For jewellers
Lab-grown vs natural diamonds: how to price and present both
Almost every custom job now includes the same conversation: lab-grown or natural. Customers arrive having read a little and knowing there is a big price gap, and how you handle it decides whether you win the job and whether you make a fair margin on it. The mistake is to treat the two the same in your pricing. They are different products with different costs, and they need to be priced and presented as such.
They are not the same cost, so they are not the same price
A natural diamond is a scarce, resale-holding asset with a well-established wholesale market. A lab-grown stone of the same size and grade costs a fraction to buy and its price keeps falling. If you apply one flat markup across both, you will either overprice the lab-grown stone until the client buys it online, or underprice the natural one and give away margin. Price each on its own basis, from what it actually costs you today.
Margins usually differ between the two
Because lab-grown stones are cheap to buy and easy for a client to price-check, the market tends to run a slimmer percentage on them, and a healthier one on naturals. That is not a rule, it is a reality of how customers shop. Set a stone margin for each type that reflects your market, keep them separate in your pricing, and revisit the lab-grown figure regularly, because that market moves faster than natural.
Keep the stone separate from your workmanship
Whichever stone the client picks, your metal, design and setting are the same work and should be priced the same way. Costing the stone as its own line, apart from the piece, is what makes offering both types easy: you swap the stone line, the workmanship price does not move, and your margin on the making is protected either way. This is the same principle as pricing the centre stone separately.
Offer both as clean options
The strongest way to handle the question is to stop debating it and show it. Present the exact same ring two ways, one with a natural centre and one with a lab-grown, each as a single combined total. Now the client is not choosing whether to trust you, they are choosing between two clear prices, and most people love being handed that control. You will close more of these jobs simply because the decision is made easy.
Be straight about the difference
Do not oversell or hide anything. Tell the client plainly that a natural diamond holds value and is rarer, and a lab-grown is physically a real diamond that costs far less and lets them go bigger for the budget. Both are legitimate choices for different buyers. Honesty here builds the trust that wins the referral, and it protects you: the customer made an informed choice and priced it with you, not against you.
Let the numbers do the talking
When both options are costed correctly and shown side by side, the conversation stops being about your opinion and becomes about their budget and taste. That is a far better place to sell from. Price each stone on its terms, keep the making separate, present two clean totals, and let the client choose the one that is right for them.
Two options, one tidy proposal
Workshop Pilot prices your centre stone by carat on its own tier, so a lab-grown and a natural version of the same ring are a couple of clicks apart, each shown as one clean total on a proposal your client can accept online. Offer both without redoing the maths. Try it free for 14 days, no card required.
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