What % of total ring budget should go towards setting?

[poprocks]

I'm just really curious.

All my family members and relatives have really big stones that are all VVS+, E+ color, and Excellent cut. So, they obviously have a big budget for their diamond. But then I noticed that their diamond is set in very poor quality and low cost settings. I would estimate that of the total amount they spend on the complete ring, about 5% of it was on the setting.

What is the norm?

For me and this was before PS, I didn't want to use more than 3% of ring budget for the setting. After PS though, it went up to 15%. I'm still having sticker shock about it.

So, I'm just curious what percentage of your ring budget went towards the setting. Just trying to see what a good balance is

 

[ame]

Varies so much on here.

When I got this stone I think 12% of my total spent was setting? My reset was about 22% of the total, had I just gotten this originally.

 

[Stars77]

I'm struggling a bit with that question too. With the high price of gold and the recent spike in melee prices, the setting may consume more of my budget than I had hoped.

 

[oldminer]

The is no formula being promoted such as the old one from De-Beers about 2 months salary for the entire engagement ring. Even that was totally arbitrary. You can use 14 karat gold or Palladium instead of 18kt gold or platinum to save quite a bit of money, but skimping on the thickness and weight of the ring will lead to early wear out issues or bending. A thousand dollar ring might have a $200 to $400 mounting and a $10,000 ring could use a $300 or $3,500 mounting, depending on the budget, and the desire for a complex design. You can shop for a diamond and be sure you are getting a fair price. Mark-ups on diamonds are rather low. Shopping for a discounted mounting is challenging and mark-ups are generally much higher than diamond mark-ups. However, you can save a higher percentage by shopping the mounting carefully. What you don't want is to shop until you find a poor copy of a mounting that is inferior in some way that is nearly invisible until you unwrap the package. That is a difficult challenge for consumers.

 

[MissStepcut]

Mine is about 10% of the total budget. If you get something pretty simple and skip melée, you can still keep costs down pretty well. I personally wouldn't spend more than $1k on a solitaire setting, and would rather keep it under $500. ID Jewelers has quite a few plain settings in the sub-$500 range that are still nice and substantial.

 

[Yusiro]

I'm probably the odd ball of the bunch here, but I spent 43% of my budget on the setting. I wanted something custom and it needed to be platinum (she has sensitive skin, white gold irritates it). I could have gotten a stone closer to 1 carat had I gone with a simpler look, but she expressed her feelings that she didn't like a simple solitaire, or as she called it "a big rock on a thin band".

More realistically, I would say 15-20% would be fair. Just make sure it is a good quality, and I'm sure she'll love whatever you decide.

Good luck

 

[Rhea]

I bought my vintage ring as a complete ring.

 

[slg47]

I wanted a three-stone setting which is more than a solitaire. So the setting was around 25% of the total cost of the ring. To me the ring is a total package, stone + setting, so getting the right setting was important.

 

[mogster]

My setting was almost 40% of my total budget, albeit, I wanted a very specific setting/look. I used my entire budget as a means to get to the final ring, as opposed to allocating a portion for the diamond and a portion for the setting. I think there are many different approaches to ring shopping.

 

[Tacori E-ring]

It depends. I am a setting girl. My setting was almost 30% of the total cost. I knew EXACTLY what I wanted and was willing to compromise on a smaller diamond.

 

[kenny]

As I am often fond of saying . . . "Why be Normal?"
As I am also fond of saying . . . "Screw Shoulds! Discover your wants!"

I'm probably the oddball at the far left end of the scale since I spent just 1% on the setting.

If my asscher has increased in price the same percentage as my ACA has then today it would list for around $49K.
It went into a $500 titanium tension setting.

I'm into diamonds, not settings.
The setting that is as cheap as possible allows me to buy a better diamond.
The setting that reveals as much of the diamond as possible is what turns me on.
My ideal setting would be invisible and the diamond would just magically hover above the finger.

To each their own.
If you want to spend 99.9% of your budget on the setting, then that is the perfect setting for you.

Normal's not better; it's just a number.

 

[Dancing Fire]

As I am often fond of saying . . . "Why be Normal?"


