This is just a lament and I am curious question. I have not been in the trade for many, many years. Metal prices just freak me out. I thought gold was high at $400 an oz 
Last time I bought silver it was maybe $15 an oz. I remember when it was $4 an ounce I guess this is a business question. It is difficult enough to try to make ends meet doing what you love. I always struggled with pricing. I could not make silver work. People just expect silver jewelry to be “cheap”. I love high karat gold with really good stones (which I cut). With gold blowing past 5K how exactly do you roll with that? Pricing. How do you price in such a moving market? I used to think I had a handle on it. Price it at spot, add whatever for the margin. Triple key always used to make me feel like I was greedy With high karat gold now days, triple key seem wildly excessive. I am very old and just rambling. How do you price stuff in such a wild metal market? I never could place a value on stones. Bought high end rough when it was less expensive. Then you cut it and at market it’s valued is a lot more. My accountant used to drive me nuts. He is like, you value it at what you paid for the materials. I tried for a while. I tracked what I paid for metals. I tracked what I paid for rough (almost nothing). I had zero clue how to deal with the stones real value. How do you book something you paid literally dollars a gram for years ago, and the stone would sell for hundreds. I finally just started doing my own taxes and using gold weight at spot, and just ignoring most of the stone price because I could triple key. In today’s market, I could even triple key it and sell it below what freaking spot is if I bought the gold a while ago. Like I said, I am old and rambling. How do you explain to customers the wedding band they bought 10 years ago costs ten time as much - just for you to break even. Thoughts?
In the past I would reprice everything if the cost for metal went up or down 10%. So basically every couple of years. It was not worth the labor and it was only a few percentage points on the metal.
Now that could be every couple of days. Holy crap I could get whiplash just watching the daily markets!
I hope someone has a solution!
My had, or may still be having, a discussion about the price of silver recently. You should be able to find it at the following link…Rob
My husband and I have weathered jumps and crashes for over 50 some odd years. Don’t panic. Remember that the very wealthy will always want to buy nice things. And the very poor will buy jewelry as well. Usually plated simple things. It’s the middle and upper middle class that drop out from buying jewelry. So re-think your client base.
This post should start out “We had” not “My had”. Not sure why that happened…Rob
Jo…My memory regarding silver prices goes back to the early 70s. There have been at least two episodes similar to that which we are going through right now since then, maybe more. In particular I remember the Hunt Brothers runup in the late 70s early 80s. They lost their shirts and fortunes. Don and I, and our Dad before us, always stressed that our work was simple, well done, would last a lifetime and represents a tradition that is now over 80 years old. We can sell the price increase as we have a fairly stable middle to upper class market to whom tradition is important. I just wish that it would settle down to a new normal so that we can establish a pricing formula that is fair and allows us to keep making and selling what we make. I have been taking some time off from making silver jewelry as I have a lot made ahead. I am spending time doing lapidary work, enameling and working in non-precious metals. I will eventually have to replace the silver jewelry that I have sold and would like to replace it at a price that I can be comfortable with for a while and not worry about having to change it a week later. I always appreciate your point of view. Thanks…Rob
This resonates a lot. The pricing problem you’re describing is something I’ve been hearing from every jeweler I talk to lately — gold swinging between $4,500 and $5,600 in the span of a couple months has made the old “price at spot plus margin” approach really painful, especially when your stock was bought at a completely different price point.
The accountant question is the one that drives people crazy. “Value it at what you paid for materials” works fine when gold is stable. When you’re sitting on metal you bought at $2,000 and spot is pushing $5,000, your books say you have cheap inventory but your replacement cost is more than double. Your COGS looks great on paper and your margin looks fat — until you go to reorder and realize you can’t afford to replace what you just used.
The jewelers I’ve talked to who seem to handle this best do a couple things:
They think about replacement cost when pricing, even if their books track what they actually paid. The question isn’t just “what did this gold cost me” — it’s “can I afford to buy more at today’s price when this piece sells.” Some track a blended average across purchases, which smooths out the swings. Others just reprice everything when spot moves significantly. Either way, the point is having real numbers to work from instead of guessing.
They separate the stone value from the metal value in their pricing. You’re right that stones you bought rough for dollars per gram and cut yourself are worth orders of magnitude more. That added value is your labor and skill — it’s not greedy to charge for it. The customer isn’t paying for what the rough cost you. They’re paying for a cut stone that doesn’t exist without your hands.
On the “explaining to customers why the band costs 10x more” — honestly, most jewelers I’ve spoken with say transparency works better than they expected. “Gold has more than doubled since you bought your band, here’s what it costs today” is a conversation most customers accept when they see the actual spot price. They read the news. They know gold is up.
The real headache is tracking all of this accurately so you actually know your numbers instead of guessing. That’s the part most jewelers tell me they’ve given up on or are doing in a spreadsheet that’s always out of date.
Great question though — curious what others here are doing for pricing in this market.
With the volatility of metal prices these days a spreadsheet that auto updates based on the current spot price would seem the way to go.
Happily, it is possible to pull live data into spreadsheets, in Excel, Googlesheets, and Libreoffice Calc.
There are plenty of web tutorials on how to do that.
