Lab Created Stud Earring Prices

If you're ready to buy a new pair of lab created stud earrings, it's important to know how much you want to spend. After all, there's no point in treating yourself to something nice if you'll be broke as a result. While 6-carat diamond earrings are a high-end item, there are other ways to feel beautiful with the right pair of studs. That's why we've prepared this guide to help you choose the lab created diamond earrings of your dreams.

The 4C's and Pricing

As with all diamonds, loose or set in jewelry, when pricing gemologists look at the 4C's. These are cut, color, clarity, and carat.

Carat

For diamond jewelry, the first thing you'll notice about most diamonds corresponds to its carat weight. This is because, although carat is a weight measurement, with all stones, the weight of the stone determines its size.

When buying diamonds, a 1-carat diamond will of course, be smaller than a 2-carat diamond. If you need to think about carat weight in a more concrete way, a one carat round diamond is about 6.5 millimeters in diameter (on average). American dimes are around 1/3 of an inch, specifically at 17.91 millimeters in diameter. Therefore, a one-carat diamond is around 1/3 to 1/4 of a size of a dime.

Color

However, carat weight is only part of the picture. Color in white stones is the extent to which a stone has a yellow or brown cast to it. Therefore, the better the color grade, the whiter the stone. Generally, we don't use the highest color grades for diamond earrings because most people (without a trained gemologist eye) don't notice the color difference.

Clarity & Cut

Typically, the same thing goes with clarity. Some experts suggest that you not use diamonds with a clarity grade above SI1, because again, it won't be noticed. The finest lab created diamonds or man made diamonds, are typically used for rings, where they're more visible. On the other hand, choose a high-quality cut because you need the earrings to sparkle well.

Each of those three factors helps determine the price of a diamond. The whiter a diamond, the more valuable it is in comparison to other diamonds of the same cut, clarity, and carat weight. Likewise, a better cut or clarity will increase the price over similar stones with identical specifications. Taken together, pricing a 5 ct lab diamond can be relatively complicated. Diamonds of the same size can have vastly different prices based on the other factors.

Origin and Pricing

However, the 4 C's only tell part of the story when it comes to cheap diamond stud earrings. Although all colorless diamonds are graded on the same scale, there is a difference in price between natural mined stones and laboratory grown ones.

In particular, lab created diamond earrings are much cheaper for their carat weight than natural ones. To demonstrate this principle let's take a look at a certain style of round stud earrings we have at With Clarity, which you can view below.

1 carat round solitaire earrings cost $2,150 for natural and $1,050 for a lab. Double the weight to two carats, and you'll pay about $8,900 for natural stones and $4,150 for a 2 carat lab grown diamond solitaire earrings. Finally, increase the diamond to three carats, and the cost will be $14,500 for natural and $7,200 for a lab.

You'll notice that the prices for natural diamonds are about double their lab-created counterparts. For this reason, you'll save upwards of 50% by purchasing 1 carat lab created diamond earrings. Keep in mind that lab created diamonds are considered real by the jewelry industry, even though their origins are different. Find out how lab grown diamonds are real in our article: How are Lab Diamonds Created.

Shape Matters

There's one other factor that affects the price of a diamond: shape. When it comes to diamonds, people might often confuse cut with shape. Cut has to do with symmetry of diamond facets that affects sparkle. Popular diamond shapes are the following: princess, cushion, radiant, asscher, emerald, oval, pear, marquise, and of course, round. When you look at a database where they're selling diamonds, such as ours, you'll see that round shapes are the most expensive.

Why are Round Shapes More Expensive?

This is true for two reasons.

• For one thing, they're really popular, so the laws of supply and demand drive up prices.
• Gem cutters have to remove more of the original diamond weight in order to get the round shape. This increases costs for the jewelry manufacturers and makes it necessary to find bigger diamonds to make that cut gemstone.

So Does Earring Type

While we're mostly concerned with stud earrings here, it should be noted that they are often less expensive than other types. With Clarity carries two styles of earrings: studs and halos. Halos are the ones where a large stone is circled by smaller ones, forming a ring around the main stone.

Consider this lovely set of oval halo earrings below: which are 1.16 carats and cost $2,600.

This compares with the standard studs above, which were priced at $2,150 for natural stones. Keep in mind though, that there is more diamond in the halo earrings. We also must use more gold and workmanship in order to produce them.

Final Thoughts

Most people know that stud earrings are the most popular style around. After all, they go with everything and can be worn by just about anyone. Dressed up or down, stud earrings are a fabulous choice whether in yellow or white gold metal settings. While a lot of people can afford 1-carat lab created diamond earrings, the 4-carat lab diamond price is probably still too high for most. In the end, you can get nicer cheap diamond stud earrings by choosing lab diamonds. Alternately, if you can spend a bit more money get a pair of halo earrings for a lot more sparkle than the price increase.