BaZi Compatibility Calculator
Enter two birth charts to see how they interact. Day Master pairing, branch dynamics, element exchange, and an overall compatibility reading.
Enter two birth dates below to generate a full reading: Day Master pairing, branch dynamics, element exchange, Spouse Palace, and a compatibility score with coaching notes. It takes about a minute to enter and ten to read. Birth times sharpen the reading but are not required.
You
Them
No registration required. Both birth dates needed. Hours improve accuracy by about 25% but are not required.
This score describes a baseline derived from chart math, not a forecast. Practitioners use BaZi compatibility as a starting point for understanding a relationship's natural dynamics, not as a prediction of how it will unfold. Many durable relationships score in the middle bands; many shorter ones score high. The reading below is where the real insight lives.
Day Master Dynamic
The core interaction. Your Day Master is your inner self; how the two Day Masters meet sets the relationship's foundational rhythm.
Heavenly Stem Combination
The two Day Masters form one of the five classical Heavenly Stem combinations. Practitioners watch for this pattern specifically because it indicates a built-in magnetic attraction at the stem level, regardless of how the rest of the chart pieces fit.
Spouse Palace
The Day Branch is traditionally called the Spouse Palace - the position that describes what you naturally seek in a partner. Comparing what each chart was looking for against who the partner actually is reveals whether the relationship matches what was being sought, or offers something different than expected.
Romantic Vocabulary
Every chart speaks a native romantic language. Classical BaZi tracks this through the Wealth and Officer god families: provider-receiver partnership versus structure-frame partnership. The reading below shows what each chart natively speaks, then checks whether each partner embodies the language the other was wired to recognize as romance.
Cross-Chart Interactions
Every branch in your chart can combine, clash, harm, punish, or destroy a branch in theirs. These cross-pillar dynamics are where the relationship's daily texture lives.
The two charts have no significant cross-pillar branch interactions. That can mean a quietly harmonious dynamic with little friction, or a relationship where the two of you operate in mostly separate domains.
Element Exchange
What each chart brings to the other. A chart missing an element often finds completion in a partner who carries it strongly.
In Daily Life
The chart math translated into lived experience. How the patterns above play out in love, communication, conflict, and over time.
What This Means
BaZi compatibility describes the terrain. The journey is yours.
What BaZi Compatibility Actually Examines
A real BaZi compatibility reading is not a single number. It is a layered analysis that checks four distinct things, each answering a different question about the relationship. The calculator above runs all four layers automatically and synthesizes them into the reading you see. Here is what each layer means and why it matters.
Day Master Interaction
Most important
Your Day Master is the Heavenly Stem of your Day Pillar, the single character that represents your core self. How your Day Master interacts with your partner's is the foundational dynamic of the entire partnership. Yang Wood meeting Yin Earth produces a different relationship than Yang Wood meeting Yang Metal. The element relationship tells us about productive vs. controlling cycles; the polarity tells us whether the interaction is direct and intense or complementary and subtle.
Five-Element Balance
High importance
Beyond the Day Masters, the overall element balance of each chart matters. A chart heavy in Wood meeting a chart heavy in Fire creates one dynamic; the same Wood chart meeting a chart heavy in Metal creates another. Charts that complement each other's deficiencies tend toward harmony. Charts dominated by the same element amplify each other, which is sometimes a gift and sometimes claustrophobic. The element exchange section of the reading surfaces what each chart provides for the other.
Earthly Branch Interactions
High importance
The twelve animals are the Earthly Branches. They interact through six clashes (Liu Chong), six harmonies (Liu He), four three-harmony trinity groups (San He), and subtler punishment and harm patterns. The compatibility reading checks every one of your four pillar branches against every one of your partner's, so a total of sixteen branch pairs get examined. The Day Branch interactions matter most for romantic compatibility; the Year Branch interactions matter most for shared social and family context.
