DEV Community: abhishek gupta

Building an AI Vedic Astrology App in 25 Days — What Actually Worked (and What Didn't)

abhishek gupta — Sat, 23 May 2026 17:37:38 +0000

25 days ago I had an idea. Today KundliAI is live, indexed by Google, and getting organic traffic.

Here's the honest story — no fluff.

The Idea

India has 1.4 billion people. A massive percentage consult astrology regularly — for marriage, career decisions, naming babies, starting businesses.

But the existing platforms are either:

Outdated UI from 2005
English-heavy (most users are Hindi speakers)
Expensive (₹500-2000 per consultation)
Generic (same horoscope for everyone born in the same month)

I thought — what if I built something that gives genuinely personalized Vedic astrology in Hindi, free, in 30 seconds?

That became KundliAI.

The Stack

Frontend: Next.js 14 (App Router)
Styling: Tailwind CSS
AI: Groq API (Meta's Llama — fast and cheap)
Astrology calculations: AstrologyAPI.com (Swiss Ephemeris)
Payments: Razorpay
Hosting: Vercel
Domain: kundliai.in

Why Groq over OpenAI? Speed. Groq is 10x faster for inference. For a tool where users expect results in 30 seconds — latency matters a lot.

Why AstrologyAPI over doing calculations myself? Swiss Ephemeris is complex. AstrologyAPI wraps it cleanly and gives me planetary positions, Kundli Matching (36 Guna Milan), Mahadasha calculations — all via REST API. Cost is minimal for the accuracy you get.

What I Built — Features

Free Kundli Generator
User enters name, date of birth, time, place. We call AstrologyAPI for planetary positions, then Groq generates a complete personalized reading in Hindi. Takes about 25-30 seconds end to end.

Daily Rashifal (Horoscope)
Not generic — based on actual planetary transits for the day combined with user's Moon sign. Different from every other rashifal site that gives the same text to all Aries users.

Kundli Matching
36 Guna Milan — the traditional Indian marriage compatibility system. Enter two birth charts, get compatibility score with explanation in Hindi.

Numerology
Name + date of birth → Life Path Number, Destiny Number, Soul Urge Number. Hindi interpretation.

Love Compatibility by Name
Chaldean numerology — enter two names, get compatibility score. Simple but surprisingly popular.

AI Pandit Chat
24/7 chat with an AI that knows Vedic astrology. Ask anything — career, marriage, health, planetary positions.

Panchang
Daily Panchang for 12 Indian cities — Tithi, Nakshatra, Yoga, Rahu Kaal, Abhijit Muhurat.

Paid Reports (₹99)
Detailed 10-page PDF report. One-time payment via Razorpay. First payment came on Day 20.

The Technical Challenges

Challenge 1 — Prompt Engineering for Hindi

Getting Groq/Llama to generate genuinely good Hindi astrology content was harder than expected.

The model kept mixing Hindi and English awkwardly. It would use Sanskrit terms without explaining them. The tone was sometimes too formal, sometimes too casual.

After about 40 iterations of the system prompt, I landed on something that works. Key insights:

Give the model a persona ("You are an experienced Vedic astrologer who explains things in simple Hindi")
Specify the audience ("The user is a regular Indian, not an astrology expert")
Give explicit formatting instructions
Include examples of good vs bad responses in the prompt

Challenge 2 — Vercel Serverless File Size Limits

My blogs.ts file grew to 500KB+ with 32 blog posts. Vercel's serverless functions have memory limits and the file was causing cold start issues — only 3 blogs were loading.

Solution: Split into blogs.ts (9 blogs) and blogs2.ts (23 blogs), import both in the page component.

Lesson: Watch your serverless function bundle size. It bites you in production, not in development.

Challenge 3 — SSR vs Client Rendering for SEO

Initially blog pages were client-rendered. Google was seeing empty pages — terrible for SEO.

Migrated to Server Components with force-dynamic. Now Google gets fully rendered HTML with all content. Indexed 2 new blogs in under 10 minutes after this fix.

Challenge 4 — AstrologyAPI Rate Limits

During testing I burned through API credits quickly. Built a simple caching layer — same birth data within 24 hours returns cached results instead of hitting the API again.

Cost dropped significantly. API cost is now ₹8-17 per day even with decent traffic.

