Moissanite Statistics 2026

Updated November 2026. By Samuel Madrid, founder of Miami The Jeweler.

You can find plenty of moissanite numbers online. Few of them lead back to a survey, a dataset or a legal filing you can check yourself. We pulled the figures that do, put them next to the ones that don't, and marked each with its source, its year and what it measures. Some of this data cuts against moissanite. We kept it in.

Key moissanite statistics

  • Six market research firms put the 2025 moissanite market anywhere from $39.7 million to $62.98 billion. The highest estimate is about 1,600 times the lowest.
  • About 10% of engagement rings have a non-diamond center stone, and moissanite leads that group at 24% (The Knot). That works out to 2 or 3 of every 100 engagement rings.
  • Moissanite reached 28% of non-diamond center stones in The Knot's 2021 study, and 35% among Gen Z couples.
  • In BriteCo's insurance appraisal data, moissanite made up 6.2% of colored gemstone pieces in 2019, peaked at 14.3% in 2023 and fell to 9.3% in the first half of 2026.
  • Lab-grown diamonds reached 51% of newly appraised engagement rings in the first half of 2026, up from 5.9% in 2019 (BriteCo).
  • Charles & Colvard, which describes itself as the original creator of lab-grown moissanite, filed for Chapter 11 on March 2, 2026. Its assets sold at a court-approved auction for $2.7 million in June.
  • Moissanite has a dispersion of 0.104, about 2.4 times diamond's 0.044, and rates 9.25 on the Mohs hardness scale against diamond's 10 (GIA).

How big is the moissanite market?

No public dataset measures it, and the paid reports contradict each other. Here is what six firms published for 2025:

Research firm What it measures 2025 size Forecast
Global Growth Insights Moissanite $39.7 million $85.71 million by 2035
PW Consulting Moissanite $215.0 million $344.79 million by 2032
Reports and Data Moissanite $428.6 million $812.4 million by 2035
Marketintelo Moissanite jewelry $1.2 billion $2.3 billion by 2034
Dataintelo Moissanite (jewelry, industrial and other uses) $1.8 billion $4.1 billion by 2034
The Insight Partners Moissanite $62.98 billion $123.5 billion by 2034

Three problems explain the spread.

The firms count different things. Some count loose stones. Marketintelo counts finished jewelry, whose price includes metal and labor. Dataintelo adds industrial uses of silicon carbide.

Some reports contradict themselves. Reports and Data gives a 6.6% growth rate for 2025 to 2035 in its synopsis and 11.5% for 2024 to 2034 in its FAQ. PW Consulting's regional table gives North America $0.01 million, or 0.00% of the market, while Reports and Data names North America the largest region.

The top estimate fails a scale check. At $62.98 billion, moissanite would be about 70% the size of the natural diamond jewelry market, which Dataintelo puts above $88 billion for 2024.

None of these firms shows its method for free. Reports and Data lists its full report at $4,950 for a single user.

If you write about moissanite, quote the range and name each firm, or skip market size and use the survey and appraisal data below. We don't publish our own market estimate, because we have no data that would support one.

How popular is moissanite for engagement rings?

The Knot surveys thousands of couples every year. Its study of couples married in 2023, for example, polled more than 9,300 of them. We treat it as the best public measure of engagement ring stones.

The Knot study Moissanite share of non-diamond center stones
2021 Jewelry & Engagement Study 28% (35% among Gen Z), which The Knot reported as up 9% from 2019
Study of couples married in 2023 Nearly 3 in 10
Most recent engagement ring data 24%

Keep the base in mind. The Knot's latest data shows diamonds in 83% of engagement rings and a non-diamond gemstone in 10%. Moissanite's 24% of that 10% equals about 2.4% of all engagement rings (our calculation). Sapphire sits close behind at 21% of non-diamond center stones.

Moissanite in insured jewelry (BriteCo data)

BriteCo, a jewelry insurer, publishes appraisal data from January 2019 through June 2026. It counts moissanite inside its colored gemstone group because moissanite isn't a diamond.

Year Moissanite share of colored gemstone jewelry Rank in that group
2019 6.2% 5th
2020 8.1% 4th
2021 11.6% 2nd
2022 13.3% 2nd
2023 14.3% 2nd
2024 13.3% 2nd
2025 11.2% 3rd
2026 (Jan to Jun) 9.3% 3rd

Blue sapphire led every year. Emerald passed moissanite in 2025.

This table measures the pieces people had appraised for insurance. It doesn't measure sales. Our read: buyers insure expensive pieces more often, so this data probably leans toward bridal and gold-set work and misses many silver fashion pieces such as chains and tennis bracelets. The decline is real for insured moissanite. For everything else, nobody has published a measurement.

