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Gold price rose: how to reprice a custom jewelry quote

Learn how to reprice a custom jewelry quote when gold prices rise. This guide covers setting validity windows, updating only the metal cost, and communicating the change to clients.

By Timothy Burdairon, Co-founder, Canova

Published 27 October 2026

Reprice the metal part of the quote and nothing else, and only if the quote has run past its stated validity or the client has not yet paid a deposit. Labor, design and finishing stay as quoted. The rest of this guide is how to set that up before the price moves, and how to say it to the client without losing the job.

Only the metal portion of the quote should be updated.

There is no trade-wide rule for when a jeweler should reprice. Searching trade press and jewelers' own terms turns up no standard percentage trigger. What jewelers actually publish are validity windows, deposit terms and a sentence saying metal prices can change. So the practical approach is to borrow those habits and fit them to your own margins.

Put a validity window on the quote

Jewelers who sell custom work tie their quotes to a short window because metal moves. Published examples vary widely: a table:

Jeweler	Quote Validity
VRAI	72 hours
Brilliant Earth	5 business days
Rogers & Hollands	5 business days
Walker's Celtic Jewelry	30 days

The range is wide, and that is the point: the window reflects how fast you can buy metal and how much movement your margin can take.

A quote's price is valid for a limited time.

Write it on the quote itself, next to the piece description and payment terms, for example: "This quote is valid for 14 days. After that, metal costs may be updated before you proceed." The 14 days is only a sample wording.

Say how the metal part can change

A validity date tells the client when the price expires. A metal-cost clause tells them what happens next: that the metal portion is updated to the supplier's current price, and the rest is not. Some jewelers go further and tie the final price to the market cost of the metal on the day they buy it. Others share the burden. A Baton Rouge jeweler quoted by The Advocate said it absorbs part of any rise in gold between quote and deposit to keep prices fair. Both choices are legitimate. Decide yours in advance, because deciding it while a client waits for an answer is when mistakes happen.

Your quote's validity window (e.g., 14 days)
What happens after it expires (e.g., metal repriced)
Whether to reprice metal at cost or with markup
Whether you will absorb part of any price rise

Lock the price when the client pays

The strongest protection is not a threshold. It is the deposit. Many custom jewelers will not start work or buy metal until a deposit arrives, and the price holds from that moment. If you buy the metal on acceptance, tell the client that the quoted price is secured by the deposit, and you carry no metal risk afterwards. If the client comes back after the window and has not paid anything, you are repricing an unpaid quote, which is the easy case.

If a client already accepted and paid inside the window, the quote stands, even if gold has risen since. Changing it then is not a repricing, it is a renegotiation, and your written terms decide whether it is allowed at all.

Reprice the metal line only

When a client returns after the window, go back to the original breakdown and change one line. Use your supplier's current price for the alloy and weight you need, not the headline gold price. The same applies to platinum or palladium: use what your supplier would charge you today for that metal.

Here is an illustration with made-up figures, not real prices. A ring is quoted at 10 g of 14k gold at €650 (representing a supplier's price for the specific alloy, not the raw metal value), labor and finishing at €800, and a 30% markup on both, which is €435. The total is €1,885. Two weeks later the supplier's price for that gold has risen by about 7.6%.

Gold650 * 1.076	699.6
Labor800	800
Subtotal699.60 + 800	1,499.6
Markup1499.60 * 0.30	449.88
Total1499.60 + 449.88	1,949.48

You now have two honest ways to price it. Passing the metal through at cost gives a new total of €1,934.60. The calculation above shows the result of applying the same 30% markup to the new metal cost. Many shops use the markup because it is how the original price was built; others pass metal through at cost to keep the conversation short. Whichever you choose, it should be the one your original quote already implies.

You did not add 7.6% to the whole job, because only about a third of this quote is metal.

Notice what did not happen. A rise that looks large on the gold chart moves the total by a small share, which is also why a heavy gold bracelet is far more exposed than a labor-heavy piece. Set your own trigger accordingly, in euros or as a share of the total, not as a percentage of the metal price.

Go back to the original quote's cost breakdown.
Update the metal line item with your supplier's current price for that alloy and weight.
Recalculate the total, either passing the metal through at cost or applying your original markup.
Show the client the single change and the new total.

If you want a rough metal, stones and fabrication split to start from, Canova Estimate produces one from a photo of a piece. It is still in private beta, open by invitation, and it does not replace your own supplier prices.

Tell the client in plain words

Skip the commodities lecture. Point to the validity date, show the one line that changed and ask for a yes. Something like this:

Show the client the single change and the new total.

"I'm glad you'd like to go ahead with the ring. The quote was valid for 14 days, and since then our supplier's price for the gold has gone up. Only the metal line has changed, from €650 to €699.60. Labor and finishing are exactly as quoted, so the new total is €1,949.48. I've attached the revised quote. If you'd rather stay close to the original budget, we can look at a lighter setting or a slightly smaller piece."