I'm probably the oddball at the far left end of the scale since I spent only about 1% on the setting.

If my asscher has increased in price the same percentage as my ACA has then today it would list for around $49K.
It went into a $500 titanium tension setting.

I'm into diamonds, not settings.
The setting that is as cheap as possible allows me to buy a better diamond.
The setting that is a invisible as possible, revealing as much as the diamond as possible is best for me.
My ideal setting would be invisible and the diamond would just magically hover above the finger.

To each their own.
If you want to spend 90% of your budget on the setting then that's perfect for you.

same here.. my wife's 3 ct is mounted on a cheap $400 14WG setting never had any problems,besides why spent so much on a setting when women changes their mind every 6 months.

 

[kenny]

. . . besides why spent so much on a setting when women change their mind every 6 months.

Goodness!
Women sounds like SO much trouble.
Why do men bother with them?

 

[tyty333]

Mine was 13.5%. You can see it in my avatar.

 

[ChloeTheGreat]

My setting was about 30% of the ring budget. It was important for me to get a quality center stone, however I really cared about the complete package of a beautiful halo setting.
I think it's really personal and depends on what you want the final product to look like as a whole.

 

[Laila619]

There's no real rule.

If you want just a simple solitaire setting, then 5 - 10% might do it. If you want an elaborate one, maybe 20 - 30%, or even more.

 

[Dreamer_D]

I fyou have the budget to get *exactly* what you want in a diamond, then spend what you like on the setting. If you don't, then I say spend as little as possible on the setting.

 

[CedarRapids]

There is no magic percentage given the wide range of money paid for a diamond (even for the same carat size).

The costs of the metal and accent stones are relatively predictable on a given day/quarter.

What you (should) want in a setting is something that beautiful to you since you may find yourself staring at it all day.
Also, you (should) want a setting that is secure for the diamond. Whether the center stone is 0.25, 0.50, 1.0, 2.0 carats or more, it's something you don't want to lose.

I say find a setting that is made with good craftsmanship.

 

[Gypsy]

It's really up to you.

I asked my husband to get me an inexpensive temporary setting because I could not figure out what I wanted by way of settings and wanted time to figure it out. I now have a lovely setting I adore... but in the time it took me to figure out what I want, we were able to save up money for the reset.

I think it depends on what you and your lady want. If you consider upgrading a possibility or not. What styles you are attracted to. And what your lifestyle is like.

 

[Allison D.]

When I first looked into setting my diamond, I initially spoke to a designer who informed me that the design of his I liked (abt $2K) was likely too expensive for my $6Kish stone.

I found that amusing and a bit ridiculous because I always thought that the *customer's* priorities mattered most. So......I went elsewhere.

A few years ago, I had the reserve situation - I fell in love with a setting, only to have the retailer tell me that it really wasn't the right setting for me since my (precision-cut, screaming color) tourmaline was so "cheap". Great sales tactic, I thought.....and passed.

While it's true that the majority prefer to put most of their budget into the stone, that doesn't make it "right" or the only way. If the aesthetic of the setting is important to the wearer (as it really was to me), whatever makes sense to you is the right thing to do.

There are enough rules in life without creating more, especially unhelpful ones.

 

[Phoenix]

Well, the most expensive setting I have is one from LM. At $5.6k, it came up to almost 20% of the cost of my diamond or approx 15% of the total spend. Most of my other settings are around the $1-3k mark (my second most expensive setting is also a LM).

What I've found is that since I spent so much on the setting, I've not found the courage to swap it out for something else (not to mention that the more expensive LM setting is extremely well made and beautiful, IMO of course! lol ). So that's stopped me from going through endless re-sets and in the LR, it's cost me a lot less than some other seemingly less expensive settings, which actually have turned out to be more expensive when I add the cost of ALL the settings together.

So there's some logic behind spending a more sizeable part of the budget towards the setting, but you have to be fairly sure that it is yr forever setting and one you're not going to reset in the future.

 

[swingirl]

65% stone
35% setting

I didn't set a budget, I just bought what I wanted and I wanted a hand-made platinum setting with lots of pave. For my taste the look of the ring is the whole package and the setting was as important ans the stone.

