Lab-grown diamond wholesale prices continued to decline in 2025, with significant year-on-year reductions across key size categories.
Industry analyst Edahn Golan’s LGD Wholesale Price List, based on Mumbai trading data for IGI-certified stones, recorded a 6.7% decrease in the second quarter, following an 8.9% drop in the first quarter.
Ongoing Reductions Across Key Sizes
Consecutive quarterly declines have led to substantial annual price reductions. Prices for one- to three-carat round lab-grown diamonds are now 42% lower than in the same quarter of 2024. Three-carat rounds saw the sharpest drop, with wholesale prices halving year on year.
The pace of decline has moderated compared to earlier years, but the trend remains downward. Price compression also continues, with the price gap between one- and two-carat stones narrowing. In March 2025, the average wholesale difference between these two sizes was approximately 10%.
Retail Costs and Gross Margins
Despite falling wholesale prices, retailers continue to pay considerably more per carat. In Q1 2025, the average retail acquisition cost for a one-carat, round, IGI-certified lab-grown diamond was $207 per carat. By Q2, this dropped to $191 per carat, still roughly twice the wholesale trading price.
US retailers paid 32% less for loose lab-grown diamonds than in the same period last year, while gross margins increased. For one- to three-carat rounds, average gross margins reached 74% in Q2 2025 — up nearly eight percentage points year on year. However, the simultaneous decline in retail prices and sourcing costs means gross profits have not increased.
Market Overview and Best-Selling Items
According to data from Tenoris, the top-selling lab-grown item in Q2 2025 was a 2.23-carat round diamond, E colour, VS1 clarity. It accounted for over 20% of LGD sales, with an average selling price of $917 per carat and a gross margin of 74%.
The LGD Wholesale Price List, launched in 2018, has evolved to focus on transaction prices for small-volume purchases of certified, well-made stones. Most lab-grown diamonds of two carats and above are grown using the CVD method, while smaller goods include both CVD and HPHT types. HPHT diamonds typically trade at lower prices than their CVD counterparts.
