Almost everyone thinks the price written “per carat” is the final price of a gemstone, and that’s where the confusion starts. Carat is just a unit of weight, not the total cost. In gemstones, the price is always quoted per carat, and the actual amount you pay comes only after you multiply that price by the stone’s total carat weight. Simple math, but it trips up a lot of buyers. A quick way to understand it: 1 gram = 5 carats 1 carat = 100 cents So if a stone weighs 1.05 carats, that’s 1 carat 5