Pricing, explained

Where the money actually goes in a lab-grown diamond ring

True Diamond prints an itemised breakup on every product page: gold, diamond, making, tax. Read nine of them side by side and something unexpected shows up.

True Diamond · Published 9 September 2026 · Updated 9 September 2026

How much of the price is actually diamond?

Anywhere from 93 percent to 35 percent, depending entirely on the design. On a four carat solitaire almost everything you pay is stone. On a pave band, most of it is gold and labour.

That range is not an estimate. Every True Diamond product page carries a price breakup that splits the invoice into metal, diamond and making charges, with GST on top. Almost nobody in this market publishes that, and once you start reading it across products, the pricing of fine jewellery stops being mysterious.

Here is one ring in full, so the format is clear. This is the Dominus men's solitaire in 18 KT:

Four lines, and they add up exactly. On this ring the gold costs more than the diamond, which is not what most buyers expect and not what any marketing anywhere would lead you to believe.

Why does the split change so much between rings?

Because diamond price rises steeply with the size of a single stone, while gold price rises only with how much metal the design uses. Concentrate the diamond and it dominates. Spread it out and the metal takes over.

Taken from the first invoice on each product's price breakup, verified 9 September 2026. Metal is gold except on the Obsidian Flame, which is Grade 2 titanium plus gold. Making charges and GST are excluded from the share so the comparison is material against material.

The pattern is clean. A 4 carat stone costs 12 times what a 1 carat stone costs on these invoices, but the gold in the ring holding it barely changes. So the bigger the centre stone, the more of your bill is diamond, and past about two carats the metal stops mattering to the total at all.

Run it the other way and the effect reverses hard. Split the same diamond budget across 42 small stones, as the pave vanki does, and you now need a wider band to set them into, more labour to set each one, and the metal overtakes the stones.

What does that mean for how you spend?

Three things, and the first one is worth more money than any negotiation you will ever have with a jeweller.

1. If a big stone is the point, karat barely matters. On the 4 carat Portuguese, gold is 7 percent of the material cost. Choosing 18 KT over 14 KT there changes almost nothing in relative terms, so pick the colour you actually want.
2. If the design is metal-heavy, karat is the whole decision. On a men's band or a pave design, gold is roughly half. Moving from 18 KT to 14 KT is the single biggest saving available, and on a finished ring almost nobody can see the difference.
3. Total carat weight is a poor guide to price. The vanki carries 0.714 ct of diamond and costs less than the Aria's single 0.82 ct stone at a similar total weight, because 42 small stones are worth far less per carat than one large one. Read the centre stone, not the total.

What did lab-grown actually change?

One line on the invoice. The diamond got cheaper. Gold, making charges and GST are exactly what they would be at any jeweller.

This is the part the category usually oversells. Lab-grown diamonds are the same material as mined ones and they cost less, so the diamond line falls. But gold is priced off the same commodity market for everyone, making charges reflect the same labour, and GST is 3 percent regardless.

Which is why the saving feels enormous on a large solitaire, where the diamond is 93 percent of the material cost, and much smaller on a metal-heavy design where it is a third. If someone quotes you a flat percentage saved against mined, the honest answer is that it depends entirely on which ring you are buying.

What does the Malkin Double V Pave Vanki show?

The metal-heavy end of the range. 42 pave diamonds totalling 0.714 carat, no centre stone at all, on a vanki band that curves to the finger.

Compare that to the Portuguese four carat at the top of the table and the two rings are almost opposites. One is a stone with a ring attached. This is a ring with stones set into it. Both are legitimate ways to spend money on jewellery, and knowing which one you are buying is most of the battle.

Questions people ask

Every figure here was taken from the price breakup published on the relevant True Diamond product page on 9 September 2026, using the first invoice shown, and each reconciles to the invoice total that page prints. Prices move with gold rates and are subject to change; the product page is always current. Diamond share is calculated on material cost, excluding making charges and GST, so that the comparison is metal against stone. This article is about how jewellery is priced and is not investment advice. True Diamond stores are in Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Noida, Bengaluru and Vizag. Write to hi@truediamond.in, call +91 8200532030, or message +91 9076009085 on WhatsApp.