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Buying decision

Where and When to Buy an Engagement Ring

Last verified · How we are paid

The short answer

Read the exclusions before the percentage. Blue Nile's discount does not reach a loose diamond. With Clarity's skips natural stones. Brilliant Earth does not discount rings at all. Price the stone and the setting as two separate decisions.

Where to buy

It depends on the stone. Blue Nile has the dated discount and a lifetime upgrade covering IGI and GIA diamonds. Brilliant Earth does not discount, it adds a gift. Costco sells natural diamonds only and guarantees VS2 clarity and I color or better. 2 4 6 9

When to buy

One real deadline. Blue Nile's up-to-25% off engagement ring settings ends at 11:59 PM EST on September 14, 2026, and excludes loose diamonds. With Clarity says its sale runs until further notice. Brilliant Earth says holidays bring a gift, not a discount. 2 6 7

Codes

One code is worth typing. Brilliant Earth's STUDS adds quarter-carat lab diamond studs, a stated $200 value, on a purchase over $1,000. It does not reduce the ring price. With Clarity states its own sale needs no code at all. 6 7

Cards

Watch the store card. With Clarity's Synchrony card lists a 34.99% purchase APR for new accounts, on a deferred-interest promo: miss the promo period and interest is charged on the promo balance. We found no rewards card offer here worth citing. 8

Where to buy it

Retailer Cashback Code Good for Watch out
Blue Nile 2 3 4 5 — — The buyer who wants a discount with a date on it and the option to trade up later. Three offers run until 11:59 PM EST on September 14, 2026: up to 25% off select engagement ring settings, up to 40% off select jewelry, up to 50% off select James Allen Collection jewelry. Blue Nile also runs a lifetime diamond upgrade program on all IGI and GIA-graded diamonds, and will consider price matches against a competitor diamond whose grading report was issued within the last two years. The discount excludes loose diamonds, loose gemstones, Design Your Own Diamond Jewelry, custom orders and Clear the Vault styles, so on a build-your-own ring it reaches the setting and not the stone. The upgrade program requires the new diamond to cost at least twice the original. Returns run 30 days from the shipment date, which Blue Nile notes is not the delivery date.
Brilliant Earth 6 — STUDS Quarter-carat lab diamond studs, 1/4 ct. tw., a stated $200 value, on a purchase over $1,000. Entered in cart. Available online and in stores. The site marks it ENDS SOON without giving a date. 6 The buyer who would rather have a fixed price than a percentage sign. Brilliant Earth states it prices its rings and diamonds fairly from the start rather than marking items up to mark them down, and that for Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday it gifts jewelry instead of running a sale. Free FedEx shipping both ways, free 30-day returns for exchange or refund, free lifetime warranty and a lifetime diamond upgrade are listed as standard. If you are shopping for a headline percentage you will not find one here, by their own statement. The gift offers are tied to spending thresholds: studs over $1,000 with the code, silver studs over $250 for verified students, silver studs over $150 for verified medical, first responder, military and teaching staff.
With Clarity 7 8 — — The buyer who wants the ring in hand before committing. With Clarity charges $200 for a replica of your chosen ring in your size with free shipping, and converts that $200 into a gift card toward the real ring if the replica goes back within 7 days. Its End of Summer Sale is up to 25% off with no code needed, returns run 30 days from receipt with prepaid insured postage, and a lifetime warranty is listed. The sale excludes natural diamonds and the Reserve Collection, and With Clarity states it is valid until further notice and may be modified at its discretion, so there is no deadline to plan around. The replica money comes back as a gift card, not cash. Their financing is a Synchrony store card at a 34.99% purchase APR for new accounts, with a deferred-interest promo structure.
Costco 9 — — The buyer who wants a floor under the quality and does not want to learn the grading system. Costco states that every diamond it supplies is VS2 clarity or better and I color or better, with a cut grade of Good to Excellent, and that it sells only natural, untreated diamonds. A 1.00 ct or larger center stone comes with a GIA Diamond Grading Report. Under 1.00 ct you do not get a GIA report. You get a Costco Article of Description written by one of their own gemologists, who holds a GIA degree. That is a different document. There are no lab-grown diamonds here by their own statement, and no design-your-own path.
Diamond Veneer 10 11 15% ◆ — Not a diamond, and it says so. Diamond Veneer sells cubic zirconia and simulated-diamond engagement rings, listed between roughly $90 and $250, with free shipping over $100. Two honest uses: a stand-in while you choose the real stone together, and a copy to wear on holiday instead of the real one. If you want a diamond, this row is not for you. Their site shows a first-order newsletter discount as 10% in one place and 15% in another, so take the number from whichever box you actually sign up through. Our own store page for this merchant carries the 15% figure and notes that a secondary 5% rate applies to certain transaction types.

