Clients forward me competing quotes all the time. One shop says $900. I say $2,500. The piece described sounds like the same ring. The obvious question follows, and people are usually a little embarrassed to ask it: what am I actually paying for?

It's a fair question and the answer isn't a secret. So here is a real quote from my studio, broken into every line — a grandmother's old solitaire rebuilt into a low bezel-set ring with diamonds down the band. The center stone was hers, which is why it costs $0.

A $2,500 redesign, line by line

Line item	Cost
CAD design and revisions	$350
Metal — 14k yellow gold, 7.5g cast	$625
Center diamond (client's own, reset)	$0
Accent stones — 18 lab-grown melee	$290
Bench labor — fabrication and setting, ~9 hours	$960
Finishing, polishing, final inspection	$150
Appraisal document and first-year warranty	$125
Total	$2,500

Your project will land somewhere else — this is one ring, not a price list. But the proportions hold. Roughly 45% of a redesign quote is my time at the bench, about 35% is material, and the rest is design and paperwork.

What each line actually buys

CAD and revisions — $350

This is the part clients most often ask me to cut, and sometimes they're right to. CAD buys you the ability to change your mind before anything is cast in metal. You see the ring rendered from every angle, tell me the bezel reads too heavy, and I adjust it — as many times as it takes, at no extra charge. If you skip CAD, you approve a sketch and hope.

Genuinely: for a simple solitaire reset into a stock-style setting, CAD is optional and I'll say so. For anything asymmetric, anything built around an odd-shaped stone, anything combining pieces from more than one relative, it's the line that prevents an expensive mistake.

Metal — $625

Gold is priced by weight, and weight is decided by design. A wide band with a substantial bezel uses two to three times the gold of a thin one. This is the line you can most directly control: a narrower band or 14k instead of 18k can take a few hundred dollars off before we've discussed anything else. Platinum runs roughly 40–60% higher than 14k gold on the same design. It's more durable and I like it, but I'm not going to pretend the difference is free.

Bench labor — $960

The largest line, and the one you're most entitled to interrogate. Nine hours covers pulling the old stone safely, building and truing the bezel, seating eighteen melee stones by hand, and correcting the two things that always go wrong. Setting is the slow part. Every stone is cut slightly differently, and each seat is carved to fit that specific stone.

You can see this in finished pieces if you know where to look. The East-West Baguette Diamond Band starts at $1,250 — one stone, set flush, very few bench hours. The Sunken Set Asscher Engagement Ring is $3,900, and a good share of that gap isn't the diamond. It's the hours a sunken bezel takes to build true.

Stones — $290

Small accent diamonds are cheap. Center stones are not, which is the whole argument for redesign. Lab-grown melee costs a fraction of natural at these sizes and looks identical at 2mm, so unless a client feels strongly, that's what I use for accents.

Stone choice moves price more than anything else on the sheet. Our Round Brilliant Cut Diamond Martini Stud Earrings start at $595 and climb past $2,000 across the range — identical setting, identical bench work, different stones.

Finishing and paperwork — $275

Polishing, a final look under the loupe at every prong and seat, an appraisal document for your insurer, and a year of covered adjustments. This is the least glamorous $275 in the quote and the one I'd never remove.

So why does the other shop say $900?

Usually because it's a different job wearing the same words. A $900 quote most often means a pre-made semi-mount your stone gets dropped into rather than a setting built around it, melee set by machine in a pre-cast rail, no CAD, no revisions, and work sent to a trade shop rather than done in-house.

None of that is fraud. For a plain round stone going into a plain solitaire, a semi-mount is a perfectly sensible choice and I'll tell you to take it. Where it goes wrong is with an old European cut, an odd millimeter size, or a chipped girdle — stones that don't fit anything pre-made. Then the setting gets forced, or the stone gets quietly swapped for one that fits.

The question to ask any jeweler is not "why so expensive." It's "is this setting made for my stone, or is my stone being made to fit this setting?"

The line that isn't on the sheet

Look at the quote again. The center diamond is $0.

If that same ring were built from scratch, a comparable 1.5ct center would add $6,000 or more and the total would triple. You already own the single most expensive component. That's the actual economics of heirloom redesign — you're paying for design and labor on a piece whose most valuable material is already sitting in your jewelry box, and it's why a redesign so often produces a better ring than buying new at the same budget.

Common questions

Can I supply my own gold?

Yes, and it reduces the metal line, though rarely to zero — old gold has to be refined before it's safe to cast, and refining has a cost and a small loss. Bringing me a broken chain and an unworn bracelet typically takes $200–400 off a project like this one.

Do I pay the whole quote up front?

No. Half at approval of the CAD, half at delivery. The consultation and the quote itself are free, and you owe nothing if you walk away.

What if I just need a repair?

Then don't hire me for a redesign. Re-tipping prongs or tightening a stone is a fraction of this, and I'd rather do the $180 job well than talk you into the $2,500 one. Resizing has its own honest price range, too.

Will the quote change once you start?

Only if you change the design. If I find something at the bench I didn't anticipate — a hairline fracture, a stone that won't take heat — I stop and call you before spending your money.

Get a quote you can actually read

If you're holding a piece and wondering what a redesign would run, bring it in. I'll look at it under the loupe, tell you what's possible, and give you a written quote itemized the way the one above is — and if the honest answer is "leave it alone," you'll get that instead.

Book a complimentary consultation — in person in Santa Monica, or virtually from anywhere in the U.S.

Related reading: How Much Does Jewelry Redesign Cost? An Honest Breakdown and our heirloom redesign service.

Kate Price is the founder of Kate Rose Fine Jewelry, a Santa Monica studio specializing in heirloom redesign and custom fine jewelry.