Here are the details:

We designed the idazzle Diamond Prices iPhone application to help you make a very informed diamond decision at a local jeweler. Before shopping, or even at the store, you can use the nifty interface to instantly get the best price you should pay for a diamond at physical jewelry store, for FREE. While online diamond prices are easily accessible from your mobile device, until we launched this app, there wasn’t any information about what price you should pay at a physical jewelry store.

Click on the image to be linked to the idazzle Diamond Prices iPhone App!

Diamond Prices

We have prices for 4 diamond shapes, 7 carat weight sizes, 7 colors, 7 clarities, and 4 cut grades. We have carefully researched this database to be within competitive range of the best online diamond prices. If you pay our recommended price at a local jewelry store, you are getting a great deal.

Diamond 4C’s Information

You can also access our advice and information on diamond factors that influence price. We tell you what quality range to stay within so you end up with a gorgeous diamond, without overpaying for factors that aren’t essential.

Find a Local Jeweler

If you are interested in buying a diamond at the idazzle Price, but don’t know a jeweler in your area, you can send us a request from the idazzle Diamond Prices App. We are building a database of pre-screened, reputable jewelers who are interested in giving you the best service and the best value!

idazzle wants you to make the best diamond decision at a local jeweler! Check it out and tell me what you think…

View this post on idazzle.com: idazzle Diamond Prices iPhone App is Now Free!

Full disclosure: I just released a Diamond Price iPhone application in November 2009, called idazzle Diamond Prices. Yes, we provide diamond pricing information and diamond education as well, and sell it for the same price (.99 cents). At that price, compared to the price of the app development, we should see a profit somewhere around, ohhh, 2015. So I am not reviewing this with the intent that I want to sell more units than they do. I really could care less about sales. I mostly did the app to actually be HELPFUL to consumers, and to provide some interesting cross-traffic and support the information on the idazzle website. For the idazzle Diamond Price app, we provide a suggested price that a consumer should pay IN A PHYSICAL JEWELRY STORE, and that price is slightly more than an online-only retailer for some very good reasons outlined here.

iDiamond App Features

All in all the iDiamonds App is very clear and easy to use, with the standard Apple wheel-thingy to help you scroll through various factors to come up with their Suggested Retail, and the Price Per Carat. I find it quite “light” in that they have 2 shape choices, “Round” and the very generic “Fancy”. I know from my extensive diamond pricing research that different diamond shapes have very different pricing, so I’m not sure how helpful/accurate/useful it is to lump ALL shapes other than round into one category. Also, nowhere on the app do they define the cut grade they use for their Suggested Retails. The Diamond Cut grade is simply THE most important factor in determining price. It is so important that the idazzle Diamond Price App calls out distinct pricing for four cut grades: Ideal, Very Good, Good, and Fair. The iDiamonds GIA-sponsored diamond education information is moderately helpful–it’s the same info consumers see over and over on almost any diamond website.

iDiamonds Pricing

The thing I take serious issue with is their main purpose: Diamond Prices. If their pricing is supposed to define Suggested Retail Pricing for Consumers, consumers are going to find their wallets considerably lighter if they follow the iDiamond pricing guide. My initial gut response that the prices were high was confirmed when I did a brief analysis on 4 diamond size/shape combinations. To be clear, iDiamonds talks about consumers buying at a discount from their Suggested Retails; they say the discount depends on the retail channel, cut grade, the grading lab used, and other factors. But they never define a discount (20% off their suggested price for an internet retailer, 10% off for a physical retailer, for example). It seems to me that by trying to be endorsed by the industry, they have made their pricing so high as to be completely useless. And borderline ludicrous.

I compared a certified .50 ct Round, 1.00 ct Round, 1.50 ct Asscher, and 2.00 ct Round in quality ranges most consumers would shop for. I found that for the .50 ct and 1.00 ct Rounds, their Suggested Retail prices were 54% OVER the actual price of a comparable diamond I found on Blue Nile (the 1.50 ct Asscher and 2 ct Round weren’t much better at 41% and 27% over, respectively). In comparison, the idazzle Diamond Price suggestion from my app was 3% more for the .50 ct Round and 16% more for the 1.00 ct Round. So if a .50 ct Round, H color, VS2 clarity, Very Good cut diamond sells for $1227 on Blue Nile, idazzle recommends paying $1265, and iDiamonds recommends paying $2663.50, over twice as much!

Bottom Line

Sure, you can spend the .99 cents and get the iDiamonds App. If you can glean some nugget of information from this that will help you make a better diamond decision, fantastic! But I cannot in good conscience recommend that you actually use their pricing as a guide. Please, before you purchase anything, do some research. Spend some time poking around the idazzle website. Get some idea of what online prices are, get a price or two from a reputable, local jeweler and then make an informed decision that will also be a great value.

Click on the image to be linked to the idazzle Diamond Prices iPhone App!

View this post on idazzle.com: Review of iDiamonds iPhone Application

Click on the image to be linked to the idazzle Diamond Prices iPhone App!

Diamond Prices

We have prices for 4 diamond shapes, 7 carat weight sizes, 7 colors, 7 clarities, and 4 cut grades. We have carefully researched this database to be within competitive range of the best online diamond prices. If you pay our recommended price at a local jewelry store, you are getting a great deal.

Diamond 4C’s Information

You can also access our advice and information on diamond factors that influence price. We tell you what quality range to stay within so you end up with a gorgeous diamond, without overpaying for factors that aren’t essential.

Find a Local Jeweler

If you are interested in buying a diamond at the idazzle Price, but don’t know a jeweler in your area, you can send us a request from the idazzle Diamond Prices App. We are building a database of pre-screened, reputable jewelers who are interested in giving you the best service and the best value!

idazzle wants you to make the best diamond decision at a local jeweler! Check it out and tell me what you think…

View this post on idazzle.com: idazzle Diamond Prices iPhone App Launches!

Why does this exist?  This list is intended to reduce the complexity of the diamond listings you will find online.  Many listings will show almost identical diamonds with large price variances due to the different vendors those companies buy from and their pricing algorithms.  This price list shows a rational, logical approach that tries to distill the information in a transparent way. 

I will research and update these prices each month.  I will also compare the diamond prices to previous month’s prices and will report on the relative changes through the Internet Diamond Price Index.  Because this is the first month, January 2009, the idazzle.com Index is 100.

View this post on idazzle.com: Internet Diamond Price List and Index