We start from your number.
Not from a price list, and not from whichever stone we’d most like to sell. Tell us what you’re comfortable spending and we’ll build the design to land there.
The most useful thing you can tell us in the first five minutes is a number. Everything after that is us working out how to spend it beautifully.
Why we ask before we show.
Most jewelers show you something beautiful and then find out what you can spend. It makes for a lovely afternoon, and it ends in either an awkward conversation or a ring you didn’t really want to pay for.
We’d rather know first. Your budget isn’t a ceiling we creep up to — it’s the brief. It decides whether the center stone is natural or lab-grown, how much of the number goes into metal, and whether accents are worth having at all.
We haven’t posted a minimum here, because the honest answer depends entirely on the stone — and we’d rather quote your actual project than a number that flatters ours. The quote is free, and it comes to you in writing.
What you are actually paying for.
The center stone
Usually the largest shareOn most projects this is the majority of the number — and it's where carrying our own diamonds shows up most plainly in what you pay. There's no wholesaler and no drop-shipper between you and the stone, so you're not covering anybody else's margin on the single most expensive thing in the ring.
The setting
Metal weight, then laborPriced from what it's made of and how long it takes: solid 14k gold at the day's metal price, any accent stones, and the bench hours your design asks for. A clean solitaire is fewer hours than a hand-engraved band with a hidden halo — and the drawings will make it obvious which one you're asking for.
The design work
No chargeThe conversation, the sketches, the tray of stones, the 3D render and the written quote. Not a line item, not folded quietly into the metal price, and not something you earn by having a bigger budget. It's simply how we'd want to be treated.
Afterwards
No chargeCleaning, checking the setting, re-polishing, and the first resize. A ring you commissioned here can come home to us for the rest of its life.
Where a ring budget goes.
A typical solitaire commission, split three ways. The proportions shift with the design — a wide hand-engraved band or a stone-set halo pushes metal and accents up, a plain band pulls them down — but the center stone leads on nearly every project.
- Center stone · 65%
- Setting & metal · 27%
- Accent stones · 8%
Indicative. Your own quote itemizes the real figures.
The design work is not a line item.
The conversation, the sketches and the redraws, the tray of loose diamonds, the 3D render and the written quote — none of it is charged for, and none of it is quietly folded into the metal price. It’s the same process at every budget.
A deposit is taken once you’ve approved the drawings and the center stone. It comes off the final price rather than sitting on top of it. The balance is due before your piece ships.
We change the design, not the number.
There’s nearly always a version of the same idea that lands where you need it. A clarity grade you’d never spot without a loupe. A center a tenth of a carat smaller with a wider band that makes it read larger. A lab-grown stone instead of a natural one, which is the single biggest lever on this page.
We’ll lay the options out — what each one saves and what it costs you to look at — and you decide. That trade is yours to make, not ours to make quietly on your behalf.
The collection is simpler.
Everything in the collection is priced on the page, in stock, and shipped free and fully insured with free 30-day returns. No quote, no deposit, no waiting. This page is about work made to order.
Not sure which you’d rather? Call (281) 515-8180 and just describe it out loud — it usually takes about two minutes to work out.
Answered plainly.
Is custom more expensive than buying something finished?+
Less often than people expect. You're not paying for a piece that sat in a case for a year, you're not paying for stones you didn't want in it, and because our diamonds are our own, you're not paying a middleman either. What custom really costs you is time — something from the collection is here today, and a commission takes a few weeks.
Why are your diamonds priced the way they are?+
Because we cut out the layers. We carry loose natural and lab-grown diamonds in our own inventory and buy them direct, so there's no wholesaler and no marketplace fee getting added on the way to you. When we do source a stone through our network, it comes to you on the same terms.
What do you need before you can quote?+
A rough shape of what you'd like and a number you're comfortable with. Genuinely, that's it. We'd much rather hear a real budget and design to it than guess high, show you something lovely you can't have, and waste a nice afternoon.
What if the quote comes back over my budget?+
Then we change the design, not the number. There's nearly always a version of the same idea that lands where you need it — a clarity grade you'd never see without a loupe, a center a touch smaller with a wider band, a lab-grown stone instead of a natural one. We'll lay the options out and let you choose.
How does payment work?+
A deposit once you've approved the drawings and the center stone, credited against the final price, and the balance before your piece ships. Everything is quoted in writing first — you'll never see a number for the first time on an invoice.
Do prices on the collection work the same way?+
No — those are simply the price on the page, with complimentary insured shipping and free 30-day returns. This page is about commissioned work.
Say a number out loud.
It’s the quickest possible start, it commits you to nothing, and it’s the only way we can tell you honestly what is and isn’t possible.