Which crystal should you actually buy?
Pick a goal and a budget and it returns stones that fit, with hardness so you know which ones survive water.
Find your stone
Three questions. Returns stones that match the goal, fit the budget, and survive how you intend to look after them.
Three questions: what you want the stone for, what you want to spend, and whether you intend to rinse it. That last one matters more than most guides admit. Selenite is Mohs 2 and will literally dissolve under a tap; malachite is soft and copper-bearing and should never go near drinking water. Tick the rinse box and anything under Mohs 5 is filtered out before you see it.
Each result says what the stone is traditionally reached for, its price band and its hardness, plus one practical note — that most citrine on the market is heat-treated amethyst, that pyrite tarnishes with skin oils, that howlite sold as turquoise is dyed. The associations are traditional; the hardness figures are not, and those are the ones that keep a stone intact.
If nothing matches, widen the budget rather than dropping the rinse filter. A stone you ruin in the first week is not a saving.
What this needs next
Once you know which stone you are after, a starter set is usually better value than a single tumbled piece — and a set gives you the whole spectrum to work with rather than one centre.
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