Why custom jewelry costs more than the melt value

A common first instinct when pricing a custom piece is to look up the spot price of gold, multiply by weight, and compare. We don't blame anyone for doing this — it's the only number that's public. It's also the wrong number to compare against, and here's why.

The melt value tells you what a refiner will pay you to destroy the piece. It is the floor. It does not include any of the work that turned the metal into a wearable object you actually want.

What goes into the price

A useful breakdown for a typical mid-tier custom ring in our studio:

1. Design time. Conversation, sketches, 3D modeling, revisions until the model matches the intent. For a true custom piece that isn't a small modification of an existing model, this is usually four to twelve hours of skilled CAD work.

2. Casting. Once the model is approved, we cast in your chosen metal. The metal cost is what a spot-price calculator can see. What it can't see: the cost of the wax pattern, the investment plaster, the kiln cycle, the controlled cooling, and the failure rate — castings get rejected and recast for surface defects, porosity, or fit.

3. Bench labor. Removing the sprue, cleaning the cast, filing every surface true, setting the stones, soldering any sub-assemblies, polishing the piece to its final finish. This is the part that compounds 100+ years of collective bench experience into a piece that reads as fine, not as cast-and-shipped.

4. Stones. If the piece holds a stone, the stone is its own line item with its own grading. We list grades openly on our Moissanite page and per-product.

5. Setting. A prong, bezel or pavé setting is the part of the piece most likely to fail over decades of wear. Hand-setting and finishing a setting properly is the difference between a piece you wear and a piece you replace.

6. Finishing & QC. Rhodium-plating white gold, micro-polishing, internal hallmark stamping, weight verification, ring sizing, and final QC against the original spec.

7. Studio overhead. Insurance, security, the equipment depreciation on the casting machine, the laser welder, the polishing rigs, and the heat treatment for stress-relieving certain alloys. None of this is on the spot-price chart.

What the price does not include

It doesn't include markup for retail middlemen, because there aren't any — the studio is the retailer. It doesn't include a brand-name licensing premium, because we don't license the work to ourselves. It also doesn't include a "scarcity tax" on the metal; we pay refiner price and pass that through.

Why a "Custom Order" page can be misleading

You'll occasionally see "Custom Order" pages on jewelry sites priced near or below catalog equivalents. Read those carefully. Sometimes it's a real bargain. More often it means: (a) the piece is a recycled cast from a standard mold, not a true custom design; (b) the stones are inclusions-visible or off-color; or (c) the labor cost has been compressed by skipping QC or hand-finishing.

We hold a line on this. A custom piece is designed once for you, cast in solid metal, finished by hand, and stands behind our lifetime support. The price reflects that, and if a number doesn't add up for your budget, we'll tell you which lever to move — karat, stone, complexity — before you commit.

What this means in practice

If a 14k gold ring quotes at $1,200 and the spot melt value of the metal is $300, the spread isn't markup. It's design, casting, labor, stones, setting, finishing, and the small amount of overhead that keeps the studio running. We'd rather tell you that openly than dress it up.

The right comparison isn't "melt value vs. price." It's "this piece, made this way, vs. a comparable piece made elsewhere." On that comparison we will compete with anyone.

If you want to start one, the custom brief is the way in. Bring a reference, a deadline, and a budget band; we'll come back with a real number.