Here’s something most jewellers won’t say out loud: you can do ₹2 crore in sales in a season and still wonder where the money went.
It happens more than you’d think. The shop is busy, the orders are moving, the karigars are working — and yet the margin just isn’t there. Nine times out of ten, it’s not a sales problem. It’s a costing problem that’s been quietly bleeding the business for months.
We see this constantly at Joolet, working with manufacturers, retailers, and wholesalers across India. So let’s go through exactly what goes into manufacturing cost — and where most businesses get it wrong.
1. Metal Cost — And Why “Yesterday’s Rate” Is Killing Your Margin
Gold isn’t a fixed cost. It moves every single day on MCX. Sometimes every hour.
Yet most businesses we talk to are still costing gold on a weekly average, or worse — a rate they last checked on Monday when it’s now Thursday. On a volatile week, that gap can be ₹80 to ₹150 per gram. On a 20-gram piece, that’s ₹1,600 to ₹3,000 per piece going untracked. Multiply that across 500 pieces a month.
That’s not a rounding error. That’s a problem.
The basics of metal costing:
- 22k is standard for traditional Indian jewellery. 18k for diamond and fashion pieces.
- Always cost by today’s MCX rate — not a weekly average, not “what the supplier quoted last week.”
- Weight is in grams or tola (1 tola = 11.66 grams). Know which your supplier bills in.
- Factor in 8–15% metal waste. The filings on your workshop floor, the sprues from casting, the scrap from filing — that metal costs you money even if it never reaches the customer.
Metal cost = weight (in grams) × today’s 22k rate per gram + waste allowance
A manufacturer in Rajkot — decent operation, 900 pieces a month — couldn’t figure out why his margins were shrinking despite strong volume. When we dug in, he was costing gold on a weekly average. On high-movement days he was losing ₹120 per gram without realising it. By the time he caught it, he’d been absorbing the loss for nearly a year. The fix took one afternoon. The habit had cost him lakhs.
2. Stone Costs — Small Stones, Big Surprises
If you’re working with polki, diamonds, kundan, or any precious stones — get the cost confirmed before you quote. Not after. Before.
Stone prices shift. Your supplier’s rate today may not be what it was when you last ordered. And for bridal sets especially, where a single necklace might have 200+ small stones, even a small per-carat variance adds up fast.
What drives stone cost:
- Type — Natural diamonds and precious stones vs semi-precious vs synthetics. Big difference.
- Polki quality — Uncut natural diamonds are priced per carat but the quality variation is wide. Two pieces “with polki” can have very different stone costs.
- Kundan and meenakari — Don’t forget the lac, gold foil, and enamel. These aren’t free. They get forgotten in costing all the time.
- Setting labour — Jadau setting takes more time than a simple prong. Price it accordingly.
One habit worth building: maintain a stone cost sheet that you update every time you get a supplier invoice. Don’t rely on memory.
3. Making Charges — The Number Most Jewellers Haven’t Updated Since 2021
Let’s be honest: when did you last actually recalculate your making charges?
Not adjust them slightly. Actually sit down and work out what it costs per gram to produce a piece — karigar wages, electricity, workshop rent, finishing time — and check whether your current rate covers all of it.
Most don’t do this. They set a rate at some point, it felt competitive, and it stayed. Meanwhile karigar wages went up. Electricity costs went up. Rhodium solution prices went up. The making charge didn’t.
What making charges need to cover:
- Karigar wages (per piece, per gram, or daily — whatever your arrangement)
- Stone setting (usually separate — per stone or per hour)
- Finishing and polishing time
- Specialised work — meenakari, filigree, jadau — which takes significantly longer and should be priced differently from plain gold work
- Your workshop overhead and a margin on top
Rough benchmarks for reference:
- Simple plain gold designs: ₹200–₹400/gram
- Medium complexity: ₹400–₹700/gram
- Intricate or specialised work: ₹800–₹1,500/gram or more
A retailer in Ahmedabad — established shop, good reputation — told us he hadn’t touched his making charges in three years. When he finally ran the numbers, he was charging ₹280/gram on pieces that cost him ₹390/gram to produce. He wasn’t losing on metal. He was losing on making, quietly, on every single piece.
He adjusted his rates. It wasn’t a comfortable conversation with some customers. But within two months his margins looked completely different.
4. Casting and Finishing — The Costs Nobody Lists
If you outsource casting, your cost depends on metal weight, metal type, and design complexity. Simple enough to track — if you track it.
If you cast in-house, the costs are real but scattered:
- Investment powder and wax
- Gas and electricity for the kiln
- Equipment wear and depreciation
- Rhodium plating solution — and if you’re doing a lot of 18k white gold or diamond jewellery, you know how fast this cost adds up
Finishing takes more time than most people budget for. Polishing, ultrasonic cleaning, steam, inspection — it’s easy to think of it as “just the end bit” but it’s a real labour and material cost.