◆ Cashback rates and codes without a footnote come from Tenmomo's own affiliate-network feed, re-read on the date shown under Last verified.

When to buy it

Now through 11:59 PM EST, September 14, 2026 (Blue Nile)
Up to 25% off select engagement ring settings, up to 40% off select jewelry and up to 50% off select James Allen Collection jewelry. All three carry the same deadline and the same exclusions: no loose diamonds, no loose gemstones, no Design Your Own, no custom orders, no Clear the Vault styles, and no combining with another offer. 2
Undated, marked ENDS SOON (Brilliant Earth)
The STUDS code adds quarter-carat lab diamond studs on a purchase over $1,000. The banner says ENDS SOON and the page gives no end date, so there is no deadline to work back from. 6
Open ended, valid until further notice (With Clarity)
The End of Summer Sale runs up to 25% off with no code, excluding natural diamonds and the Reserve Collection. With Clarity states the offer remains valid until further notice and may be discontinued or modified at its discretion. 7
The holiday calendar, per Brilliant Earth
Brilliant Earth names Valentine's Day, Memorial Day, Labor Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and states that on those days it gifts jewelry with a purchase rather than running a sale that reduces the price. If you were waiting for a holiday markdown from this retailer, they have said in writing there is not one. 6
Second quarter 2026 (lab-grown wholesale)
Wholesale lab-grown prices fell an average of 13% year over year, a milder drop than the 14% recorded in the first quarter. Waiting has been paying on lab-grown, but by less each quarter. 1
First quarter 2026 (lab-grown wholesale)
Midstream prices for loose lab-grown diamonds fell 14% year over year. A three-carat VVS D color round went for $126 per carat in that period, 30% cheaper than in 2025. 1
Full year 2025, and the run since 2018
The same wholesale index logged a 26% decline across 2025, and is down 96% since tracking began in 2018. The steepest recent drops landed on bigger sizes. 1

The long answer

The discount usually does not touch the stone

On a build-your-own ring the diamond is most of the money, and that is the part the percentage tends to skip. Blue Nile's sale terms exclude loose diamonds, loose gemstones and Design Your Own Diamond Jewelry, which leaves the setting. With Clarity's sale excludes natural diamonds. Brilliant Earth does not run a ring discount at all and says so on its own promotions page. Three retailers, three different exclusions, and in each case the headline number is smaller than it looks once you price a specific ring. Read the asterisk before you compare. 2 6 7

Wholesale collapsed. The retail markup did not.

This is the fact that changes how you shop. Diamond industry analyst Edahn Golan's wholesale index for loose lab-grown diamonds is down 96% since he began tracking in 2018, with a 26% decline across 2025 and 14% and 13% year-over-year drops in the first two quarters of 2026. But analyst Paul Zimnisky's May 2026 retail margin work found retailers still capturing a markup of more than 80% above wholesale, a figure that moved only one or two points between 2025 and 2026. Meanwhile the ratio of lab-grown inventory to sales at US jewelry retailers has climbed from the high single digits in 2020 to nearly half. The wholesale drop is real and it is largely not being passed on, which is an argument for shopping several retailers hard rather than assuming any of them has already given you the discount. 1

Upgrade programs have a price floor built in

A lifetime upgrade sounds like a free option and is closer to a trade-in with a minimum. Blue Nile runs its program on all IGI and GIA-graded diamonds, and the new selection has to cost at least twice the original. You can trade one diamond for several or the other way round, as long as the new total doubles the old, and you can move between natural and lab-grown in either direction. That is worth knowing before you talk yourself into a smaller stone on the theory that upgrading later is easy. Upgrading later means spending at least double. 4

The return clock starts at different moments

All three online retailers here list 30 days, and they do not all mean the same thing. Blue Nile counts 30 days from the shipment date and states in its own eligibility text that this begins when the order ships, not when it is delivered. With Clarity counts 30 days from receipt. Brilliant Earth lists free 30-day returns for an exchange or full refund with free shipping both ways. On a purchase that often sits in a drawer waiting for the right evening, the difference between shipment and receipt is real days off your decision window. 3 6 7

A certificate is not always a certificate

Costco is explicit about this and it is worth reading before assuming. A Costco diamond under 1.00 ct comes with a Costco Article of Description, written by one of their gemologists who holds a GIA degree. At 1.00 ct or larger the center stone comes with an actual GIA Diamond Grading Report plus a separate jewelry report. Both are real documents and only one of them is third-party grading. Elsewhere, Blue Nile's upgrade program treats IGI and GIA reports as equally eligible, so both labs are in normal use across the market. 4 9

Why only one row on this page pays us

We list cashback only where we can pay it and prove the rate. Of the retailers worth sending you to for a diamond, none is a partner of ours, so those rows earn us nothing and are ranked above the one row that does. Diamond Veneer is a partner and sits last, because it sells simulants rather than diamonds and most people reading this want a diamond. If that ordering ever inverts, the page has stopped being useful.

