Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry Comparison 2023 – Which is the Best Jeweler?

Last Updated on July 9, 2023 by Rolf Hartmann

PROMO ALERT! : Free lab diamond necklace with purchases over $1000 at Brilliant Earth!

If you’re looking to purchase a diamond or diamond jewelry, then you may have come across either Jared, Brilliant Earth, or both. To help you decide if you should buy your next diamond at Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry, we’ll compare Brilliant Earth and Jared Jewelry in this review and see who comes out on top.

Brilliant Earth and Jared both sell online and in physical stores. However, Jared has a much larger offline footprint, while Brilliant Earth mostly focuses on online diamond shopping. As we’ll learn in our comparison of Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry, that makes a huge difference between the two.

Jared Jewelry generally does much better than any of its peers, such as Kay Jewelers, Helzberg Diamonds, Diamonds Direct, or Zales. But Jared still trails the best places to buy diamonds online, such as Ritani or James Allen. In the following, we’ll find out if Jared Jewelry is better than Brilliant Earth or not.

We’ll compare the diamond selection, prices, quality, and shopping experience of Brilliant Earth and Jared Jewelry, compare the pros and cons of both, and conclude with our recommended place to buy diamonds.

So keep reading to learn if you should buy at Brilliant Earth or Jared Jewelry.

A quick comparison of Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry

Introduction to Brilliant Earth

Founded in 2005, Brilliant Earth’s primary goal is to provide customers with ethical and sustainable diamond options. As one of the largest online diamond retailers, they offer a vast collection of lab-grown and mined diamonds. In addition, their San Francisco studio designs a wide range of stunning jewelry styles.

Moreover, they ensure sustainability by using recycled materials for packaging, offsetting carbon emissions, and utilizing precious recycled metals.

For more information, check out our detailed review of Brilliant Earth.

Introduction to Jared Jewelry

Jared Jewelry is part of Sterling Jewelers, founded in 1910 by Henry Shaw. It grew rapidly in the 90s and 2000s, acquiring smaller jewelers to become one of the largest in the US. Sterling was acquired by Signet in 1987 and now operates as a subsidiary. Signet is the world’s largest jewelry retailer, acquiring Zale Corporation, James Allen, and Blue Nile.

Jared stands out among the other Sterling mall brands as a more luxurious diamond jeweler usually situated outside the malls. It offers a superior and pricier shopping experience.

Sterling and Jared have faced controversy, including a class-action suit for alleged discrimination and a case about pressuring customers into services.

Read more about Jared Jewelry in our in-depth Jared Jewelry review

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry: Lab-grown diamond selection

First, we’ll compare Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry’s diamond inventory and see which has the better diamond and jewelry selection. We’ll start by reviewing Brilliant Earth’s selection and then Jared Jewelry, ending with a comparison of the two.

Brilliant Earth diamond quality and inventory

Brilliant Earth offers an enormous selection of diamonds, both mined, lab-grown, and sustainably-rated lab diamonds. The selection is not only vast but also broad and covers all fancy diamond shapes and fancy diamond colors.

In fact, Brilliant Earth boasts one of the largest inventories of high-quality lab-grown diamonds we have reviewed. Our Brilliant Earth Review found that they have over 50,000 loose lab-created diamonds. When looking for our reference diamond (see below), we found more than 400 matches in their inventory, of which most were of excellent quality.

Our reference diamond is a round brilliant-cut lab-grown diamond between 0.93-1.07 carats (tip: you can often save by going just below one full carat). The reference clarity is in the range VS1 to VS2 and with a color grade of I or J. The diamond cut grade is always the best, which for most lab-grown diamonds (certified by IGI) is ideal.

At Brilliant Earth, you can find a diverse range of jewelry designs, from timeless to modern and distinctive styles. Moreover, you can create your own diamond jewelry by choosing loose lab-grown diamonds from their vast collection. This option ensures higher diamond quality compared to pre-set diamond jewelry, which usually comes with lower-quality diamonds.

Jared Jewelry diamond quality and inventory

As it turns out, both Jared and Brilliant Earth boast a large selection of diamonds. As you can learn in our review of Jared Jewelry, their loose diamond selection is based on the same platform as that of highly-rated James Allen.