5. Findings and Components — ₹15 at a Time
Clasps. Hooks. Earring backs. Jump rings. Solder. Lac. Gold foil. Enamel colours.
None of these feel significant on their own. A ₹15 earring back, a ₹40 clasp — it feels like noise. But if you’re producing 600 pieces a month and not accounting for findings, you’re absorbing maybe ₹8,000–₹15,000 a month in untracked cost.
Build a component cost list. Update it when supplier prices change. It takes an hour to set up and saves you real money.
6. BIS Hallmarking — ₹40 Per Piece Adds Up Faster Than You Think
Hallmarking is mandatory. The cost is real. And a lot of businesses — especially those who shifted to hallmarked stock recently — still aren’t building it into their per-piece cost.
Current hallmarking charges: ₹35–₹45 per piece depending on your assaying centre.
On 500 pieces a month, that’s ₹17,500–₹22,500 a month. If you’re not tracking it as a cost, you’re eating it as a loss.
For diamond jewellery: IGI or GIA certification adds cost but genuinely helps you justify price. For high-value coloured stones, lab certification from a recognised body matters too — especially for bridal sales where the customer is spending serious money.
7. GST — Get This Wrong and Your Pricing Is Off From the Start
Quick reference:
- Gold jewellery: 3% GST on total value (metal + making charges combined)
- Making charges billed separately: 5% GST
- Cut and polished diamonds: 1.5% GST
- Uncut/rough diamonds (polki): 0.25% GST
GST is not your income. It passes through to the government. But if you don’t factor it into your pricing structure correctly, your effective margin is lower than you think.
Talk to your CA about how your invoicing is structured. Small differences in how you bill making charges can have a meaningful GST impact.
8. Overhead — The Cost That’s Always There, Rarely Tracked
Rent. Electricity. Security. Non-production staff. Packaging. Software. Insurance.
These costs exist whether you produce 100 pieces this month or 1,000. And they have to come from somewhere — which means they need to be in your cost per piece.
Simple way to allocate:
Overhead per piece = total monthly overhead ÷ pieces produced per month
If your mix of pieces varies a lot by weight, allocate by gold weight instead. More accurate.
The Full Cost Sheet — What It Should Actually Look Like
Here’s a worked example for a 22k gold necklace:
| Cost Item | Details | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Metal | 20g × ₹6,200/g (today’s 22k rate) | ₹1,24,000 |
| Stones | Mixed polki, 3 carats | ₹18,000 |
| Making charges | 20g × ₹600/g | ₹12,000 |
| Findings and components | Hooks, lac, gold foil | ₹400 |
| BIS Hallmarking | 1 piece | ₹45 |
| Overhead allocation | — | ₹1,200 |
| Total cost before GST | ₹1,55,645 | |
| GST @ 3% | — | ₹4,669 |
| Total to customer | ₹1,60,314 |
Your selling price is this number plus your margin. Not a rough estimate of this number. The actual number.
What Margin Are You Working With?
- Manufacturer to retailer: 8–15% net on total value
- Retailer to end customer: Margin usually comes from making charges — metal is visible and compared
- Custom and bridal: Higher margin is justified. Charge for design time, revisions, and consultation.
- Gold exchange: The buy rate you offer vs. today’s market rate is itself a margin decision. Track it.
Bridal and Custom Orders — Where Costing Gets Messy
Bridal season is when most jewellery businesses make their annual numbers. It’s also when costing goes out the window.
The customer wants three rounds of CAD changes. Then she brings her mother-in-law. Then she wants the neckline slightly different. Each round takes karigar time. None of it was in the original quote.
A wholesaler in Surat who supplies retailers across Gujarat described it well: bridal season used to feel like gambling. Big orders, big effort, but he never quite knew what he’d made until it was over. When he started tracking job-wise — metal issued per order, karigar hours, stone setting, revision time — he could finally see which orders were profitable and which ones were eating his margin despite the big invoice value.
Custom and bridal orders need job-level costing. Not a general estimate. Per order.
A few rules that help:
- Take a meaningful advance before you start any CAD or design work
- Define revision limits in your quote (2 rounds, then additional charges)
- Price design time separately from metal and making
- Track actual vs. estimated cost after each order — it teaches you fast
The Real Problem Isn’t Knowledge. It’s the System.
Most jewellers reading this already know making charges matter. They know to check MCX daily. They know findings add up.
The problem is that knowing it and having a system to track it are two different things. When you’re managing a workshop, handling customer queries, dealing with karigar issues, and running the billing — the costing discipline slips. You estimate. You go by feel. And slowly, the margin erodes.
That’s what we built Joolet to solve. Not to teach jewellers what they already know — but to give them a system that makes the tracking automatic, the cost sheets accurate, and the margin visible without spending two hours on a spreadsheet every night.
If your business is busy but the numbers aren’t adding up — the answer is probably in your costing, not your sales.