The SEO Strategy — What's Working

I'm not an SEO expert. But here's what I did:

Blog content in Hindi + English
Most astrology content online is either pure English or poor Hindi. I write detailed bilingual blogs — "Makar Rashi 2026 rashifal" with proper Hindi content. Google seems to like this.

Long-tail keywords
Not "horoscope" (impossible to rank). Instead "makar rashi sade sati 2026 upay" — specific, lower competition, high intent.

FAQ sections on every blog
Google's featured snippets love FAQ format. I include 10-14 FAQ questions per blog with direct answers.

Schema markup
FAQ schema, Breadcrumb schema, Review schema — all implemented server-side. Google Search Console shows all valid. Rich results in search = higher CTR.

Results after 25 days:

0 to 1,390 impressions
67 clicks
4.8% CTR (industry average is 2-3%)
Position 7.6 average
First paid customer on Day 20

The Distribution Strategy

SEO takes time. Meanwhile:

Quora — answering astrology questions with genuine helpful content. 51 answers so far. 166 content views this month. Referral traffic is steady.

Featured.com — expert Q&A platform. Submitted 3 answers. One selected by BoostmyDomain for publication. Two in review with Brodox and VisRank. High-DR backlinks incoming.

IndieHackers — sharing the journey. Good for backlinks and community feedback.

Revenue — Honest Numbers

Day 20: First payment — ₹99
Day 25: Total revenue — ₹99-200

Not impressive yet. But the paid report feature works, Razorpay integration is solid, and the funnel is there. It's a traffic problem right now, not a conversion problem.

What I'd Do Differently

Start SEO content on Day 1
I built features for the first 2 weeks before writing any blogs. Those 2 weeks of content compound over time — I wish I'd started earlier.

Pick a narrower niche first
"AI Vedic astrology" is broad. Starting with "Sade Sati calculator" or "Kundli Matching tool" and dominating that before expanding would have been smarter.

Build in public from Day 1
I started sharing on Day 20. Earlier sharing = earlier feedback = earlier course corrections.

What's Next

Complete all 12 rashi blogs (4 remaining)
Reddit community building
YouTube Shorts — 30 second rashifal videos
WhatsApp channel
Month 2 target: ₹5,000 revenue

The Code

Not open source yet — but happy to answer specific technical questions in the comments.

Live at: kundliai.in

Built by one person in 25 days. Zero paid marketing. Everything organic.

If you're building something for the Indian market — Hindi-first is a massive opportunity. The content gap is real.

Happy to answer any questions about the stack, the prompts, or the SEO approach.

I Built India's First AI Vedic Astrology Platform in 17 Days — Here's Everything I Did

abhishek gupta — Sat, 16 May 2026 13:05:14 +0000

From zero to Page 1 on Google, 500+ users, and a trademark filed — as a solo founder.

The Idea

India has a ₹40,000 crore astrology market. AstroTalk makes ₹600 crore/year. AstroSage has been around for 20 years.

But nobody had built an AI-powered, free, Hindi-first Vedic astrology platform.

So I built one.

In 17 days.

The Stack

Framework: Next.js 14 (App Router)
Language: TypeScript
Styling: Tailwind CSS + inline styles
AI: Groq API (llama-3.3-70b-versatile) — for kundli reading generation
Astrology Calculations: AstrologyAPI.com (Swiss Ephemeris under the hood)
Deployment: Vercel
Email: Nodemailer + Zoho SMTP
Domain: kundliai.in

Total infra cost per month: under ₹500

What I Built in 17 Days

Feature	Status
Free Kundli Generator	✅ Live
Kundli Matching (36 Guna Milan)	✅ Live
Aaj Ka Rashifal (Daily Horoscope)	✅ Live
Marriage Muhurat Finder	✅ Live
Life Timeline	✅ Live
AI Pandit Chat (24/7)	✅ Live
Panchang (Daily)	✅ Live
Numerology Calculator	✅ Live
Love Compatibility	✅ Live
Email Kundli to Yourself	✅ Live
Pricing Page	✅ Live
20 SEO Blogs	✅ Live

The Technical Challenges

Challenge 1: Groq Rate Limits

The biggest headache. Groq's free tier has strict rate limits and when traffic spikes, llama-3.3-70b-versatile hits the ceiling fast.

