One of our more frequent questions we get asked is “How much is custom jewelry?” We wrote a previous blog post about what makes jewelry expensive, but this blog post will go into our different price levels. For a summary of the price levels, click here.
Sterling Silver
Sterling Silver as a metal is relatively inexpensive when compared to other precious metals. As a result, it usually has a lower price point in general. We typically try to use a sterling silver alloy that prevents tarnishing over time. As a base price, most pieces created from scratch will start at the $300 mark for a sterling silver piece. This covers the material and labor costs of actually manufacturing the piece—forming, soldering, cleaning, polishing, packaging, etc. Any gemstones will determine the extra costs. Typically, these pieces will have lab grown gemstones, or common gemstones that are easier to obtain. The top end of the Sterling Silver spectrum would be around the $600 range after considering the additional gemstones that were added.
Sterling Silver / Gold Combination
One benefit of being a custom jeweler is that silver and gold can be intermixed to make a really cool piece and/or add durability, but keep the price on the lower side. When budget is an issue, one might choose to have the stone settings made of gold (for durability) and the ring shank made of sterling silver. Alternatively, one might want to use gold to accent some feature on the piece in a different color, but have the rest of it predominately silver. This interplay of silver and gold can easily be done, and as a result, the cost would be in the $600-$1500 range depending on the design.
10K Gold
Once a piece changes from predominately silver to a gold piece only, that is where the price starts to change rapidly. Gold as a raw material is a lot more expensive than silver. As a result, the sudden increase in price is primarily due to the cost of gold itself. Because 10K is the lowest level of gold in the United States, pieces can range from $800-$2000 depending on the amount of gold used as well as the additional gemstones that are used in the piece.
14K Gold
As with 10K, the majority of the cost of the piece is now due to the material costs. Additional stones (as well as the quality and quantity) determine the final cost of the piece. The more stones, and the higher quality the stones, the higher the cost of the piece. The price of a 14K piece would be in the $1500 – $3000 range.
18K Gold / Platinum
This is at the top of the costing scale. This is because these materials are the most expensive, and typically, when one is using these materials, the stones that will be set in them will also be high quality to naturally complement the piece. As a result, it will start at the $3000 mark and scale accordingly based on the design.
As you can see, many of these price levels do overlap, and it comes down to design and the number and type of stones used. If you are interested in a complementary design session to learn “How Much Is Custom Jewelry?”, feel free to contact us!