling, start with RoxyAPI.

**Which astrology API supports both Vedic and Western astrology?**
RoxyAPI ships both Western and Vedic astrology as two of its twelve domains under one key, with KP sub-lords, dasha, panchang, synastry, and 36-point Guna Milan included. A single integration covers both traditions, and the same key adds tarot, numerology, dreams, and eight more domains as your roadmap grows, so you never stitch a second provider for the other system.

**Is there an astrology API with tarot and numerology in one bundle?**
Yes. RoxyAPI bundles Western and Vedic astrology, tarot, numerology, human design, forecast, I-Ching, dream interpretation, crystals, angel numbers, biorhythm, and location under a single key with flat per-request pricing. One subscription and one API key cover all twelve domains, so you never stitch or re-bill separate vendors when you add tarot or numerology next to astrology.

**Does having MCP make a provider AI-ready, or does the transport matter?**
The transport matters. Remote Streamable HTTP MCP works on hosted platforms and servers; local stdio MCP only works on a developer machine. RoxyAPI ships 12 remote per-domain MCP servers over Streamable HTTP, one tool per endpoint (145+ tools) plus a docs server, all authenticated with the same key as REST, so an agent points at a URL and is calling verified tools in seconds with no local install. If your agents do not run on a local laptop, you need remote transport.

**How much does an astrology API cost for a startup?**
Flat per-request pricing is the most predictable for a startup. RoxyAPI Starter is $39 per month for 25,000 requests across all 12 domains, and because every call is one request, a feature-rich session costs the same per call as a simple lookup and the bill never moves with your endpoint mix. Size your plan against your real monthly call volume rather than a per-call credit rate that fluctuates with which endpoints your users hit.

**Can I use an astrology API to build a dating or compatibility app?**
Yes. RoxyAPI ships [`POST /astrology/synastry`](/api-reference#tag/western-astrology/POST/astrology/synastry "Western astrology synastry endpoint with inter-aspect analysis") for Western synastry and [`POST /vedic-astrology/compatibility`](/api-reference#tag/vedic-astrology/POST/vedic-astrology/compatibility "Vedic compatibility with Guna Milan scoring") for Vedic Guna Milan scoring.

## Conclusion

The serious end of the astrology API market in 2026 comes down to a fit decision, not a ranking. AstrologyAPI is the deep single-platform astrology suite, Prokerala is the Vedic and Panchang specialist for the South Asian market, and RoxyAPI is the multi-domain bundle with flat pricing, public accuracy verification, typed SDKs, and remote MCP. Map your requirements to the axes above, then verify the current numbers on the live site of each provider before you commit. To weigh RoxyAPI yourself, explore the [product catalog](/products "RoxyAPI multi-domain spiritual data API catalog"), check [pricing](/pricing "RoxyAPI pricing and plan tiers from 39 dollars per month"), or run live calls in the [API reference](/api-reference "interactive RoxyAPI documentation with live endpoint testing").