What Are the Most Profitable Franchises of 2026?

Blog June 22, 2026 28 min to read

We break down the data on the most profitable franchises of 2026.

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Episode Summary

In this episode, we announce our Most Profitable Franchises of 2026. We name 50 franchise brands in this list whose franchisees report higher earnings than the average. No brand can pay to be on this list! They are on it because of their high franchisee satisfaction scores, thanks to FBR’s market research.

This episode breaks down the characteristics of the most profitable brands of the year and what you should pay attention to when doing your franchise buying research.

Resources

Transcript

Michelle (00:03)
Welcome back to our podcast from A to Franchisee. And today we are talking about and sharing our most profitable franchises of 2026. and today I have ⁓ Allison joining us from the team. She’s I would say she’s usually behind the scenes, but you keep popping on the front of the scene. So also to Yeah. I was gonna say also too, I’m gonna say I’m glad we don’t share the outtakes. This was a tough one for us to get started.

Allison Dudas (00:21)
I I do, I can’t stay away. I love a mic. What can I say?

Michelle (00:32)
A lot a lot of start, stop, takes. But here we are. Okay.

So we know our audience has been thinking about franchising. And if you are ready to buy a franchise, you’ve seen stories online, you’ve seen videos, you’ve heard the guy that’s crushing it in franchising, but you still have no idea what that means. What are they making? And here we’re going to fix that. We’re gonna share some real numbers from real franchise owners. In fact, we had over 29,000 franchisees participate in this round of data. And we’re gonna tell you what the franchisees are saying.

tell you who’s on the top of our top profitable ⁓ franchises and we’re gonna also try and continue our efforts in helping you spot the difference between a great opportunity and a great sales pitch. So I am Michelle Rowan. I am the president here of Franchise Business Review and joining me is Allison Dudas and we’re ready to just kind of jump into the data and and help you guys find some great opportunities to check out. You ready?

Allison Dudas (01:31)
Yes. Yes.

Totally ready. Thanks for having me.

Michelle (01:34)
All right. ⁓ so let’s talk about let’s start with what is the most profitable franchise list that we put out. Allison, do you want to talk a little bit bit more about the data behind it and kind of what we’re doing here at FBR in case this is the first time people are tuning in to check out our data.

Allison Dudas (01:50)
Yes,

so just a reminder that Franchise Business Review is a market research company. Every year we are surveying franchisees across multiple brands. Right now we’re working with 330 brands. ⁓ if a brand has done a franchisee satisfaction survey within 18 months, they are eligible for this list. we are not getting paid by these brands to appear on these lists. So just so you know, we are getting

⁓ raw data from their franchisees and with that information that is how we make those lists these lists so for this we particularly look at six areas for most profitable franchise brands leadership financial opportunity training marketing support operational support and culture so the bar to make this list you have to have above benchmark satisfaction plus investment level plus income

At least 25% of the franchise owners earn a hundred and fifty thousand a year or more.

Michelle (02:56)
Okay.

So I’m gonna stop you there. So we understand that buying fr a franchise is one of the biggest financial decisions that people will make. So we want to try and share data and we want to try and share the experience of franchisees that are in the brands to tell you the story of, hey, this might be a good one to check out for yourself. With that statement of these owners, 25% of these owners have to be earning $150,000 or more. I wanna just clarify that a little bit. We ask them to self-report their pre-tax.

income. So I think this is disclosures in most of our conversations is that when you are working with your accountant and your advisors, people put different things through their business and that number will look different depending on how they come up with what’s going through the business. So

Just kind of a caveat that this is I think this is the best representation of dollars that are out there. ⁓ but again, depends on how creative your accountant is or just kind of how you’re running your business. So just get we’ll get that out of the way.

Allison Dudas (04:01)
Yeah, really good point.

Michelle (04:02)
Okay, so let’s start with some of the numbers, the dollars, since that’s why we know people are most excited to tune in today. So when we look at the overall data set that we used for this, the average owner income that was reported by all franchisees in all of the data is $125,240.

The part of the average is again, it’s the wrong number to look at for a for a lot of reasons. One, self-reported, we’ve already covered that, but at least we have a number to start with. Cause I think it’s really hard for people to understand how much money can I make when I’m in a brand. So we’re trying to break this down and make this make sense. So $125,240. That’s the average owner income that we’re seeing from all the data that we’ve collected in this last year.

Allison Dudas (04:49)
Yes, three hundred across

three hundred and thirty brands, across twenty nine thousand franchisees. That’s the average.

Michelle (04:54)
Okay.

So now I want to get into a little bit more to understand what this means.

So when we look at our whole data set, 330 brands, the average owner income reported is $125,240.

When we are looking at the 50 brands that make up our most profitable list, that number jumps up to $192,280. So we’re right, we’re seeing almost a $70,000 in difference between the whole data set and these top 50 brands.

Allison Dudas (05:22)
Wow.

Yeah, that’s pretty incredible.

Michelle (05:34)
Yeah, so don’t but don’t tune out because I think this is where we get a little bit more granular in our explanation. I think that’s just the easiest way to present in dollars the difference between a most profitable brand and all brands. I think what you want to also think about though is why the average income reported is is a hard number to use because we’re we’re talking about self reporting numbers and you have franchise owners that are working with CPAs and accounting.

Allison Dudas (05:55)
Yeah.

Michelle (06:04)
firms and and business advisors that will have different advice on what they should be putting through their business, what kind of salary they should be taking out. So we always just kind of have that caveat that it’s hard to get at these numbers to share, but we feel like this is the best way we can put something forward to candidates to help them as they’re researching franchising to understand what is the opportunity of money I could make in that brand. Okay.