The lab-grown diamond factor

Lab-grown diamond is diamond, with the same chemical composition and crystal structure as natural diamond. Moissanite is silicon carbide, a separate gemstone. The two still compete for some of the same buyers, and BriteCo's data shows how fast lab-grown has moved.

Year Lab-grown share of new engagement ring appraisals Median lab-grown price per carat (engagement rings)
2019 5.9% $4,622
2021 27.4% $4,194
2023 39.0% $3,130
2025 47.0% $2,057
2026 (Jan to Jun) 51.0% $2,015

Lab-grown price per carat fell 55% from 2019 to 2025. The natural diamond median for 2025 was $8,428 per carat.

Charles & Colvard's Chapter 11

Charles & Colvard, then called C3 Inc., was producing near-colorless moissanite for jewelry by 1997 (GIA) and later sold it under its Forever One brand. Court and SEC filings lay out what happened in 2026:

Date Event
1995 Company founded in North Carolina as C3 Diamante
March 2, 2026 Filed for Chapter 11 in the U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina (announced March 3)
April 29, 2026 Court approved sale and bidding procedures
June 22, 2026 AJS Creations won the asset auction with a $2.7 million bid
July 1, 2026 Company received the sale proceeds
August 31, 2026 Company filed its plan of reorganization and disclosure statement

In the disclosure statement, the company pointed to "a dramatic decline in prices for moissanite and lab-grown diamond gemstones."

Moissanite vs. diamond: physical properties

Property Moissanite Diamond
Composition Silicon carbide (SiC) Carbon (C)
Mohs hardness 9.25 10
Refractive index 2.648 to 2.691 2.42
Dispersion (fire) 0.104 0.044
Specific gravity 3.22 3.52
Optical character Doubly refractive; facet edges look doubled under magnification Singly refractive
Thermal response Close to diamond; basic thermal testers can read it as diamond High; moissanite testers and magnification separate the two

Higher refractive index and dispersion give moissanite strong brilliance and fire. Hardness of 9.25 puts it among the hardest gemstones used in jewelry, though no gemstone is impossible to scratch or chip. French chemist Henri Moissan found the mineral in meteorite crater rock in 1893.

What the numbers leave out

This section reflects Miami The Jeweler's experience, not industry data.

None of these datasets tracks moissanite tennis chains, Cuban links or iced pendants, the pieces at the center of our collection. We have sold more than 3,000 pieces since Samuel Madrid founded Miami The Jeweler in 2024. Our core collection pairs VVS1, D-color moissanite with 925 sterling silver, and our diamond line sets natural and lab-grown diamonds in solid 10K, 14K or 18K gold. We label every piece as what it is.

In a chain with hundreds of stones, the statistics that matter to you sit in the piece itself: color consistency from stone to stone, prong size, alignment, spacing and the clasp. Two chains listed with the same materials can look nothing alike in person. The problem was never moissanite. The problem was mediocre moissanite jewelry.

"My primary objective is to produce jewelry at the highest level of quality," Samuel Madrid said. "We don't discriminate. That's why we specialize in both diamonds and moissanite."

How we built this page

  • We used sources that publish a dataset, a survey or a legal filing. We left out survey percentages quoted in paid market reports when we couldn't find the survey behind them.
  • Each figure lists its source, its year and what it measures.
  • The Knot surveys couples, BriteCo counts insured appraisals, and market reports estimate revenue. Those numbers measure different things, so don't combine them.
  • Figures checked November 9, 2026.

Cite this page

Miami The Jeweler. "Moissanite Statistics 2026." miamithejeweler.com/pages/moissanite-statistics. Updated November 2026.

You may use any figure on this page with a link back to this page.

Frequently asked questions

How big is the moissanite market? No audited figure exists. Six research firms put the 2025 market between $39.7 million and $62.98 billion, and they define the market in different ways. Quote a range and name the firm if you use one.

What percentage of engagement rings are moissanite? About 2 to 3%. The Knot's latest data shows 10% of engagement rings with a non-diamond center stone and moissanite at 24% of that group.

Is moissanite getting more popular? It depends on the dataset. Moissanite led non-diamond center stones in both The Knot's 2021 study (28%) and its latest data (24%). In BriteCo's appraisal data, its share of insured colored gemstone jewelry fell from 14.3% in 2023 to 9.3% in the first half of 2026.

Is moissanite harder than diamond? No. Diamond rates 10 on the Mohs scale and moissanite rates about 9.25. Moissanite is still one of the hardest gemstones used in jewelry and holds up to everyday wear with proper care.

Is moissanite a lab-grown diamond? No. Lab-grown diamond is diamond. Moissanite is silicon carbide, a separate gemstone with its own optical properties.

What happened to Charles & Colvard? Charles & Colvard filed for Chapter 11 on March 2, 2026. AJS Creations bought its assets at a court-approved auction in June 2026 with a $2.7 million bid.

Sources