I too have a spreadsheet with a live link to the spot price of pure silver at KITCO. It has been so volitale lately that I just use it as a reference. I prefer to use the cost of 10 feet of 8 gauge sterling silver wire as my barometer. I watch it and when it seem to settle, I factor the cost per ounce at this quantity onto my pricing formula. For years it was in the $18 - $22/ounce range. This last year it has gone up at such a rate that I couldn’t keep up. I finally settled on $85. For a while that wasn’t even valid, but it seems to be coming down. Today the KITCO spot is at $67.98. This results in a sterling silver wire price of $86.77 at Rio, but they are showing a higher spot than KITCO. I haven’t bought Sterling Silver wire in over a year and still have a lot on hand. I also have a lot of finished jewelry. When I do buy wire again, I hope that what they charge me will be something like what it was when I place the order. Lots of fun…Rob
I base my prices on a 10’ piece of 10 gauge round and square for twisted bracelets and 5’ of 1/2 round or flat stock. This gives me the best cutting schedules of one bracelet per size for the sizing method that Rob and I use. Yes there is a bit of a fudge factor involved but for me this works best over all. I have a spread sheet that breaks down what I need per size on a cost per inch for coiled metal. Based on the square inch for 20 gauge sheet goods.
Dad had a very complicated pricing method that I couldn’t decipher.
Many years ago I decided that I would simplify and average the price of my bracelets based on the material costs of the middle sizes, sizes 5.3 and 6.0 (5 3/4” and 6”). I think when it came right down to it I was concerned on what it would cost to replace the metal. But the cost of metal didn’t move that much and the little extra charged for the smallest would help to offset the not quite enough charged for the next to the largest so the averaging of prices worked best for me.
Dad suggested that I add $5.00 for each additional step to the basic twist bracelet. Add a rope, $5.00, add 2 ropes, $10.00 and add $10.00 for anything larger than a size 6.3/4” I asked Dad about really big wrists and he said “Anything much bigger than 7.0 and its really up to you.” And he told me that the price of my labor was the only place I really had control of what I charged. It took the same amount of time to make a 5 1/2” bracelet as it does to make a 6” bracelet. When it came right down to it we probably had the same amount of filings from one size to the next. The rest of the costs in metal were too hard to define.(Polisher lint, polish, snips…) Back then my first invoices from Hoover and Strong said …Sterling-$7.00 Troy oz…. I think gold $375.00 an ounce or words to that effect. All the work spent pricing was easier.
Now I have been really looking hard at what I have been charging over the years and I probably have been under charging by a little bit for for things like pendants, earrings, and rings. Now, after looking at the cost of sheet I have to be really careful. No more buying pre-cut 20 gauge discs. This year will be interesting from a market place point of view as well. I don’t mind charging a little less than the next guy but I won’t willingly cut my own throat. My first two shows planned for this year are in Indiana 14 hours away. The climbing cost of gasoline may have me rethinking how far I can travel, added to the cost of lodging. Without having a good read on possible sales declines against the price of metal… who knows? Finding a local show will have the same materials expenses but not the costs of travel and lodging.
We’ll have to see.
Don
Videos relevant to this topic that you may or may not find useful. The first is basic pricing advise that beginners may find useful. The idea of using AI to do pricing was to me a new and interesting twist on an old and well-worn topic.
The advise given by other posters on this forum about pricing based not upon acquisition cost, but instead upon replacement cost is in my view spot on, no pun intended…
These two video’s are priceless for a newbie, like me! And i never thought about the imposter syndrome. And I think I’m dealing with that. Listening to you talk about it already has me thinking differently about it. And I have been watching your video tutorials, and you are so creative and incredibly talented. I think of your style as fantasie, which is what I strive to be like! And to me fantasie is worth more, because it a little harder than traditional styles! I’m not putting down traditional style because it is also beautiful and not easy. But I think you can charge a tad more for your artistic value. I have to laugh, because when you say, it took me 3hrs to make, I’m oh my gosh it only took 3hrs, because at my stage it would take me all day or more. Yes, I’m that new!
I love your videos and your jewelry and I can’t wait to hear and see more from you! These are so valuable! Thank you for your knowledge and time!
Sorry Greg, for a minute I forgot that you posted these! So thank you for posting these videos! They have been very enlightening! Thank you again!
To me the cost today to replace my stock trumps (please excuse my using that word, as it will forever have a new connotation) other factors..
As I focus more on repair than on production, I mostly refer to the Geller pricing guides, and I realize that “today’s Gold $” has to be included in my pricing, because ever gram of metal I use today will need to be replaced at current $.
Since my customer base is service, wholesale to the retail jewelry trade, not the retail customer, this is a constant problem for me.
As much as some here feel that the customer is resistant to price increases, it is my customer base who remembers gold at well under $500/oz and Silver at @$3.50. I still remember the jump to $150 Gold, and later my employers terrified that customers would never pay $500/oz for their stock.
My jewelry store customers are FAR more aware of price increasess than their customers are, which makes my pricing for current value very difficult.
Believe me, if your craft is truly good, the customers who appreciste that quality will be there after the price of our materials increase.
Sell the craft, not the $/oz
Make an excelsheet with all the costs and determine what you would like your hourprice to be and your profit. It’s a bit of work, but it gives you some direction.
There was prior discussion on the high cost of precious metals. Metals in jewelry make for little metal. A high quality gemstone will be higher in price than a thick gold ring. However, what gives jewerly it’s value is the craftmanship and artistry and uniqueness with hand made jewerly. Discerning customers recognize that value. Most customers are now aware of the high price of precious metals and price jewerly accordingly. What market you’re targeting is also of importance. Low end jewelry that can be massed produced will meet resistance if the price is high. The very high end markets care less about the price. The value added price of craftsmanship should at least equal the price of material. Using cheaper lower grade stones in an exquite piece of jewerly will detract from its value. There are far more considerations that a balance sheet. Price your jewerly accordingly. In addition, the price of quality gemstones per carat has increased as much as the metals. Also be aware that gems, precious metals, jewelry are taxed at a 28% long term capital gain. All collectibles- fine art, antiques, gold and silver, jewelry are taxed at 28%. Your basis must be carefully documented in order to minimize taxes. Strict record keeping is a must. These are only few of the complexities going into pricing your work.