Trade Programs for Interior Designers: The Complete Guide (2026)

Quick answer: Trade programs are the discount-and-service accounts furniture brands offer design professionals — typically taking a published percentage off retail (CB2's program, for example, publishes 20% off full-price items; many brands keep their rates private). Qualifying usually requires proof of a design business; buying tax-exempt for resale requires much more. This guide covers the system; individual brand guides cover the specifics.

What a trade program actually is

When a designer sources furniture for a client, brands would rather win that order than lose it to a competitor — so nearly every major home brand runs a program offering professionals discounted pricing, dedicated support, and services regular customers don't get: fabric swatches, extended holds, freight coordination, contract-grade options. For the brand it's a wholesale-ish channel without wholesale complexity. For the designer, the discount is the raw material of the business model: source at trade, deliver at retail, and the spread — alongside your design fee — is how the work pays.

What the discounts look like

Published rates, where brands publish them, mostly land between 10% and 30% off retail. But the fine print differs more than the headline number, and the fine print is where margins live. Three patterns worth knowing, drawn from our individual guides: CB2/Crate & Barrel publishes a clean 20% — but on full-price items only, so promotional periods mute it (full guide). RH publishes no trade rate at all; terms are disclosed after approval, and its consumer membership ($200/year for 30% off including sale items) is the public benchmark it competes with internally (full guide). Design Within Reach publishes no percentage but applies trade pricing every day and deepens it during promotions — the inverse of CB2's structure (full guide). Same industry, three different economics. Never assume one program's rules generalize.

Who qualifies

Eligibility language varies — interior designers and decorators, architects, stagers, set designers, sometimes builders and contractors — but the practical bar across programs is consistent: evidence of a real design business. A company website that presents you as a trade professional is the strongest single credential; business licenses, resale certificates, and design-association memberships (ASID and similar) round out the usual checklist. A design degree is almost never required.

The part the application pages undersell

Getting approved for the discount is step one of five. Operating trade accounts directly means: setting up a business (an LLC, or a sole proprietorship with the liability riding on you personally) with an EIN; registering for sales tax in every state you'll charge it — home state first, which is what earns the resale certificate, then each delivery state, since roughly a quarter of states don't accept out-of-state certificates; keeping exemption paperwork on file with each brand, per state; collecting and remitting sales tax on your marked-up client invoices, because buying tax-exempt makes you the seller; and placing and tracking orders through each brand's separate portal. Then multiply by every program you hold. The deep dives: registering a design business and sales tax for interior designers. New to the terms? Start with what is trade pricing and what is a resale certificate.

Applying, program by program

Each brand runs its own application, document list, portal, and renewal cycle. Our individual guides cover what each program publishes — requirements, rates where public, approval timelines, and honest fine print:

• CB2 / Crate & Barrel / Crate & Kids
• RH
• Design Within Reach (MillerKnoll)
• More program guides publishing regularly.

The alternative to managing them all

A working designer's sourcing list crosses many programs — each an application, a login, a state-by-state paper trail, and a renewal date. On Suede, procurement across all of them runs through us: we purchase on your behalf under our own access and tax registrations, place and track the orders, invoice your client, collect and remit the sales tax, and pay out your earnings. You pick the products and find clients, Suede manages the rest. Join the waitlist here.

Rates and terms cited are as published by each brand as of July 2026 — verify at the brand's own trade page; Suede's guides never disclose non-public terms.