Can Astrotalk build the Amazon of spiritual commerce?

When people think of astrology apps, most picture a narrow product: a consultation call with an astrologer, surrounded by horoscopes and kundli (birth chart) generators.

Astrotalk wants to change this perception significantly.

The Noida-based astrology company, one of India’s largest and most profitable consumer internet businesses, is building a one-stop, full-stack spiritual commerce platform spanning consultations, ecommerce, gemstones, and offline retail.

Over the last three years, the company has quietly transformed from a single-product marketplace into a multi-vertical consumer business operating across India, the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, and Germany.

Its underlying thesis is simple: spirituality in India has always been a large consumer category, but it has remained fragmented, unorganised, and underserved by organised modern retail and technology platforms.

“People usually think astrology platforms stop at consultations,” says Daman Soni, Chief Business Officer - Astrotalk Ecommerce. “But the customer journey naturally extends into remedies, products, gemstones, and eventually offline experiences. We are trying to build that ecosystem.”

The ecommerce bet

While consultation is the core business of Astrotalk, its biggest expansion so far has been ecommerce.

The company launched the Astrotalk Store in November 2024 with an initial investment of Rs 30 lakh. Commercial scaling began in January 2025, and the business generated Rs 140 crore in revenue within its first year of operations, according to Soni.

Astrotalk has since then committed another Rs 40 crore towards expansion of the store and is targeting an annual run rate of Rs 400 crore–500 crore by FY27.

The premise behind the business emerged from a gap that Astrotalk believes existed in Indian ecommerce.

Spiritual products generated significant search demand online, but major marketplaces never built dedicated categories around them. Rudraksh malas were often listed under jewellery, yantras under home décor, and gemstone purchases remained scattered across small sellers and trust-deficient websites.

Soni believes Astrotalk had something those marketplaces lacked: a large, highly engaged user base actively

receiving product recommendations from astrologers during consultations.

“People were already searching for remedies after consultations,” he says. “If we didn’t build that catalogue ourselves, the demand would simply move to fragmented third-party sellers.”

The store currently sells rudraksh malas, yantras, idols, energised bracelets, and region-specific products such as Karungali malas. Certified gemstones are emerging as one of the business’s fastest-growing categories.

Around 90% of sales currently come through Astrotalk’s own website, rather than external marketplaces, suggesting that the consultations business is funneling customers with high intent towards its ecommerce business.

This equation will change over time as the store expands beyond Astrotalk’s existing customer base, says Soni, an ecommerce industry veteran with stint in companies like BoAt and GlobalBees.

He was roped into Astrotalk in 2025 to lead its ecommerce business.

The four verticals

The Astrotalk Store is only one part of the company's broader diversification strategy. In fact, Astrotalk is building across four business lines.

The astrology consultations business acts as a marketplace connecting users with astrologers across six countries. International markets, largely focusing on non-resident Indians, are strategically important for the company because purchase power is significantly higher outside India, improving margins while also creating distribution opportunities for products and remedies.

Consultation has remained the company's profit engine.

The second business line is Astrotalk Store, the ecommerce business, built on top of the consultation engine. The store business currently has a lean team of around 60 employees.

Offline retail is the newest addition. Astrotalk is planning physical stores designed for customers making higher-ticket purchases such as certified gemstones and large idols, where trust and in-person verification remain important. The stores are also expected to target older consumers who are less likely to transact entirely through apps. However, the company is yet to disclose the rollout timeline and the store format.

Gemstones is the fourth and probably the most strategically significant vertical within Astrotalk’s expansion effort.

India’s gemstone market is enormous but deeply fragmented, plagued by counterfeit concerns, inconsistent certification standards, and opaque pricing. Astrological consultations frequently involve gemstone prescriptions worth tens of thousands of rupees. This creates a built-in purchase pipeline from consultation to commerce.

“The gemstone category already exists at massive scale,” says Soni. “The issue historically has been authenticity and trust.”

Astrotalk is attempting to position itself as a trusted retailer in the gemstone market through certified, lab-tested stones and traceable sourcing.

Creating a flywheel

The four verticals together create a significant sales flywheel, one business feeding into the other. Consultations generate demand. Ecommerce captures that demand. Gemstones increase transaction value, while offline retail deepens trust and expands reach beyond digital-native consumers.

Few Indian consumer startups have attempted to build this kind of interconnected business across both digital and physical channels simultaneously.

The logic behind Astrotalk’s expansion is not hard to understand.

Users who trust the platform’s astrologer-verification process are more likely to purchase products recommended during consultations. The consultations business also generates detailed insights into demand signals, the remedies being prescribed, in which regions, and at what frequency—data most ecommerce businesses would otherwise spend heavily to acquire.

The company has already spent nearly eight years proving that digital platforms can aggregate demand for astrology consultations at scale. And its ecommerce business has shown that at least part of this demand can be directed towards products and commerce.

The question now is whether Astrotalk can execute all four verticals simultaneously with the operational quality each requires.

Consultation marketplaces, ecommerce operations, offline retail, and gemstone sourcing involve entirely different supply chains, economics, and management strategies.

Astrotalk reported an operating revenue of Rs 1,176 crore in FY25, growing from Rs 651 crore in FY24.

The company's overall profit declined in FY25, despite revenue more than doubling, reflecting the cost of expanding aggressively across multiple categories at once.

The timing of the expansion adds another layer of challenge. Astrotalk is pursuing expansion while it prepares for a potential IPO, a process that typically absorbs significant management bandwidth and often slows operational decision-making.

The company has set a revenue target of Rs 2,000 crore ahead of its listing, according to Soni. Achieving this target would require both the core consultations business and the store to sustain aggressive growth trajectories over the next 18 months.

Can Astrotalk ultimately evolve into a strong multi-vertical spiritual commerce platform? Or will its consultations business be stretched thin by operational complexity? The outcome depends on how effectively the company manages its next phase of growth.