GuidesGuide
How to Price a Custom Ring Without Guessing
Learn a reliable method to price custom rings. This guide for jewelers covers calculating material costs, estimating labor, setting a shop rate, and adding profit.
By Timothy Burdairon, Co-founder, Canova
Published
Send the same ring sketch to three jewelers and you may get three very different prices. One makes everything in-house. Another outsources the casting. One includes several design revisions; another assumes the client will approve the first drawing.
Some of that difference reflects how each business works. But some comes from estimates that leave too much to memory: what a similar ring cost last year, how long the setting usually takes, whether the last commission made enough money.
That approach makes it difficult to know whether a quote will cover the work. The design may look familiar while hiding an extra fitting, a difficult stone or several hours of revisions.
A more reliable estimate accounts for those things before you commit to a price. To see how it works, let’s follow one ring through the calculation.
The figures below illustrate the method. They are not suggested rates or market prices.
Start with the materials and outside services
Before estimating your time, list what the job requires you to buy or supply. For our ring, that looks like this:
| Item | Estimated cost |
|---|---|
| Metal, allowing for process loss and expected scrap recovery | $600 |
| Stones | $400 |
| Casting and findings | $180 |
| Packaging | $20 |
| Total | $1,200 |
Keep each item separate in your worksheet. A single “materials” figure is harder to check and easier to carry forward without updating.
For metal, use your current cost and the amount the process requires, not simply the weight of the finished ring. Casting, filing and polishing affect how much material you need. Account for recoverable scrap too, so you neither ignore the loss nor charge as though everything removed from the ring is unrecoverable. Records from previous jobs will help you build a realistic allowance.
Price stones at what they will cost to obtain now. If the client supplies one, there is no purchase cost to include, but inspecting it and planning how to set it may still take time.
The next question is how much work it will take to turn those into the finished piece.
Estimate the whole commission
Bench time is only part of a custom job. There may also be consultations, sourcing, drawings, CAD work, revisions and fittings.
For this ring, suppose we expect:
| Work | Estimated time |
|---|---|
| Consultation, design and one round of revisions | 2 hours |
| Bench work | 5 hours |
| Fitting and final adjustments | 1 hour |
| Total | 8 hours |
The allowance for revisions matters. Without an agreed scope, “design work” can mean anything from one approved sketch to weeks of changes.
If you do not yet know how long these stages take, track your next few commissions. A simple record is enough: what you did, how long it took and whether it was included in the estimate. This gives you something firmer than your memory of the finished piece.
Count active work rather than elapsed time. A stone taking three days to arrive does not create three days of labor, but finding it, ordering it and checking it on arrival all belong in the estimate.
Establish a shop rate
Those hours then need a shop rate. To establish one, add up your annual workshop overhead and the amount you need to pay yourself, then divide by the hours you can realistically bill during the year. Overhead includes costs like rent, insurance, tool depreciation, and marketing.
Your billable time is not every hour you spend at work. You must subtract hours spent on bookkeeping, marketing, maintenance, training, holidays, and other non-billable tasks to find a realistic total.
Suppose our workshop’s calculation produces a rate of $100 an hour. The eight hours of work are added to the estimate:
| Cost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Materials and outside services | $1,200 |
| Work: 8 hours at $100 | $800 |
| Estimated cost | $2,000 |
We now have a cost that includes the planned work and the overhead built into the hourly rate. We still need to decide what the business should earn beyond that.
Calculate the selling price
Your pay compensates you for doing the work. Profit provides money beyond those costs, helping the business build reserves, invest and withstand jobs that do not go to plan.
For this example, suppose you want 30% of the selling price left after covering the $2,000 of costs included in the estimate.
The calculation is:
Selling price = $2,000 ÷ (1 − 0.30) = $2,857
You might round that to $2,860.
This is different from adding 30% to the cost. That would give you $2,600: a 30% markup, but only about a 23% margin.
The appropriate target depends on your business, costs and market. What matters here is choosing it deliberately and applying the calculation consistently.
If the resulting price seems wrong, review the assumptions before changing the total. Check the supplier costs, the hours and the scope. You may discover an error, or find that the design needs adjusting to fit the client’s budget.
Give the client a price with a clear scope
Your worksheet explains how you reached the figure. The client’s quote should make clear what they will receive for it.
For our ring, that could read:
The price for your custom ring is $2,860, including the agreed metal and stones, design development, one round of revisions, fabrication and a final fitting. Changes to the approved design, stone selection or metal will be quoted for approval before additional work begins.
Clearly state any applicable tax or delivery charges, along with the deposit, payment terms and how long the quote remains valid.
You can explain the main cost drivers if the client asks. But you do not need to send the internal worksheet as the quote itself.
A defined scope also makes a budget conversation more useful. If the price is too high, you can explore a different stone, a simpler setting or another metal, then recalculate. That gives the client a genuine alternative without quietly reducing what you earn for the same work.
Use each finished job to improve the next estimate
Once the ring is complete, compare the estimate with the actual costs and hours. Check where the difference came from: a supplier charge, an extra revision, more setting time or an adjustment you had not anticipated.
Updating those allowances is what makes the method more dependable over time.
A spreadsheet can handle the calculation, but as your business grows, dedicated tools can help automate and refine your estimates. Canova’s Estimate tool, for example, is designed to help with the initial estimate: you provide a photo, and it returns estimated cost and production time, broken down into metal, stones and fabrication, with margin added.
It is currently in private beta, with access available by invitation at canova.io.
Whichever method you use, check its assumptions against your own suppliers and workshop records. Another jeweler may still quote a different price for the same ring. You will have a record of what yours includes, how you calculated it and whether the finished job performed as expected.
Sources and method
The method described is a standard costing model. The figures are illustrative. Market data on pricing is from sources including:
