More carats at a lower price sounds like a great deal. That’s why many couples are choosing lab-grown diamonds over natural mined diamonds for their engagement rings. Plus, there’s a perception lab-grown diamonds are better for the environment.
Since lab-grown stones are typically cheaper than natural diamonds and there’s been such a massive increase in the number of lab-grown diamonds purchased, engagement ring prices are down, according to The Knot, which found the current average price is $5,200, a 5.7% drop from 2023 and a more than 15% decline from 2021.
And in some cases, ring purchasers could expect to spend 1.5 times more on a natural diamond ring than a lab-grown one.
Younger generations, specifically, find it less important for the stone to be natural (22% for Gen Z, 28% for millennials), Kay said.
Still, ring buyers can get a bigger stone for their buck when choosing a lab-grown diamond. The average center-stone weight for lab-grown diamond rings in 2024 was 2.0 carats, compared to 1.6 carats for natural diamonds, Kay said. Meanwhile, the average carat weight of an engagement ring in 2021 was 1.5 carats, which jumped to 1.7 in 2024, according to The Knot.
“Customers—when it comes to the bridal engagement space—are opting for spending the same or similar amount of money, but for a significantly larger stone,” Lacik said. “Women like bigger stones. That’s the way the world works, whether we like it or not.”
But at the end of the day, “environment doesn’t matter” to the consumer, Paul Zimnisky, a New York diamond analyst, told NYT. “Consumers don’t care about that as much as the media talks about it. Consumers are buying lab diamonds because they’re so cheap. It’s all about the price.”
A version of this story appeared on Fortune.com on March 11, 2025.
