The BriteCo Jewelry, Diamond, & Watch Price Index 2026

Understanding the Numbers

Every dollar figure in this report is one of two measurements: sales price and appraised value (replacement value). Sales price is an estimate of what a piece sold for, based on recorded sales matched by characteristics such as year, category, diamond origin, and watch brand. Appraised value is the insurance replacement value, which is how jewelry appraisals work. The appraiser sets the cost of replacing the piece at retail, and that figure is separate from the purchase price, resale value, or cash value.

Appraised value typically exceeds the sales price because it reflects the retail cost of replacing the item, not the amount originally paid. The two can differ by thousands of dollars, and every comparison depends on which measure a chart uses: replacement cost vs. sales price. Each chart states its measurement directly under its title.

Engagement Rings

In 2025, engagement rings had a median sales price of $6,939 and a median appraised value of $9,676, the headline numbers of BriteCo’s engagement ring market report. Natural diamond engagement rings had a median sales price of $12,961 in 2025, while lab-grown rings had a median sales price of $4,557.

Several changes moved together over these years: lab-grown engagement ring adoption kept climbing, lab-grown prices kept falling, center stones got larger, shapes and styles shifted, metal preferences moved, and proposals remained seasonal. The changes occurred alongside one another, and the market is changing in product mix as well as in overall price.

BriteCo data shows that from January through June 2026, lab-grown diamonds appeared in 51% of newly appraised engagement rings. The most popular stone shape for engagement rings in 2025 was the round cut, followed by the oval cut, and solitaires led the setting styles. Yellow gold remained the most common engagement ring metal at 37%, with white gold at 35%. The median engagement ring diamond size reached 2.0 carats in 2025, up from 1.01 carats in 2019.

Engagement ring seasonality is steady in the complete-year data. December is the peak month for new engagement rings, accounting for 10.4% of the year's rings, while February is the quietest, at 6.5%. The monthly pattern holds from year to year, tracked in the seasonality chart below.

Download the engagement ring data (CSV)

Lab-Grown Vs. Natural Diamonds

Lab-grown diamond adoption is expanding beyond engagement rings to earrings, wedding bands, necklaces, pendants, and other ring types. As lab diamond demand expands across all jewelry categories, prices have moved in the opposite direction. In 2025, the median natural diamond price per carat for engagement rings was $8,428, compared with $2,057 for lab-grown diamonds. The charts below track natural diamond market trends and lab-grown diamond price trends separately.

Lab-grown diamond demand has risen fastest in earrings, which went from 6% lab-grown in 2019 to 39% in 2025. This comparison goes by several names, including lab-created vs. mined diamonds, but every version shows the same two moves in the data: adoption up and prices down.

Download the lab-grown vs. natural data (CSV)

Fancy Colored Diamonds & Gemstones

BriteCo data reports gemstone jewelry market and colored diamond market trends. Fancy colored diamonds and colored gemstones are two distinct product groups and not interchangeable. Fancy colored diamonds are natural-color diamonds, featuring colors like yellow, pink, blue, black, brown, and green. Yellow is our data’s leader in the fancy-colored diamond category, though the data can fluctuate year to year. Natural colored diamonds receive two additional grading parameters: naming the exact hue and grading the stone’s color intensity.

Colored gemstones cover the stones in the BriteCo data that are not diamonds, such as sapphire, emerald, ruby, and aquamarine. Moissanite is counted in this group too. It is a colorless diamond alternative rather than a colored stone, but it is not a diamond, so it appears here. In the gemstone jewelry market the BriteCo data covers, sapphire is the most common stone, and moissanite grew from 6% of the group in 2019 to 11% in 2025.

Download the fancy colored diamond and gemstone data (CSV)

Beyond the Ring

This section compares fine jewelry market trends across the major categories outside the engagement ring market. It covers anniversary bands, bracelets, earrings, eternity bands, necklaces, other rings, pendants, and wedding bands. It tracks the same measurements for each category, from sales price and appraised value to lab-grown adoption, center-stone size, metal preference, and seasonality.

Each category holds very different products. Earrings range from hoops to diamond stud earrings, bracelets include tennis bracelets, and the rings outside the engagement category span diamond eternity bands, anniversary rings, and fashion rings. Necklaces run from plain chains to diamond necklaces, and pendants are their own category, led by diamond pendants. Because the products differ this much, a higher median reflects the pieces appraised in a category rather than a ranking of retail value.

Here are some of our data highlights. Wedding bands had the highest median sales price of these categories in 2025, at $7,252, while pendants ran $3,767. Wedding bands also posted the largest sales price increase of the group, with the median up from $4,297 in 2019. Lastly, our full-year data reveal seasonal insights, such as December being the strongest month for jewelry shopping and gift-giving.

Download the jewelry category data (CSV)

Metals

This section tracks metals across all jewelry categories in the report, including the three gold colors, platinum, other metals (e.g., tungsten and silver), and stamped purity grades. In 2025, yellow gold made a comeback, representing 39% of jewelry pieces and narrowly exceeding white gold at 38%. Rose gold held 3.3% of settings. Platinum grew from 11% of settings in 2019 to 16% in 2025, the largest move this data shows in the platinum jewelry market.

The charts below track two separate measurements of jewelry metal popularity. Our report shows gold color trends by year, based on the overall popularity of yellow, white, and rose gold. The metal purity chart not only shows overall popularity but also breaks down each metal's purity. Metal purity refers to the chemical composition of an alloy; 24K gold is the purest but softest, so most jewelry uses gold alloys for strength, which lowers the purity. BriteCo data shows that the 14K vs. 18K gold split accounts for most of the graded fine jewelry, with 10K gold and platinum pieces following. The purity chart covers only pieces with a recorded grade, which is a smaller group than the other metal charts.

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Watches

BriteCo data reveals consumer trends in collectible watch values, purchases, and luxury watch prices. The watch market report charts below cover brand distribution, brand-level prices, movement type, case material, and watch complications. The median watch sales price was $8,442 in 2025, against a median appraised value of $11,000. The gap between those two measurements depends heavily on the watch brand.

Across BriteCo data from 2019 through June 2026, Rolex watches had a median sales price of $10,081 and a median appraised value of $13,900. It's a pattern among collector watch brands such as Patek Philippe, Audemars Piguet, and Rolex — they sell well below their replacement value. However, mainstream brands such as Omega, Cartier, and TAG Heuer sell close to their replacement values. Rolex is the most appraised brand in this watch market report, though brand frequency reflects BriteCo data rather than worldwide luxury-watch industry trends or market share.