What affects the cost of marble?
Marble is a material recognised around the world as being one of the most luxurious one to be used on a property project. Yet despite its popularity, architects, interior designers and contractors do not always seem to know the factors that drive the price of their favourite natural stone.
Supply and demand
The first factor driving the price of marble is simply supply and demand. Some types of marble such as Carrara, probably the most famous marble in the world, are abundant and are fairly straightforward to quarry. As a result, prices tend to be lower due to the abundance of it. Carrara is also less defined visually speaking and covers a broader range of colours and veining from almost grey to white. This further boosts the quantities available under which it is traded.
On the other hand you have marbles like Calacatta or Statuario which are perfect examples of the opposite. They are quarried in the exact same area as Carrara marble, but as both have very specific types of veining to be labelled as such it is much harder to find, and prices can be upwards of threefold that of Carrara. You also have fewer quarries mining both marbles, hence putting more power into the hands of the suppliers.
The Italian Premium
Italian marbles tend to be more expensive than some of its foreign counterparts. As we’ve seen, supply and demand can affect this but interesting there is a real reason why they are. Italy has been blessed with particularly dense stones. Brazil is another country where the stones are particularly dense, and also with incredible colours such as blue, gold and green. Of course a lot of other countries have such attributes, but Italy has particularly an abundance of them.
You might ask yourself, why a denser stone is better? There are different reasons why it’s an important factor. Firstly when in production it will be less likely to break. Secondly, edges will not chip thus having a perfect finish. And thirdly, visually the stone looks more uniform and not as “grainy”. A lot of stones coming from Turkey and India show this sort of graininess, and their prices reflect it.
Slab to slab cost differences
Within each type of marble you could also have large differences in prices. Such differences can be particularly big for high end stones with defined veining. It’s not rare that unusual slabs can double the cost of a project.
To take a straightforward example, Statuario’s difference from slab to slab is such that it can range in m2 price from €400 to well over €1000. Thanks to mother nature, certain slabs will have unusual veins such as forming a shape, going in a certain direction or located in certain places.
Suppliers recognise these uniqueness and therefore push up prices knowingly that clients are ready to pay a premium for unusual features. It’s particularly the case for sets of slabs which can be used to create a bookmatch effect, that is putting marble panels vein against vein in order to create a distinct pattern.
Commercial grade vs first grade
When looking at the cost of marble, it’s essential to know what grade of stone you are looking at. There are firstly two broad categories of stone: commercial grade and first grade.
First grade is the best quality of stones. These are full slabs cut from the best blocks. You have then a further system of grading for some stones such as Carrara where they give them a letter from A to F, with A being the highest. This is quite important to be aware of when asking for quotes as there are big differences in price between a B and a D for example. It’s also essential to always have photos of the exact slabs quoted for. This is something that we always do at Variostone in order to avoid any misunderstanding.
Commercial grade is the lower quality of stones, and they are your standard format tiles. It’s exactly what you find in high street, DIY and tile shops. The tiles will be cut from different slabs, often leftovers and low grade blocks, and as a result won’t be uniform. You will find large differences in background colour and veining from tile to tile.
Be careful in not comparing the cost per sqm of a commercial grade tile and a first grade stone tile, as it is a completely different product. It’s particularly the case with higher end stones such as Calacatta, where some tile shops’ Calacatta have very poor veining, density and colour, and quite frankly are more than borderline to be labelled as such.
High street shops, DIY stores and tiles shops are also experts at finding poor quality stones and giving them names that sound European or fancy. Typically these tiles are mass imported from China and India, and are all around poor products that can’t be sold as slabs. In most cases the edges won’t be perfect as the intrinsic quality of the stone is average at best and the tiles will feature poor veining, density and colour.
