Last updated: October 2026
By Jack Lv, General Manager — 925 sterling silver and GRA moissanite manufacturing in Foshan since 2011
A factory quote for silver jewelry is a stack of cost lines rather than a single price, and the lines behave differently. Silver, stones, hand work, plating, packaging and freight grow with the order, while tooling, artwork setup and testing setup are largely fixed and dilute as quantity rises. Decompose every quote into the same lines, confirm the specification behind each line, and competing quotes become comparable instead of merely different.
Because every line in it is a choice: the alloy, the finished weight, the plating thickness, the stone grade, the quantity tier and the Incoterm. Two quotes differ because the choices differ, and a single number hides which choice moved.
Buyers can receive quotes that differ by a large multiple on what looks like the same ring. In most cases nobody is being generous and nobody is being dishonest. The quotes describe different objects: a different silver weight, a different stone grade, a different plating thickness, different packaging, a different delivery term, a different order quantity. The word price is doing too much work in that comparison.
The way to compare is to pull each quote apart into the same cost lines and confirm what sits behind each one. A quote that cannot be broken down is not a cheaper quote, it is an incomplete one, and the missing information will reappear later as a change order, a re-quote or a shipment that does not match the sample.
At Nabest the minimum order is 10 pieces per style, the price tiers are 10 pieces at list price, 50 pieces at 3% off and 100 pieces at 6% off, and quotes are returned within 24 hours Monday to Saturday, GMT+8. Those facts alone explain a large part of why a unit price taken out of context is meaningless: it is attached to a quantity, a specification and a moment in time.
Metal priced off finished weight, labour and setting, plating, packaging, tooling where applicable, and freight to the agreed Incoterm. In 925 silver, 92.5% is silver and the remaining 7.5% is usually copper, so the metal line is driven by weight and by the prevailing silver market rather than by the factory.
The table below is the structure most factories work from, whether or not they show it to you. Ask for it in this form and the arithmetic becomes checkable.
| Cost line | What it covers | Does it dilute with quantity? |
|---|---|---|
| Silver | The metal in the piece, priced off the finished weight and the prevailing silver market. In 925 silver, 92.5% is silver and the remaining 7.5% is usually copper. | Partly. Metal per piece is constant, but a larger run loses less to setup and casting yield. |
| Stones | Loose moissanite or cubic zirconia bought as cut stones and set into the piece. Moissanite is silicon carbide, hardness 9.25 on the Mohs scale; cubic zirconia is ZrO2 at 8 to 8.5. | Partly, and only if the size and grade stay identical. Changing either changes the price more than volume does. |
| Labour | Casting, filing, setting, polishing and assembly time, plus the setup that precedes a run. | Partly. Setup is once per run and dilutes. Hand setting and polishing minutes per piece do not. |
| Plating | The rhodium, platinum or gold-tone finish applied after polishing. Thickness is measured in microns. | Partly. The bath and its setup are fixed. The plating time per piece is not. |
| Packaging | Box, pouch, care card, labels and any printed or embossed branding. | Barely, and custom print carries its own setup charge. |
| Tooling and mould | A new mould or master when the design is not already running in the factory. | No. It is a one-off, charged once or amortised across the run. |
| Testing | Material verification, plating thickness checks, and any report the buyer needs for their market or their own customer. | No per run and yes per model. A report covers a model, not a piece count. |
| Freight and duty | Courier to the destination and, under DDP, import duty and clearance. Under DDU the buyer clears and pays duty on arrival. | Partly. Weight and box size scale; documentation and clearance are largely fixed. |
| Payment handling | Bank charges on a T/T, or platform fees on a card or wallet payment. | No. It is a transaction cost, not a production cost. |
Volume dilutes labour and packaging; it does not dilute metal, because metal scales with the piece. That is why a large quantity discount on a silver item is smaller than buyers expect, and why a supplier offering a deep discount at volume is usually changing the weight.
Dilution is a property of setup. Anything done once for a run, whether it is cutting a mould, colour-matching a plating, preparing artwork for a printed box or writing up a test report, is spread across the units in that run. The larger the run, the smaller that line becomes per piece. This is why the same design quoted at 10 pieces and at 100 pieces can show a visibly different unit price even when the factory's margin is identical.
Per-piece cost does not dilute. The silver in the piece, the stone in the setting, the minutes of hand work, the box the piece ships in: these are multiplied by quantity, not divided by it. A line that falls dramatically with volume for no stated reason is usually a line whose specification changed somewhere between the competing quotes.
Because a higher quote may carry more metal, thicker plating, a better stone grade or a defined defect remedy. The useful comparison is cost per acceptable piece delivered, not cost per piece quoted.
A higher quote usually differs on measurable things rather than on service. More silver in the same silhouette. A higher stone grade with fewer visible inclusions. Thicker plating and additional polishing stages. Branded packaging instead of a plain box. A delivery term that includes duty. A test report that has to be issued before the goods leave.