And, as a diamond jeweler, you might want to take a cue from James Allen, one of our best-rated diamond jewelers. James Allen offers an impressive 11,639 lab diamonds! But, when you compare them to Jared Jewelry’s offerings, it’s a different story. Jared only has 5,294 lab diamonds listed with the same minimum grades of excellent/ideal cut, J color, and VS clarity.

Why the big difference? Well, Jared tends to carry higher color grades overall. As a result, you’ll find plenty of D and E grades at Jared, but the selection of lower grades is lacking. For instance, if you’re looking for I or J lab diamonds with minimum VS2 clarity and ideal cut, there are only 41 options at Jared Jewelry vs. the 400+ at Brilliant Earth. But for D and E color grades, there are 4,614! That’s a lot of diamonds to choose from, but it also means you’ll likely pay too much for their high-color grades.

We think it’s a shame that Jared doesn’t offer lower-color grades, which is typically where you find the best deals on lab diamonds. D or E grades will be too expensive in most cases, and the difference between an H, G, or F won’t be noticeable. You might even be able to get away with an I or J!

One thing we do appreciate about Jared is that all their larger lab diamonds are graded ideal for the cut grade. That’s the best grade available, so it’s a big help to customers who want the best of the best. But, if you’re in the market for a smaller diamond, beware of the lab diamonds with “very good” cut grades. “Very Good” is usually not, in fact, very good.

Finally, we’ve noticed that some of Jared’s lab diamonds graded as VS1-2 aren’t exactly eye-clean. Despite the decent clarity grade, there are visible inclusions or blemishes. So, do your research and pay close attention to each diamond’s clarity grade before making your purchase.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry: Price comparison

The next section of our Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry review is to compare the prices of Jared Jewelry vs. Brilliant Earth. We’ll start with Brilliant Earth.

Brilliant Earth diamond prices

Brilliant Earth offers some of the lowest prices for loose lab-grown diamonds in the market. When compared with other price-leaders, such as Ritani and Clean Origin, Brilliant Earth’s prices are slightly higher but still competitive.

In our comparison with other diamond jewelers using our reference diamond, we found that Brilliant Earth’s prices ranged from $1,100 to $1,890. Again, this is one of the lowest prices we’ve seen, with only a few diamond sellers having slightly lower prices.

Brilliant Earth’s jewelry settings are well-priced, too, so you can pair their low-priced lab diamonds with any jewelry piece and end up with a very low total price.

The quality of their lab diamonds is fantastic, so not only will you get a great diamond, but you’ll also get it at an excellent price.

However, the prices for pre-set diamond jewelry at Brilliant Earth are mixed. They tend to be higher than the price-leaders, Ritani and Clean Origin, for some designs but on par for others, such as Grown Brilliance or James Allen, as still very reasonable considering the premium quality.

That said, we suggest you avoid purchasing pre-set jewelry at Brilliant Earth and instead use their build-your-own jewelry option to get a better diamond for the same price.

Jared Jewelry diamond prices

When comparing the prices of Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry, we’ll again use our reference diamond.

At Jared Jewelry, the 1-carat diamonds in our range start at $1,470 and go up to $2,670. But, as noted above, we have found that the diamond clarity of the cheapest diamonds at Jared seems considerably lower than their grade suggests.

So, after inspecting their available loose diamonds, the minimum price for a 1-carat lab diamond at Jared with decent clarity is closer to $1,800. In comparison, Ritani, Clean Origin, Grown Brilliance, and With Clarity all offer high-quality 1-carat lab diamonds for under $1000, while James Allen and Brilliant Earth start at $1000 for excellent 1-carat lab diamonds.

Thus, Jared is significantly more expensive than any of our recommended best places to buy lab diamonds, including Brilliant Earth. However, prices are not as high as expected for a typical mall jeweler. See, for example, much higher prices at Diamonds Direct or Zales.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry price summary

As we compared Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry diamond prices, we found that prices at Brilliant Earth are slightly higher than those of Ritani or Clean Origin but still very competitive.

However, the prices at Jared Jewelry are higher than at Brilliant Earth and what we have found at our best-rated diamond jewelers. But, compared to most other mall jewelers, the prices at Jared are actually pretty decent. Even so, we recommend Brilliant Earth over Jared Jewelry for diamond prices.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry: Shopping experience

The shopping experience and the ability to inspect the prospective diamonds are crucial when purchasing a diamond. In this comparison, we will examine the buying experience at Brilliant Earth versus Jared Jewelry.