 

[OCDnovice]

For me I decided I would rather spend the majority of my budget on getting the best quality diamond I could because I figured a few years down the line I can always upgrade the setting but would like to keep my diamond for much longer, I think in terms of sentimentality I would have a hard time trading in my diamond to trade up Just my two cents

 

[audball]

I tnk this will likely depend on her tastes and your budget. If your budget is smaller (nothing wrong with that), with today's gold/platinum prices, some solitaires with no pave or anything are going for 1-2k ish, so you could end up spending as much as 50% or more towards a setting.

But I agree with other posters, it's all about what's important to you. If you know you will never reset, you have to decide if the biggest diamond, or the right setting, is more important. If you are willing to upgrade the setting for a future anniversary to the DREAM setting, then put as much as possible towards the diamond and work towards that.

 

[Circe]

I fyou have the budget to get *exactly* what you want in a diamond, then spend what you like on the setting. If you don't, then I say spend as little as possible on the setting.

+1 - a concise, succinct, and eminently logical way of looking at the matter.

Personally speaking, my setting wound up costing 10% of the cost of the stone: that's partially because the dealer threw it in as a favor. We were prepared to go up to 20%, just because, for me, what you're talking about - a really good stone in a throwaway setting - violates the whole point of jewelry. From my perspective, it should be pleasing from every angle - otherwise, it just seems like a way of advertising wealth.

 

[NervousBuyer]

All depends on personal taste as well as the cost of the diamond itself. If you have a higher end diamond the setting will likely be a lower percentage. My girlfriend was picky about her setting and since the diamond wasn't nearly the weight of some other PSers, the setting came to 28% of the total. If I had a very pricey diamond that could easily be more like 10%.

Many people like simple tiffany-style $300 settings, while others prefer settings in the thousands. Pick what speaks to you and you are comfortable with.

 

[LittleRiver]

Mine was 22% of the total cost, which sounds high when I think about it that way. But I wanted something very specific and would have spent the same amount on the setting whether the diamond cost $5k or $50k. To me the setting is just as important as the stone.

 

[Black Jade]

For me it would depend. I prefer the simplest setting possible to set off a beautiful larger diamond, however in some cases the setting makes the ring. I love smaller diamonds (by smaller, I mean, 20 points and under) and usually they do not look good in Tiffany style settings. They come to life though in antique platinum filigree settings, which I love and in 40's illusion settings and in a great many 'modern' designs. On the other hand, though I love antique filigree, rings with center stones of one carat or more look absurd to me in them--unbalanced; that type of setting jsut looks made for smaller stones.

I don't think you should judge most women in the world by the women who post a lot on Pricescope, who are an unusual bunch. Most women never change their minds about their diamond rings or their settings--we get sentimentally attached and keep them forever. I don't think women change their minds more than men--jsut depends on what you are talking about. the men I know tend to want to keep upgrading cars, electronic gadgets and sound systems, televisions, etc.--don't put being changeable off on women, please.

 

[eddiexp]

In my opinion, what you need to do first is decide what is more important to you the stone or the setting? If you are not too picky about the setting, just focus on finding the stone you like, and then make do with what you have left over for the setting. If you are dead set on a particular setting, then you should have an idea of about how much needs to be set aside for the setting. For example if you already know you are going to go with a brand name setting, you can ballpark about how much that’s going to run right off the bat and then either purchase a stone with the left over money or adjust your budget accordingly. And of course vice versa, if you already know you need an X sized stone in whatever color and clarity, you can get an idea of how much needs to be put aside for that.

Personally, the way I did it was find the exact stone that I wanted and purchase that, then worried about what setting and how much to spend on it after that.

There's really no magic formula since there are so many variables. For the sake of argument just say we go with 10%, a 100k stone does not necessarily deserve a 10k setting, and a 100 dollar setting on a 1k stone probably wouldn’t cut it.

If you try to work with a strict budget and have it rationed out accordingly for the stone and setting, I think you will have a very difficult time to settle on a whole package.

Good luck with your search and shopping!