Each of those is a real cost and a real difference in the object that arrives on your shelf. The honest version of the same argument runs in the other direction as well, and it is worth writing down: a thinner plating and a tighter silver weight both reduce the price and both change how the piece feels in the hand and how long it keeps its colour. Ask what was removed, not only what was added.
| What differs | Cost effect | What the buyer sees |
|---|---|---|
| Silver weight target | Direct: more metal, more material cost | A heavier feel. A hollow build costs less and feels lighter. |
| Stone grade and cut | Higher grade costs more per stone | Brighter, more consistent stones across the whole run |
| Plating thickness in microns | Thicker plating costs more and takes longer | Even colour at edges, inside the shank and at contact points |
| Finish steps | More polishing stages cost labour time | A cleaner interior and fewer visible tool marks |
| Packaging | A branded box and printed card cost more per unit | Retail-ready presentation with no repacking in your warehouse |
| Delivery term | DDP includes duty and clearance, DDU does not | Cost and paperwork arrive at different points in the journey |
| Testing scope | A report per model or per stone costs money | Documentation your market or your customer may ask to see |
| Order quantity | Setup dilutes across more units | A lower unit price at an unchanged specification |
Ask for the finished weight, the plating thickness in microns, the stone grade, the quantity tier and the Incoterm on every quote. Then ask which lines are compulsory. Five answers on one page make two quotes comparable; without them you are comparing two assumptions.
Decomposition is only part of the job. The rest is anchoring every quote to the same specification, so that a difference in price can be traced to a difference in content. These are the questions that do most of that work.
Yes, once you know what you are buying. A template fixes the line items and the units, which removes the supplier's freedom to present an incomplete price, and it makes a later price change visible line by line instead of as a single new number.
The fastest way to stop comparing different things is to send your own structure and ask the factory to fill it in. A supplier who can answer a structured request is a supplier who understands what they are quoting, and a supplier who cannot is a risk you have found before the deposit rather than after the shipment.
A workable template asks for: metal and purity; confirmed weight per piece; stone material, size, grade and certification; setting method; plating type and thickness in microns; surface finish; packaging contents; unit price at each quantity tier; tooling cost and whether it is refundable or absorbed; testing and any report supplied; delivery term and who pays duty; lead time for sampling and for bulk; and payment terms. Nabest quotes sampling at 5 to 7 days and bulk production at 15 to 20 days after sample approval, and states those figures in the quote so the schedule is not a separate negotiation.
A price below the silver content of the piece, a missing plating thickness, an unstated stone grade, and a quote with no validity date. Each of them means the number will move before the order ships.
At Nabest the minimum order is 10 pieces per style, the price tiers are 10 pieces at list price, 50 pieces at 3% off and 100 pieces at 6% off, and quotes are returned within 24 hours Monday to Saturday. Stock items start from 1 piece, which is how a buyer can test a style before committing to a custom run.
Nabest is a Foshan factory working in 925 silver and VVS moissanite, founded in 2011. The plant covers 3,000 square metres, runs 6 production lines, has a capacity of 15,000 pieces a month and employs a team of over 300 people, serving more than 3,000 customers across over 200 countries and regions. The minimum order is 10 pieces per style, which keeps a first order small enough to test a design without paying for a full run.
Every quote names the metal, the stone, the plating, the finish, the packaging and the delivery term, and returns within 24 hours Monday to Saturday, GMT+8. Sampling runs 5 to 7 days and bulk production 15 to 20 days after approval, with both DDP and DDU available. Quality control follows the four-inspection system, IQC then IPQC then FQC then OQC, with an XRF spectrometer, a precision balance, calipers and magnification on the bench, so the properties a quote is priced on are the properties that can be verified before dispatch.
The cheapest site is the one whose landed cost per acceptable piece is lowest, which is rarely the one with the lowest listed unit price. A listed price excludes duty, freight, plating thickness differences and the cost of replacing a rejected batch, and those four items routinely exceed the gap between two listed prices. Compare on landed cost per acceptable piece at the quantity you will actually order, and treat any listing that does not state the silver weight and the plating thickness as unquotable rather than cheap.
Because competing quotes usually describe different specifications. Common causes are silver weight, stone grade and size, plating thickness, packaging, the delivery term and the order quantity the price is based on. Ask each supplier for a line-by-line breakdown against the same specification, and the gap resolves into visible content differences rather than a mystery.
Ask for both, at the quantity tier you intend to order. The unit price is what you compare across suppliers, and the order total is what you actually pay. A unit price quoted at a larger tier than you will order is the most common way a comparison becomes misleading.
Normalise the stone line first. Ask for the material name rather than a trade name, the size in millimetres, the grade and how the stones are certified. Moissanite is silicon carbide and cubic zirconia is ZrO2, and they are not interchangeable at the same price. Until the stone line matches, the rest of the comparison is not meaningful.
It reduces the fixed lines, such as tooling, plating setup, packaging artwork and testing setup, because they are spread across more units. It does not reduce the variable lines, which grow in step with quantity. If the unit price fall looks larger than the fixed lines can explain, check whether the specification changed between the competing prices.
Ask for one before you pay anything. A factory that knows its own costs can list metal, stones, labour, plating, packaging, tooling, testing and freight. If a supplier cannot, you have no way to test a re-quote later in the project, and no way to know what a design change will cost.
Send your design, size and quantity — factory quote back within 24 hours. Reference: General enquiry