Yes. Lab-grown diamond prices have fallen a great deal over the past decade, and the fall has been steep enough that advice written even three or four years ago is now out of date.

What matters more than the headline, though, is why they fell, whether they will keep falling, and what that means if you are trying to decide whether to buy now or wait. Those answers are less obvious, and we are going to give them without quoting invented figures.

Why we are not going to give you a percentage

You will find plenty of articles announcing that lab-grown diamonds have dropped by some exact percentage. Ask where the number came from and the trail usually goes cold, or leads back to another article quoting a third.

There is no single published price index for lab-grown diamonds that works the way commodity indexes do. Prices vary by growth method, by size, by colour and clarity, by who is selling, and they have moved at different speeds in different years. Anyone giving you one precise figure for “the price of lab diamonds” is smoothing over all of that.

So here is what we will say, plainly and honestly. The direction is clear and the fall has been substantial. The exact size of it depends entirely on which stone you are talking about.

Why the price came down

Four things happened at once, and they compounded.

• Far more growing capacity. Large numbers of new reactors came online, particularly in India and China. Growing diamonds is manufacturing, and manufacturing capacity can be added. Mining capacity cannot be added at will.
• The technology got better. Modern chambers grow larger, cleaner crystals faster and with fewer failed runs than earlier equipment. Every improvement lowers the cost per finished carat.
• Real competition. When only a handful of producers existed, they could hold prices near mined levels. With many producers, they cannot.
• No rarity to protect. A mined diamond’s price rests partly on scarcity. A lab-grown diamond has no scarcity to defend, so its price drifts towards what it costs to make it well.

Are lab diamonds cheaper than mined diamonds?

Yes, clearly and consistently — and the gap is far wider now than it was a few years ago.

The important thing to understand is that you are comparing two completely different pricing systems, not two grades of the same product.

	Mined diamond	Lab-grown diamond
What the price rests on	Finite supply, extraction cost, decades of marketing	Manufacturing cost, energy, competition between producers
Supply	Limited by geology and mine life	Can be expanded by building more capacity
Price direction in recent years	Relatively firm	Falling markedly
The stone itself	Crystallised carbon	Crystallised carbon — the same material

Any range you see quoted for the gap should always be treated as guidance rather than fact, and should always state clearly which of the two it refers to. The two markets no longer track one another at all.

Will they keep getting cheaper?

Probably a little further, but the easy falls have already happened, and there are real floors underneath.

Growing a diamond takes serious electricity, expensive equipment that wears out, and skilled operators. Below a certain point, producers simply stop, because there is no business in it. Energy costs are not falling.

Then there is everything that happens after the stone exists. Cutting and polishing is skilled hand work whose cost is not dropping. Certification costs what it costs. And a diamond is not a ring.

The part most articles leave out

This is the bit that changes how you should think about the whole question.

As the stone gets cheaper, it becomes a smaller and smaller share of what a finished ring costs. The rest of the ring — solid gold or platinum, hand fabrication, hand setting of every accent stone, finishing, certification, insured delivery — is not getting cheaper. Precious metal prices have their own market and their own direction entirely.

Which means a falling diamond price does not translate into a proportionally falling ring price. Wait two years for the stone to drop and you may find the gold has moved the other way in the meantime.

If you want a mental model: you are no longer mainly buying a rock. You are buying a hand-made object that contains a rock.

So should you wait?

No, and we would say the same if we sold nothing at all.

Three reasons. The steepest part of the fall is behind us, so waiting buys you a smaller saving than it would have done in 2020. The metal and the craftsmanship, which now make up much of the price, are not moving in your favour. And an engagement ring is bought for a moment in your life, not for a market entry point.

There is a fourth reason, and it is the honest one. Neither lab-grown nor mined diamonds bought at retail are a good store of money. Almost all jewellery sells second-hand for far less than it cost new. If a stone falling in price would genuinely upset you, the issue is not timing — it is that you are treating a ring as an asset. Buy something you want to look at every day instead.

What the money reaches today

The practical result of all this is that budgets which once bought something modest now buy a proper hand-made ring in solid metal with a certified centre stone.

Our Stackable Pear Cut Engagement Ring is £503, the Solitaire Marquise Cut Engagement Ring is £538, and the Minimalist Round Cut Engagement Ring is £587. All three prices are correct at the time of writing, and all three are hand-made with a free IGI certificate on the centre stone.

The more useful way to spend the saving is not to bank it but to redirect it — into a better cut grade, a larger stone, or a more interesting setting than you first thought you could reach. You can compare across the whole engagement ring collection.

Frequently asked questions

Will lab-grown diamonds eventually be worthless?

No. There is a genuine cost floor made of energy, equipment, skilled cutting and finishing. Prices settle towards the cost of making something well, and making a diamond well is not cheap.

Does a cheaper price mean lower quality?

No. The falling price reflects manufacturing scale, not the stone. A lab-grown diamond is graded on the same 4Cs, by the same laboratories, against the same standards as a mined one. Judge the stone by its certificate.

Are lab-grown diamonds a good investment?

No, and neither is most retail jewellery of any kind. Buy a ring to wear it. If you want an investment, buy an investment.

Will my ring lose value because prices are falling?

Its resale value will reflect the market, as it would for a mined stone bought at retail. What does not change is the ring itself — the metal, the making and the wearing of it are exactly as they were the day it arrived.

Can anyone tell it is lab-grown?

Not by looking — only from the certificate and the laser inscription on the stone. We cover this properly in our guide to whether you can tell if a diamond is lab-grown.

The short version

Lab-grown diamonds are meaningfully cheaper than they were, they are much cheaper than mined stones, and the sharpest part of that fall has already happened. The stone is now the smaller part of what you pay for; the gold and the making are the larger part.

If you have a quiet ten minutes, have a look through the collection and see where your budget actually lands. Free insured UK delivery, 30-day returns, bespoke design at no extra design cost, and everything made by hand in North Harrow, London.