The Brilliant Earth shopping experience

The shopping experience at Brilliant Earth is top-notch. Their website is user-friendly and easy to navigate. You can easily find all the necessary information to evaluate diamond quality, except for the diamond certificates, which are low-quality but are still legible.

What sets Brilliant Earth apart is its exceptional diamond inspection and the expert support trained gemologists provide. You can contact them via email or chat or set up a virtual meeting where they guide you.

Moreover, Brilliant Earth offers a unique service for building your own diamond jewelry. Unlike other jewelers, they allow you to design almost any type of diamond jewelry. This is highly recommended, as choosing your own diamond pairing ensures that you get a high-quality diamond and avoid subpar pre-set pairings.

Building your own diamond jewelry at Brilliant Earth is effortless, but should you require any assistance, their highly qualified support team is readily available.

In addition to online shopping, Brilliant Earth has 19 physical locations across America.

The Jared Jewelry shopping experience

When comparing the shopping experience between Jared Jewelry and Brilliant Earth, it’s important to note that Brilliant Earth is online-first, while Jared is first and foremost a physical diamond retailer.

As a physical retailer, Jared has positioned itself as an upscale version of the mall jewelers, distancing itself from fellow Signet jewelers Kay and Zales (and more recently-acquired Diamonds Direct). And the shopping experience at Jared does feel a little more premium when visiting their stores.

But we recommend shopping online. That’s because not only will you find better prices, the shopping experience will be better. While sitting on your couch, you can compare thousands of diamonds side by side and inspect diamond grading reports and magnified HD images. At diamond jewelers such as Grown Brilliance and James Allen, you can even see how the specific diamonds will look in various settings. And you don’t have to deal with pushy salespeople.

The online shopping experience at Jared Jewelry is mixed. As we previously mentioned in our Jared vs. Brilliant Earth comparison, the user experience shopping for loose diamonds replicates James Allen’s. And that’s good.

Unfortunately, the inventory is smaller and more expensive. But, the shopping experience itself is pretty good, even if some James Allen features are lacking.

The platform for finding loose diamonds can also be used to create a custom diamond ring. And that works really well, too. The selection of ring settings is pretty decent, allowing you to pair the perfect diamond and ring design. Unlike James Allen’s advanced ring designer tool, you’ll only be able to see the ring set with a stock diamond photo.

When searching for pre-set diamond jewelry, Jared Jewelry uses the same platform and user interface as Kay and Zales. And that’s not good.

It looks like something created around the turn of the millennium. And what’s worse, the features are limited, the information is lacking, and the options are few. So, if you want to “customize” anything other than a diamond ring, this is where you will do that. For example, if you are shopping for diamond stud earrings.

However, the options are minimal, and you cannot pick the diamond you would like, even though Jared Jewelry does offer a selection of loose diamonds. You can only choose specific ranges, which, by the way, lack key pieces of diamond quality information.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry shopping experience summary

In our comparison of the shopping experiences at Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry, we have found that Brilliant Earth delivers regardless of customizing jewelry, buying loose diamonds, or searching for pre-set jewelry.

Conversely, the online shopping experience at Jared Jewelry was only positive when searching for loose diamonds or customizing rings. When looking for anything else, it was severely lacking. Brilliant Earth clearly wins this round.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry: Sustainability

Brilliant Earth, along with Vrai and Pandora, are leaders in sustainability and ethical diamond retail. But what about Jared Jewelry? In the following, we’ll compare Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry to learn who provides the more sustainable diamond options.

Brilliant Earth sustainability

Brilliant Earth is wholly committed to sustainability, ethical practices, and eco-friendliness. They were founded to offer conscious diamond consumers a better choice when it comes to ethical diamonds and to challenge the diamond industry to impact society positively.

Brilliant Earth offers a wide range of diamonds, including both mined and lab-created. While we believe that lab-grown diamonds are invariably the ethical choice, we’re happy to report that Brilliant Earth also offers a selection of ethically mined diamonds, an improvement over traditionally mined diamonds (even if it’s sometimes an enigma).