Questions people ask

Where is the best place to buy an engagement ring?

It depends which trade-off you want. Blue Nile for a dated discount on settings and a lifetime upgrade. Brilliant Earth if you would rather have a fixed price and a gift than a percentage. Costco for a guaranteed quality floor on a natural stone. With Clarity if you want to try a replica first. 2 4 6 7 9

When do engagement rings go on sale?

Less predictably than most categories. Blue Nile has a hard deadline of September 14, 2026 on its current offers. With Clarity states its sale is valid until further notice. Brilliant Earth says that on the major holidays it gifts jewelry instead of discounting. Only one of those three is a date you can plan around. 2 6 7

Are lab-grown diamonds still getting cheaper?

At wholesale, yes, and by less each quarter: down 14% year over year in the first quarter of 2026 and 13% in the second, after a 26% fall across 2025. At retail the picture is different. Analysis published in May 2026 found retailers still taking a markup of more than 80% above wholesale. 1

Is there a working promo code for an engagement ring?

One that we could verify on the retailer's own page. Brilliant Earth's STUDS adds lab diamond studs of 1/4 ct. total weight, a stated $200 value, on a purchase over $1,000. It is a gift, not money off the ring. With Clarity states its sale needs no code, and Blue Nile's terms say its offers cannot be combined with a promotional code. 2 6 7

Should I use the jeweler's own financing?

Read the APR first. With Clarity's store card is issued by Synchrony Bank and lists a 34.99% purchase APR for new accounts as of 07/31/2025, with a $2 minimum interest charge and a 39.99% penalty APR. The promotional balance is deferred interest, so clearing it late means interest on the promo balance rather than none. 8

Sources

  1. JCK — Lab-Grown Diamond Wholesale Prices Are in Freefall, Sam Cooley, August 10, 2026 — accessed 2026-09-01
  2. Blue Nile — Promotion Sale Terms and Conditions — accessed 2026-09-01
  3. Blue Nile — 30-Day Free Returns and Exchanges — accessed 2026-09-01
  4. Blue Nile — Diamond Upgrade Program — accessed 2026-09-01
  5. Blue Nile — Diamond Price Match — accessed 2026-09-01
  6. Brilliant Earth — Promo Codes and Offers — accessed 2026-09-01
  7. With Clarity — Our Policies, including sale terms and returns — accessed 2026-09-01
  8. With Clarity — Financing and store credit card terms — accessed 2026-09-01
  9. Costco — Jewelry Buying Guide: Diamonds, standards and certification — accessed 2026-09-01
  10. Diamond Veneer — CZ and simulated-diamond engagement rings — accessed 2026-09-01
  11. Tenmomo — our own Diamond Veneer store page, where our 15% rate is published — accessed 2026-09-01

How we are paid

One row on this page earns us a commission: Diamond Veneer, and it is last. Blue Nile, Brilliant Earth, With Clarity and Costco are not partners of ours at all, so we earn nothing whichever of them you choose, and all four are ranked above the row that does pay us, because for a diamond they are the better answer. The order here is by what serves the buyer. Nothing on this page is placed or paid for, and no retailer has seen it.

What we don't cover

  • James Allen. Its site served us a bot challenge instead of the page, and we do not answer those, so it gets no row. Blue Nile sells a James Allen Collection, which is where the name appears here.
  • Ritani, which returned an error to us rather than a page.
  • What other cashback portals pay at these retailers. We do not track that.
  • Resale value. We found no source we could open on what a lab-grown or natural stone fetches secondhand, so this page says nothing about it.
  • Ring prices. We list terms, deadlines and exclusions, never a price, because a price here would be out of date within the week.
  • Whether any of these offers return next year, and on what dates. We are recording what is live on 2026-09-01.
  • IGI's own published standards. Its site returned an error to us, so what this page says about IGI comes from what retailers state about which reports they accept.
  • Independent local jewelers, estate and vintage dealers, and auction. Some of them beat everything on this page and none of them can be checked from a browser.

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