Spouse Palace
Contextual
The Day Branch is traditionally called the Spouse Palace because it describes what you naturally seek in a partner and what kind of partner you are likely to attract. In a compatibility reading, practitioners watch how each person's Spouse Palace interacts with the other's Day Master. This often answers the question of whether the partner you found matches the partner your chart was seeking, which is not always the same thing.
Why Year-Animal Matching Is Not Enough
Most people learn Chinese compatibility through year animals: Rat and Dragon match well, Rabbit and Rooster clash, Horse and Sheep harmonize. These pairings are real and useful as a first filter, but they have a fundamental limitation. Year-animal compatibility groups roughly 130 million living people born in the same year into one bucket. It cannot distinguish between two Tigers born in different months, two Dragons born in different hours, or any pair of specific people. It is the cover of the book.
BaZi compatibility reads the whole book. It uses sixteen total characters of chart data (eight per person) instead of two. That is why two people whose year animals "should" clash can have deeply harmonious BaZi charts, and two people whose year animals "should" match can find themselves in constant friction. The deeper layers, the Day Masters and the cross-pillar branch interactions, often tell a completely different story than the year animals do.
If you have already read a Chinese zodiac pairing page and the prediction did not match your actual relationship, BaZi compatibility is probably why. The year-animal reading is real but incomplete. The full chart reading is what practitioners use when the question matters.
How to Read Your Compatibility Results
The calculator surfaces a lot of information. Here is how to read what you see, in order of priority.
Start with the Day Master Dynamic headline
The headline at the top of the reading describes the foundational chemistry between the two of you. "You Nourish Them" is different from "They Challenge You" is different from "Mirror Partners." This single finding sets the tone for everything else in the reading.
Read the Day Master section in full
Three paragraphs sit below the headline: the lived experience of this dynamic, the healthy version, and the shadow. Read all three. The shadow paragraph is not a prediction. It is a description of what this dynamic looks like when it goes unconscious, which is information you can use.
Check the cross-chart interactions
The interaction cards show specific friction and harmony points between the pillars. Day-branch interactions affect daily life the most. Year-branch interactions affect family and social context. Pay attention to how many are combinations (positive, in green) versus clashes and harms (in orange). The balance tells you whether the chemistry is mostly supportive or mostly tense.
Look at element exchange last
If one chart is short on a particular element and the other carries it strongly, the second chart provides a kind of completion the first cannot find alone. If neither chart provides anything the other is missing, the relationship may feel more parallel than complementary. Both patterns work, they just work differently.
Use the score as orientation, not verdict
A 78 is not better than a 62 in any absolute sense. Two charts with a score of 62 may have built a forty-year marriage on conscious work that two charts with a score of 78 squandered through complacency. The score tells you what the chart math says about the baseline. What happens with it is up to the people involved.
Common BaZi Compatibility Patterns
Certain combinations show up often enough to deserve their own explainers. If your reading flagged one of these patterns, follow the link for a deeper look at what that specific dynamic means.
Element Pair Dynamics
The Five Elements interact through two main cycles. The producing cycle is generative: Wood feeds Fire, Fire creates Earth, Earth yields Metal, Metal carries Water, Water nourishes Wood. The controlling cycle is regulatory: Wood breaks Earth, Earth absorbs Water, Water extinguishes Fire, Fire melts Metal, Metal cuts Wood. Compatibility readings often hinge on which cycle the two Day Master elements sit in.
The Six Branch Clashes
When two charts contain branches that sit directly opposite on the zodiac wheel, the relationship has built-in dynamic tension. Clashes are not bad. They describe where the relationship's energy gets activated, and many lasting partnerships contain at least one branch clash that the partners have learned to navigate.
Specific Scenarios
What a Reading Can and Cannot Tell You
What a reading can do
Give you a vocabulary for the relationship's actual dynamics. Explain why a certain partner feels grounding versus draining. Surface the specific arguments that keep recurring and why. Show you where the natural flow lives and where the friction lives. Help you understand what each of you brings to the partnership that the other does not bring themselves. That is real, observable, and useful.
