What a Custom Piece Actually Costs

At most jewellers, custom is a premium service. A design is drawn, a stone is found in existing inventory, and the bespoke process is billed on top of the materials. The premium is real because the work is genuinely additional.

Draco holds no finished inventory. Every piece is produced after it is ordered, which means a catalogue design and a commission follow exactly the same path through production. The catalogue is a set of drawings that already exist, not a shelf of finished goods waiting to be sold.

The practical consequence is that asking for something outside the catalogue does not trigger a surcharge. It changes the brief, and the price then follows the materials and the labour in the ordinary way.

What custom does change is time. A commission takes longer because the specification has to be agreed before production begins. That is the honest cost of the service, and it is measured in days rather than dollars.

If commissions are priced on the same basis as catalogue pieces, then the catalogue is the best available guide to what a commission will cost. It is also the only set of figures here that anyone can check independently, which is the reason to use it.

One hundred and sixty two priced active pieces run from CAD 711 for 1 carat round brilliant stud earrings to CAD 28,002 for a 59.5 carat tennis necklace. The median is CAD 2,550.

The distribution matters more than the extremes. Eighty seven percent of the catalogue sits between CAD 1,000 and CAD 5,000, and the single largest band, 53 percent of everything, is CAD 2,000 to CAD 5,000. Only 3 percent of pieces are over CAD 10,000.

The one published commission floor is the custom tennis chain, which starts at CAD 15,000. That sits deliberately in the top 3 percent, because a chain running the full circumference of the neck needs far more stone than anything worn on a hand or a wrist.

Carat weight is the largest single factor and it works in your favour as it rises. Cost per carat falls with total weight, so doubling the carats does not double the price. The 4 carat studs at CAD 1,699 are CAD 425 per carat; the 1 carat pair at CAD 711 is CAD 711 per carat.

Metal is entirely predictable. It is a fixed percentage of the 10K base: sterling silver runs 30 percent below, 14K adds 18 percent, 18K adds 38 percent and platinum adds 45 percent. White, yellow and rose cost the same at any given karat.

Shape usually does not matter, which surprises people. Because grown stones are produced to specification rather than cut from found rough, asking for marquise or emerald instead of round rarely changes the figure. On the 5 carat tennis bracelets, emerald, round, oval, marquise and pear all list at CAD 2,720.

This is the driver that surprises people and the one most likely to explain a quote that came in above expectation.

Stone count, not stone weight, determines how long a piece takes to set. Fifty small stones each need their own seat cut, their own placement and their own prongs closed. Five large stones need five of each. At the same total carat weight those are completely different amounts of work, and the price reflects the work.

The clearest illustration in the catalogue is a pair already noted elsewhere: an 8 carat oval five stone ring at CAD 3,720 and a 5.62 carat marquise anniversary band at CAD 3,699. The five stone ring carries 42 percent more carat weight and costs CAD 21 more, because the marquise band sets stones continuously and each one has to be oriented individually.

Orientation is its own cost. Round stones can be set in any rotation. Marquise, pear and emerald cuts cannot, because a misaligned stone in a row is immediately visible. That alignment work is real time and it is why fancy shapes in continuous settings price above rounds even when shape itself is free.

Three things are fixed regardless of the brief, and it is fairer to say so up front than to discover them at quotation.

The quality floor. Every Draco diamond is IGI certified at E to F colour and VS2 or better. A commission cannot be made cheaper by dropping below that, because the floor is the brand rather than a specification option.

Physics. A full eternity ring cannot be resized, whatever it costs, because resizing means cutting and rejoining a band and there is no plain metal to work with. A marquise point left unprotected will eventually chip. These are not policies.

Time. A specification has to be agreed before production starts, and production itself follows the same route as any other piece. A commission is not slower to make; it is slower to begin.

Every Draco diamond is IGI certified at E to F colour and VS2 or better and ships with its certificate; the report can be provided on request before purchase and verified free at IGI.org. Every piece carries 30 day returns, the Lifetime Authenticity Guarantee, free resizing where the form allows it, and free insured worldwide shipping to 25 markets with signature on delivery.

Start a commission at create your piece, browse the complete collection for a design to work from, or send a competing quote and Draco will price directly against it. That comparison is more useful than any general claim about value, because it prices the actual specification you have already been offered.