But more importantly, Brilliant Earth also sells sustainably graded lab-grown diamonds produced using sustainable energy sources and following specific guidelines. While the selection is still somewhat limited, it puts us on par with other sustainable diamond industry leaders, such as Vrai.

Brilliant Earth’s commitment to sustainability extends beyond just diamonds. They take great care to limit their environmental impact, using sustainable and carbon-neutral packaging and recycled metals in our jewelry production.

Read more about their commitment to sustainability in our Brilliant Earth review.

Jared Jewelry sustainability

Compared to Brilliant Earth, Jared Jewelry does not advertise diamond sustainability. Jared has published a few pages about sustainable and conflict-free sourcing on their website, but they do not go in-depth and seem more like an afterthought.

Jared mainly refers to Signet’s being a signatory to various protocols that, at best, limit sustainability issues.

Unlike Brilliant Earth, Jared Jewelry does not actively promote sustainability, they do not push lab-grown diamonds, the more sustainable diamond choice, nor do they go out o their way to ensure sustainable practices from sourcing to packaging.

Regarding sustainability, Brilliant Earth is far ahead of Jared Jewelry.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry: Shipping and Returns

Brilliant Earth provides free shipping with FedEx on all US, Canadian, UK, and Australian orders. Jared Jewelry offers free 2nd-day delivery with UPS on all orders. Shipping should be complimentary on high-ticket purchases such as diamonds, so it’s great to see that both Brilliant Earth and Jared Jewelry ship free, though we would have liked to see free overnight delivery.

Brilliant Earth and Jared Jewelry offer 30 days of free returns, including free return shipping. Again, this is industry average and should be expected, but Jared stands out here compared to many of its mall-favorite peers. However, both fall behind compared to Clean Origin’s impressive 100-day return period.

Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry: Pros and Cons

Below we have listed the pros and cons of Jared Jewelry vs. Brilliant Earth for you to better decide between the two.

What we like about Brilliant Earth (Pros)

What we don’t like about Brilliant Earth (Cons)

What we like about Jared Jewelry (Pros)

What we don’t like about Jared Jewelry (Cons)

Summary Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry Comparison

Who came out best in our Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry review? If you didn’t just skip to the conclusion, you would not be surprised to learn that Brilliant Earth is much better than Jared Jewelry.

If you did skip ahead, that’s OK. We’ll summarize our experiences with Brilliant Earth and Jared Jewelry below.

When it comes to diamond selection and inventory, Brilliant Earth offers a much more extensive selection of diamonds, particularly lab-created diamonds, than Jared does. That said, we were impressed by the selection of loose diamonds and, not least, the shopping experience when searching for them. In continuation of this, the ring customization options were great too. But, of course, that is not surprising since they’re built on James Allen’s software.

Unfortunately, when it comes to any other diamond jewelry, Jared is far behind. Instead of relying on James Allen’s platform, Jared uses the same as Kay and Zales (read our Kay review and Zales review to learn why that is not good).

When it comes to prices, again, Brilliant Earth is ahead. Jared Jewelry is cheaper than comparable physical jewelry stores but way behind online jewelers. Including Brilliant Earth. Expect to pay a considerable premium at Jared compared to Brilliant Earth.

The only area in which Jared and Brilliant Earth perform similarly is in shipping and returns, where Jared impressed us with similar offerings as some of the best places to buy diamonds online.

But, in the sustainability category of our Brilliant Earth vs. Jared Jewelry review, Jared again falls behind. While Brilliant Earth is one of the leading diamond jewelers within sustainability, Jared does not keep up with the industry standard either.

So, if you are looking for the best of the mall jewelers, Jared Jewelry is probably the best option. But why settle for less and not buy online, save, and get a better diamond?

If so, consider Brilliant Earth, which is significantly better than Jared Jewelry – and one of our recommended best places to buy diamond engagement rings and lab-grown diamonds.

More diamond seller comparisons and reviews

At LabGrownCarats.com, we review diamond sellers with a particular focus on lab-created diamonds. We hope to help you find the best places to purchase diamond jewelry and the perfect lab-grown diamond. We compare diamond sellers in our vs. reviews to help you decide between specific jewelers – should you be split.

Read our review of Brilliant Earth vs. Vrai to learn which sustainable diamond jewelers are better.