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Am I Balding?
Wondering whether you are going bald? Match what you see at your temples and crown against the published Norwood stages, and find out what the pattern does and does not tell you.
By Balding AI Editorial Team
Best for: Find out whether what you are seeing matches a recognised balding pattern, which stage it is closest to, and what to measure to confirm it.
Published: · Last reviewed:
In Short
Find out whether what you are seeing matches a recognised balding pattern, which stage it is closest to, and what to measure to confirm it.
Deciding whether you are balding from one look in the mirror is how people spend a year unsure. A pattern plus two dated readings settles it.
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Closest published stage: Norwood II
Slight recession at the temples, often described as a mature hairline rather than active loss.
A stage is a snapshot, not a trajectory. Two people at the same stage can be moving at completely different speeds, and the speed is the part that changes decisions.
This matches what you described against published stage descriptions. It tells you whether what you are seeing fits a recognised balding pattern and how far along it is. It is not a diagnosis, and it does not predict what your hair will look like later. If the pattern is changing quickly, is patchy, or came on suddenly, that is a clinician conversation rather than a scale.
Free to use, no signup required, and educational only. This tool does not provide medical diagnosis.
How to Use Your Result
- The stage is descriptive, not predictive. It says where you are, not where you are going.
- Stage boundaries are wide, so a borderline result usually means keep measuring rather than act.
- Sudden, patchy, or rapidly changing loss does not fit this scale at all and is a clinician conversation.
- Track velocity between two dated readings. That is the number that distinguishes stable from progressing.
Turn this result into measurable progress
Use BaldingAI to turn this one-time result into a repeatable tracking workflow with monthly trend review and consultation-ready timeline exports.
FAQ
Am I going bald?
This tool can tell you whether what you are seeing matches a recognised pattern of male pattern hair loss, and which published Norwood stage it is closest to. That is the honest version of the question. What it cannot do is tell you what your hair will look like in five years, because nothing on a web page can. The way to answer that is two dated readings a few months apart.
What Norwood stage am I?
This tool matches what you describe at your temples and crown against the published Norwood stage descriptions and returns the closest one. It is a classification of what you can see today, not a diagnosis and not a forecast.
How do I know if it is balding or just a mature hairline?
Most men's hairlines move back slightly in their late teens and twenties and then stop. That is a mature hairline, not balding. The difference is whether it keeps moving, which is why a single look tells you very little and two dated measurements tell you almost everything.
Is the Norwood scale a diagnosis?
No. It is a descriptive scale for classifying male pattern hair loss so that people and clinicians can describe the same thing in the same words. Diagnosis needs a clinician, and other causes of loss do not fit this scale.
Can this tell me if I will get worse?
No, and no questionnaire can. Progression depends on factors this page cannot see. What is measurable is the change between two dated readings, which is why the tool asks you to re-run it rather than treating one result as an answer.
What if my hair loss is patchy or came on suddenly?
The Norwood scale describes a gradual, patterned loss. Patchy, sudden, or inflamed loss does not fit it and is worth taking to a clinician rather than staging yourself.
How is this different from the hairline checker?
The hairline checker measures how fast a hairline is moving between two measurements. This assessor classifies the overall pattern across the temples and crown. One is speed, the other is shape.
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