How do I explain my decision to pass along vendor processing fees to clients?

On the Ask Us Anything podcast, editor in chief Kaitlin Petersen taps former Trade Tales guests to answer real, confidential designer questions, offering a safe space to discuss business challenges. Have a question of your own to ask? Send an email to start the conversation.

This week, Jean Liu joins the show to answer a question from a designer who is accustomed to absorbing the costs of vendors’ credit card fees but is now looking for a way to build some of these expenses into the client’s final price—and wondering how to explain the process.

Liu, whose design firm is based in Dallas, gives advice on communicating additional fees to clients in a pre-invoice estimate and using credit cards as a form of consumer protection, and she shares how she’s preparing for tariff-related