In an industry famous for opaque pricing, one New York jewelry brand has built its entire operation around doing the opposite.
True Sanity, a fine jewelry e-commerce brand based in Manhattan, publishes a full cost breakdown on every product it sells. On any given product page, shoppers can see the cost of the stone, the cost of the metal setting, the labor, the shipping, and the margin the company takes on the sale. The practice, which the founder calls “radical transparency,” is a sharp break from the standard retail model that has governed the jewelry business for decades.
“The traditional jewelry model is built on information asymmetry,” founder Amit Jhalani said in a recent interview. “Customers are kept in the dark about actual costs, material sourcing, and production expenses. Our approach is the exact opposite. We show everything.”
Jhalani, a third-generation jeweler who has been in the trade since 1996, launched True Sanity after a conversation with a close friend who assumed Jhalani had made $8,000 in profit on a $10,000 engagement ring sale. He had not, but the assumption itself stayed with him. If his own best friend believed that about the industry, he reasoned, strangers believed worse.
The model he eventually built was borrowed from outside the jewelry world entirely. “A fashion retailer I admired was publishing their full cost breakdowns on t-shirts and jeans,” Jhalani said. “I thought, if they can do that with a $30 shirt, we can do it with a $3,000 ring.”
A category shift toward colored stones
Beyond its pricing model, True Sanity has reported unexpected growth in categories that have historically been considered secondary to the traditional white diamond. Colored gemstones, particularly sapphires, have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the brand’s business.
Jhalani points to a combination of generational preference change and better information access as the drivers. “Buyers today do not assume a diamond is the only option,” he said. “They want something that feels personal, and they want to know what it costs. Those two factors point directly at colored stones.”
The brand’s women’s sapphire rings collection has become one of its most-visited categories, with offerings spanning classic cornflower blue, pink, yellow, teal, and rare color-changing varieties. Industry observers have noted that sapphires carry practical advantages beyond aesthetics. They rank a 9 on the Mohs hardness scale, second only to diamonds, which makes them suitable for daily wear. And on a per-carat basis, they offer substantially better value than natural diamonds in comparable settings.
An industry under pressure
True Sanity’s growth comes as the broader fine jewelry industry faces mounting pressure from more informed consumers. Younger buyers in particular are asking questions that previous generations rarely did, including direct questions about retail markup, stone sourcing, and ethical supply chain practices.
“The question I get now that I never used to get is ‘what did you pay for this?'” Jhalani said. “That question is here to stay. Brands that cannot answer it honestly will lose share to brands that can.”
The company, which operates from an office in Manhattan’s Diamond District, declined to share specific revenue figures but confirmed that it has expanded its product catalog significantly over the past year, with collections now spanning engagement rings, wedding bands, sapphires, emeralds, and black diamonds.
What comes next
Industry watchers suggest the transparency trend in fine jewelry is likely to accelerate, with direct-to-consumer brands continuing to erode the market share of traditional retail chains. Whether True Sanity’s full-disclosure approach becomes the new industry standard or remains an outlier is still an open question. But the response from buyers, Jhalani said, has been consistent.
“People do not want to be told they cannot ask,” he said. “When you show them everything, they buy with confidence. They come back. They refer friends. The old model survived because customers had no choice. They have one now.”