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Jewelrystore.us

Transparent calculations · Updated 19 October 2026

How the jewelry cost estimate works

Our free jewelry cost calculator reads your current design and compiles approximate quantities. It combines reference prices with explicit planning assumptions to estimate making cost and an expected retail purchase price. Every cost component remains editable.

Design quantities

We count center and accent stones from the same procedural model used by the designer, including the complete earring pair. Model units are converted at 5 mm per scene unit. Metal volume is summed across preview solids and multiplied by assumed alloy density: 13.1 g/cm³ for 14k gold, 15.6 for 18k gold and 20.7 for 950 platinum. Overlapping parts, uncut preview seats and actual maker construction can change the finished weight. Stone carats use modeled volume and density: diamond 3.52, corundum 4.00, emerald 2.72 and amethyst 2.65 g/cm³, with 0.2 g per carat. These are approximate inventory quantities, not calibrated manufacturing or grading measurements.

Free external reference prices

Gold API supplies USD gold or platinum per troy ounce, converted using 31.1034768 grams. Metal responses may be cached for 15 minutes. OpenFacet supplies natural round white diamond retail asking-price benchmarks from public listings. We interpolate log price per carat between its weight bands for I/SI1, G/VS2 or D/VVS1. Diamond data may be cached for one hour. Sources and observation dates appear alongside the result. Feeds older than seven days, failed requests and invalid prices are rejected; the user must supply a metal rate if that feed fails. These benchmark prices are not executable wholesale offers.

Unsupported stone prices and quality

There is no connected free colored-gemstone price feed. Colored stones, fancy diamond cuts, melee outside the matrix range and lab-grown stones use explicit planning assumptions, not current market averages: USD per carat 3,500 for white diamond, 2,500 for champagne diamond, 900 sapphire, 1,200 ruby, 1,000 emerald, 25 amethyst, and 650 for diamond accents. Commercial/fine/premium assumptions multiply these by 0.6/1/2. The synthetic scenario multiplies by 0.15 except amethyst. These simple factors cannot capture origin, treatments, grading reports, color rarity or large-stone premiums. Natural round diamonds within the feed range use the selected feed grade directly. Replace any assumption with a specific stone quote. Color in the designer does not establish quality, origin or treatment.

Workmanship and the calculation

  1. Metal content = estimated finished alloy grams × fineness × fine-metal USD per gram. Gold fineness is karat/24; platinum uses 0.95.
  2. Metal supplier/alloy premium defaults to 10% of metal content. Stone budget sums estimated carats × the applicable USD per carat.
  3. Workmanship defaults to $280 per ring, $180 per pendant or $320 per earring pair, plus $8 per stone and $45 per selected ring embellishment. These are editable assumptions, not bench-jeweler quotes.
  4. Making subtotal = metal content + supplier premium + stones + workmanship + services. Services default to $75, and tax defaults to zero. A pendant chain is separate unless you include it under services.
  5. Estimated minimum making cost = subtotal × (1 + tax/100) × (1 + contingency/100). Contingency defaults to 20%. This is a planning floor under the chosen assumptions, not a guaranteed lowest possible cost; diamond retail benchmarks cannot establish wholesale acquisition costs.
  6. Expected retail midpoint = estimated minimum making cost / (1 - gross margin/100) × (1 + brand premium/100). Sales gross margin defaults to 35%, brand premium to zero. A 35% gross margin means dividing by 0.65, not adding 35%.
  7. The retail ballpark applies the contingency percentage below and above that midpoint, with the lower end kept at or above the estimated making cost. It is a sensitivity scenario, not a statistical confidence interval or a measured market range.

Compare like with like

Adjust quality, natural versus synthetic origin, services and brand premium for your intended purchase. A finished mounting or retailer quote may already include metal, labor and margins; avoid adding them twice. Retail purchase price, insurance replacement value and resale value answer different questions. This calculator produces a planning estimate, not an appraisal.

Privacy and corrections

Your design inventory is computed in your browser. The price service requests metal and diamond reference data without sending your design or personal details to those providers. Design and budget stay in browser storage unless you download or share them. No quote is submitted to a jeweler. Send corrections through our contact page.

Start with the free online 3D jewelry designer, then compare an itemized quote using the custom jewelry quote checklist.