How much do jewellers mark up engagement rings?

By Rohan Allen, co-founder · Updated 24 October 2026

Traditional jewellery retail runs on keystone pricing — a 100% markup over cost — and on branded and fashion lines the real figure is often higher; buyer forums and industry commentary routinely cite 200–300%. No jeweller will confirm their own number. We will: our rings carry a 28–57% gross margin depending on the stone, and this page shows the whole structure.

Markup and margin aren't the same number

Two words that get swapped constantly, usually in whichever direction sounds better:

• Markup is how much is added to the cost. A ring that costs $5,000 to make and sells for $10,000 carries a 100% markup.
• Margin is the share of the price that isn't cost. That same ring has a 50% gross margin.

So "keystone" — the retail tradition of doubling cost — is a 100% markup and a 50% margin. When someone says jewellery is "marked up 300%", they mean a $2,500 item selling for $10,000. That genuinely happens, mostly on branded pieces, fashion jewellery and anything where the name on the box does the heavy lifting.

What a markup actually pays for

Markup isn't theft — it's the cost of the business you're standing in. The honest list:

• Stock sitting in cabinets. A showroom holding hundreds of rings is enormous idle capital, financed at retail interest rates, plus insurance and security. You pay for every ring that doesn't sell.
• Prime-street rent. A CBD arcade or shopping-centre frontage is rolled into every price tag.
• Sales commissions. Commissioned staff are why showroom advice so often steers to the bigger stone.
• The remakes, resizes and returns reserve. Legitimate and necessary — the question is whether it's sized honestly.

A made-to-order studio deletes the first three lines: no stock (your stone is bought the day you approve it), no retail frontage, no commissions. That's the structural reason our margin can be a fraction of keystone and still fund a healthy business — not generosity, arithmetic.

Our pricing structure, published

No competitor will print this paragraph, which is why we do:

• The stone: we charge its landed cost plus about 35%. On a $6,200 natural 1 ct, that's roughly $2,170 — covering sourcing from the cutters in Surat, comparison stones we buy in for you to see, and the capital risk of the stone itself.
• The mount: about 2.5× its make cost (metal, atelier labour, freight, bench inspection). The multiplier is higher than the stone's because the mount is where all the human work lives — Matilda's design time and consultations, CAD rounds, the engineering spec and its inspection, and the warranty and lifetime-care reserve.
• The result: a natural 1 ct solitaire at $12,750 carries about $3,195 of gross margin (28%); a lab-grown 2 ct ring at $8,250 carries about $4,278 (57%). Yes, the lab-grown percentage is higher — on a $600 stone, the setting work is the product. Both builds are published line by line on the cost page.

Gross margin isn't profit, for us or anyone: it still has to pay for the studio, insurance, software, and the business existing long enough to honour a lifetime guarantee. The difference is you get to see the number and decide if it's fair — which is more than a 50%-off sale tag tells you.

How to tell what you're really paying, anywhere

• Ask for an itemised quote. Stone (with certificate number) priced separately from the setting. A refusal is an answer.
• Perpetual sales are a pricing confession. A ring that is always 40% off has never cost the list price. The markup was built to be "discounted".
• Price-beat guarantees cut both ways. You can only promise to beat any price if your list prices start with room to fall.
• "Direct" and "wholesale" claims deserve one question: direct from where? If the answer is vague, the word is doing marketing, not maths.
• Compare stones by certificate, never by tag. A "$12,000 ring" means nothing; a GIA-certified 1.0 ct G VS1 Excellent-cut means the same thing in every shop in the country — that's what makes markups visible.

Figures for Honey & Lee rings are our own published cost builds at October 2026 prices. Industry markup ranges reflect long-standing retail convention (keystone) and widely circulated trade and buyer-forum commentary; individual retailers vary and none publish their numbers — which is rather the point.