My fix — model fallback chain:

const models = [
  'llama-3.3-70b-versatile',
  'llama-3.1-8b-instant',
  'gemma2-9b-it',
];

for (const model of models) {
  try {
    const groqRes = await fetch('https://api.groq.com/openai/v1/chat/completions', {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.GROQ_API_KEY}` },
      body: JSON.stringify({ model, messages, max_tokens: 1000 }),
    });
    const data = await groqRes.json();
    if (!data.error) {
      reading = data.choices[0].message.content;
      break;
    }
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, 1000));
  } catch { continue; }
}

If all models fail, show a graceful fallback with the chart data instead of a broken error.

Challenge 2: AstrologyAPI Field Names

AstrologyAPI.com has some quirks. The nakshatra field is literally spelled Naksahtra (typo in their API that they never fixed):

const nakshatra = lagnaData?.Naksahtra || lagnaData?.nakshatra || '—';

Took me an embarrassing amount of time to figure that out.

Challenge 3: Hindi AI Reading

Getting Groq to respond in proper Devanagari Hindi consistently required very specific prompting:

const langInstruction = lang === 'hi'
  ? 'Respond entirely in Hindi (Devanagari script). Do not use any English words.'
  : 'Respond in English with occasional Sanskrit terms for authenticity.';

Challenge 4: Windows Double Extension Bug

Every file I downloaded got saved as page.tsx.tsx. Had to add this to my workflow permanently:

mv "page.tsx.tsx" "page.tsx"

SEO Strategy — From 0 to Page 1 in 17 Days

This is what I'm most proud of.

Day 1-17 content output:

20 blogs on the website (Hindi + English mix)
16 posts on Medium
45 Quora answers
Crunchbase, LinkedIn, Wellfound, SlideShare profiles
Trademark filed on Day 14

Result after 17 days:

Average position: 7.6 (Page 1)
Monthly impressions: 531
CTR: 6% (industry average is 2-3%)
Users: 500+

The key insight: Hindi content has 10x less competition than English for the same keywords.

aaj ka rashifal — 823K monthly searches, difficulty 42
kundali — 450K monthly searches, difficulty 64
rahu kaal today — 201K monthly searches, difficulty 42

Most competitors only target English. I went Hindi-first from Day 1.

The Prompt Engineering

The core of KundliAI is the kundli reading prompt. Here's the architecture:

1. Calculate real planetary positions via AstrologyAPI (Swiss Ephemeris)
2. Build structured astrology context string
3. Feed to Groq with persona prompt
4. Return personalized 400-500 word reading

The persona matters enormously:

You are Pandit JyotishAI, a master Vedic astrologer 
with 30 years of experience. Use the EXACT planetary 
positions given. Mention their actual Lagna, Moon sign, 
Nakshatra by name. Be warm, wise and make them feel 
truly seen by the cosmos.

Generic AI responses feel cold. Adding the persona + real chart data = responses that feel genuinely personal.

Revenue Plan

Currently at ₹0 — Razorpay integration coming this week.

Planned monetization:

Kundli PDF Report — ₹99
Kundli Matching Report — ₹149
Numerology Report — ₹99
Love Compatibility Report — ₹99
Life Timeline Report — ₹199
Premium Subscription — ₹199/month

Target: ₹1L/month by Month 6.

What's Next

Razorpay payment integration
Google Sheets email list capture
City landing pages (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore)
SEObot for automated blog generation
Predis.ai for Instagram automation

Lessons for Solo Founders

1. Ship on Day 1, improve forever
I launched with basic features and added 11 more over 17 days. Waiting for perfection = waiting forever.

2. Vernacular is an unfair advantage
Hindi content = less competition, more trust, better CTR. Most devs ignore this.

3. Free tools can power a real product
Groq free tier + AstrologyAPI + Vercel hobby = production-ready platform at ₹0.

4. SEO compounds
Every blog, every Quora answer, every backlink compounds. Start Day 1, not Month 3.

5. Trademark early
Filed on Day 14. Costs ₹4,500 in India. Worth every rupee.

Try It

👉 kundliai.in — Free AI Vedic Astrology in Hindi & English

Generate your complete Vedic birth chart in 30 seconds — Lagna, Moon sign, Nakshatra, Mahadasha, planetary positions — all free.

Building in public. Follow along for weekly updates on traffic, revenue and product.

If you're building something in the Indian market — especially targeting Hindi users — happy to share more about the SEO strategy that got us to Page 1 in 17 days.