Gresham, Oregon— Lightbox has significantly reduced prices on its lab-grown diamonds, cutting costs by up to 40 percent to stay well below the market average.
After testing reduced prices in Q4 2023, Lightbox announced Friday that these cuts are now permanent, with the steepest reductions for its highest-quality diamonds. The “Finest” lab-grown diamonds—D-F color, excellent cut, and VS clarity—are now priced at $900 per carat, down from the trial price of $1,000 per carat and 40 percent below the original $1,500 per carat.
Prices for I-J color diamonds dropped 38 percent from $800 to $500 per carat, while G-H color stones are now $600 per carat, a 25 percent decrease from $800 per carat.
Industry analyst Edahn Golan, co-founder of data analytics firm Tenoris, noted that even before the official price cuts, Lightbox’s prices were well below the retail average. In April, the average retail price for a 1-carat lab-grown diamond was $1,093, 27 percent higher than Lightbox’s standard pricing for G-J color and VS clarity diamonds.
Golan observed that retailers paid $364 for a 1-carat diamond, yielding a 67 percent gross margin. He suggested that De Beers, Lightbox’s parent company, aims to lower lab-grown diamond retail prices by offering them far below market prices, predicting further price declines due to large margins in the lab-grown diamond pipeline and oversupply.
Additionally, Lightbox announced on Friday that it will now obtain batch quality verification for its lab-grown diamonds from the Gemological Institute of America (GIA). The GIA will assess a statistically significant sample from each production run for color, clarity, and cut, providing a downloadable GIA quality verification card for each diamond.
A GIA spokesperson confirmed that the batch verification service, exclusive to Lightbox, launched Friday. It currently applies to Lightbox’s D-F color white round brilliant-cut loose lab-grown diamonds, with potential future expansion to blue and pink diamonds.
Lightbox CEO Antoine Borde expressed pride in the new pricing and the collaboration with GIA, stating, “Lightbox led the lab-grown diamond jewelry sector six years ago with its $800 a carat linear pricing, and today, we are pleased to introduce even lower prices that more closely align with current jewelry industry dynamics. Equally, we’re very proud to be working with the GIA to verify the quality and consistency of our stones, which supports purchase confidence and allows us to continue our mission of providing clarity, transparency, and value to our customers.”
