A one-carat lab-grown diamond cost $4,200 in 2018. Today it sells for under $200.

Name: Natural diamond (charted by MacroSnaps)
Creator: De Beers price index; Paul Zimnisky, Bain & Co (2025)
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Natural diamond$4,200(Jan 25)Lab-grown diamond$168(Jan 25)

Approximate one-carat wholesale price, natural versus lab-grown, 2018 to 2025. Dollars.

Why this is happening

Lab-grown diamonds are optically identical to mined ones but 80-90% cheaper, and a 300%-plus expansion of Indian production capacity collapsed the price.
As lab-grown flooded in, shoppers switched, and they now account for more than 45% of US engagement rings.
The glut dragged natural stones down too: the De Beers price index has fallen more than 45% from its 2021 peak, its lowest this century.

The take

Diamonds were never truly rare; their value was scarcity manufactured by marketing ("a diamond is forever") and tight supply. Technology dissolved both at once. When a luxury's scarcity is engineered, someone can always engineer it away.

Source: De Beers price index; Paul Zimnisky, Bain & Co (2025)

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<a href="https://macrosnaps.app/c/diamond-price">
  <img src="https://macrosnaps.app/charts/diamond-price.png" alt="Approximate one-carat wholesale price, natural versus lab-grown, 2018 to 2025. Dollars." width="640" style="max-width:100%;height:auto">
</a>
<p style="font:12px/1.5 system-ui,sans-serif;color:#6b7280;max-width:640px">
  Chart: <a href="https://macrosnaps.app/c/diamond-price">MacroSnaps</a>,
  <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY 4.0</a>. Source: De Beers price index; Paul Zimnisky, Bain &amp; Co (2025).
</p>

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Cites MacroSnaps for the chart. For the numbers themselves, cite the source below.

MacroSnaps (2026). "A one-carat lab-grown diamond cost $4,200 in 2018. Today it sells for under $200." Edition No. 13, 18 July 2026. https://macrosnaps.app/c/diamond-price

Permanent link: https://macrosnaps.app/c/diamond-price

The underlying data

MacroSnaps drew this chart. The numbers in it are published by De Beers price index; Paul Zimnisky, Bain & Co (2025). Their terms, not ours, govern the underlying data.