What a reading cannot do
Predict outcomes. Two charts with high BaZi compatibility can fall apart if the partners do not show up. Two charts with challenging BaZi can build something durable when both partners do the work. BaZi compatibility describes the terrain. The journey is yours.
For a different cultural lens on the same question, our Western Synastry Chart uses planet positions and aspects rather than elements and pillars. The two systems often agree on the broad strokes, even when the language is completely different.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is BaZi compatibility?
BaZi compatibility is the traditional Chinese method of comparing two people's Four Pillars charts to understand how they interact. It examines four layers: how the Day Masters meet, how the five elements balance between the charts, how the Earthly Branches interact across pillars, and how each person's Spouse Palace relates to the other's Day Master. Unlike year-animal compatibility, which groups roughly 130 million people born in the same year into one bucket, BaZi compatibility reads both charts in full and produces a reading specific to that pair.
How is BaZi compatibility different from Chinese zodiac compatibility?
Chinese zodiac compatibility uses only the year animal. BaZi compatibility uses the full birth chart, which means the year, month, day, and hour pillars for both people. Two people born in the same year but different months and hours can have completely different BaZi compatibility readings. Year-animal compatibility is a useful first filter; BaZi compatibility is what practitioners actually use for serious readings.
Which pillar matters most for BaZi compatibility?
The Day Pillar matters most because the Day Master represents your core self. How your Day Master interacts with your partner's is the single most important factor in any compatibility reading. The Day Branch, traditionally called the Spouse Palace, is the second most important and describes what you naturally seek in a partner.
Do I need exact birth times for BaZi compatibility?
Birth times help but are not strictly required. The Day Pillar is determined by the date alone, so the most important factor of the reading works without a time. The Hour Pillar requires a birth time. Without it, the reading is still about 75% complete for compatibility purposes. If you have a birth time, enter it for a fuller picture; if you do not, the calculator will still produce a meaningful reading.
Can a BaZi compatibility reading say a relationship will fail?
No. BaZi compatibility describes natural dynamics: where two charts produce harmony, where they generate friction, what each partner naturally brings to the relationship. Friction is not the same as failure. Many durable, happy relationships have challenging BaZi compatibility because the partners do the work to navigate the friction. Conversely, two highly compatible charts can fall apart if the people do not show up. Compatibility describes the terrain, not the journey.
What does the compatibility score mean?
The overall score blends four components: the Day Master interaction tone (the most important factor), the sum of cross-pillar branch interactions, the depth of element exchange between the charts, and any shared trinity bonuses. Scores above 80 indicate high compatibility with strong fundamentals. Scores from 65 to 80 indicate solid compatibility with manageable friction. Scores from 50 to 65 indicate a mixed pairing with real chemistry and real friction in roughly equal measure. Scores below 50 indicate challenging terrain that requires more conscious work.
What are the Earthly Branch clashes?
The six Earthly Branch clashes are pairs of animals that sit 180 degrees apart on the zodiac wheel: Rat and Horse, Ox and Sheep, Tiger and Monkey, Rabbit and Rooster, Dragon and Dog, and Snake and Pig. When two people's charts contain a clashing pair across their pillars, that creates a specific dynamic friction in the relationship: opposing rhythms, conflicting instincts, contrasting needs. Clashes are not bad; they describe where the relationship's energy gets activated.
What is the Spouse Palace in BaZi?
The Spouse Palace is the Day Branch, the bottom half of your Day Pillar. It is traditionally interpreted as what you naturally seek in a partner and what kind of partner you are likely to attract. In a compatibility reading, practitioners watch how each person's Spouse Palace interacts with the other's Day Master, since that often describes whether the partner you found matches the partner you were seeking.
Learn More About BaZi
If you are new to BaZi and want to understand the system this calculator uses, the pages below cover the foundations.