Allison Dudas (06:31)
Yes. Yeah, that’s a

great point. And I wan I want to do a callback too to an episode that you did with Eric Stites who’s franchise business reviews founder about how much money you can make in franchising. And that number of 125,000 might seem new to you. If you heard that, you might have heard a taller number, which I think Michelle’s gonna explain. A taller number, a higher number, I think is probably a better better use of words there. ⁓ and Michelle’s gonna explain why.

that 125,000 average income is an interesting number, but it’s i maybe, you know, yes, it’s self-reported, so you want to put a little asterisk there, but it’s also for people who span like first year of ownership to like 20 years in. So Michelle, what happens when we take away the startup crew, like the zero to two years of owning when like you’re just slogging away, you’re trying to survive.

Michelle (07:16)
That’s right.

Yeah. So that first two years of business, I think, is where you’re putting everything back into the business and kind of establishing it. So we took the the franchise owners that have been in their brand less than two years out and wanted to do this same comparison. So we’re we’re settled into our business, we have our w salary, whatever we’re taking out. Now when we look at our full data set and we we

or two plus years in ownership, the average number that people are reporting is $147,878. So that’s right. That’s right. Right. So cause we’re taking out that kind of like scrappy first part, everything goes in back into the business.

Allison Dudas (07:57)
Yes, and that’s the number that Eric mentioned in that podcast and really gets into that.

Michelle (08:09)
In comparison, these top 50 brands on our most profitable list, When we take out those first two-year franchisees from these top brands that we’re looking at, so again, 50 brands in our most profitable list, that number, that average number jumps up to $216,847.

Allison Dudas (08:28)
Wow.

Michelle (08:28)
So

holding steady on around that $70,000 difference. So that’s what we want to see is that again, we are not pointing you to a d a specific brand. We have lots of episodes that talk about finding the right one for you, but this is a great list to start your research with. I think that’s what we’re trying to establish.

Allison Dudas (08:48)
Yes, yes. And I think it’s good to note too that the data that we have on multi-unit people who own more than one unit, their income, self-reported income, is way higher even. So if you find a business that’s scalable and a lot of people who get into franchising really have that plan to expand territories, expand locations and so on. And those are the franchisees that are really reporting some very high incomes.

Michelle (09:01)
Right.

Yes. Yep, it’s great. And I think it’s great to have that strategy. If you know you don’t want to be an owner operator, you wanna be looking at what does having multiple locations or territories offer me as a business owner and or or owning multiple brands. So having that multi-unit kind of mindset as you start your business is great to understand that that’s as you scale, that’s where you really start pulling more money into your own pocket.

⁓ overall I think too just talking about money, what we’re seeing as

The incomes overall are about down five percent. And that makes sense just based on the state of our world right now, inf inflation, labor costs, supply chain issues, all of those things that you need to run your business really come directly out of the owner’s pocket when that when there’s changes in the economy like that. So I think that’s something to keep in mind that you you we might be seeing less income reported this year comparative to last year.

The hope is that we kind of work through this in the economy and you’ll see that go up again. But I think it is important to share that. ⁓ but the the flip side, we’ve already talked about the the ⁓ benefits of being a multi unit owner and we’re seeing that their their reported incomes are actually five percent up from last year, which is interest. Yeah. Yeah.

Allison Dudas (10:34)
Wow. That is really interesting. Yeah. That is really interesting.

Michelle (10:39)
The other thing too is ⁓ and then we can move on from money. I know it’s important because this is the most profitable list, but there’s so much more to these brands. but I think too, when you think about investing in a franchise, it’s not really that annual draw that you’re getting out of the business each year that you should be thinking about. It’s really that long-term value as far as when you go to sell your your business. You’re in a franchise system, typically a 10-year agreement is what you’re signing. What you’re really trying to do is I want to sell this business in 10 years.

Allison Dudas (10:47)
Mm-hmm.

Michelle (11:09)
at the highest rate I can get. And that’s the return that you’re really looking at is if I could make more money here than just sticking it in the stock market. That’s really the way to think about how you’re investing in a franchise and what you want to get out of it.

Allison Dudas (11:24)
Yes, excellent point. And people think, it’s too early to think about my exit when I’m investing in a franchise. It’s never too early. And we even did a podcast about this because you should think about that. The most successful franchisees are are already thinking about the end of their franchising story.

Michelle (11:30)
Never too early, Allison. That’s right.

Yeah. ⁓ I think that that’s great. So but there’s so much more to these brands. So I want you to share some of the overall numbers that we’re seeing from these franchisees or these brands to just also show that it’s not just about money. These are really solid brands that are reporting some other amazing things from their owners.

Allison Dudas (12:00)
Yes, absolutely. So just a reminder that we are asking real franchisees about how they feel owning these franchises. ⁓ so it’s so much about like the particular owner’s experience. And I think if you are thinking about a career change, you’re thinking about being happier in your day-to-day, right? Maybe you’re in corporate America, maybe you’re a stay-at-home parent, maybe you just want to do something totally different, be your own boss.

You want to make sure that if you change your career that you’re gonna feel satisfied. And that’s why we ask the kinds of questions that we do in our surveys to these franchisees. So of these 50 brands and their franchisees that make the most profitable list, 20 ⁓ the top 50 owners rate financial performance 23% higher than brands that did not make this list. So that’s fascinating.

⁓ and here’s here’s my favorite stat, I think. Of these franchisees on the top 50 most profitable list, 94% would recommend their franchise to others. Woo!

Michelle (13:05)
That’s really the most important thing that we’re talking about today because that relationship with your franchisor, it ebbs and flows. There’s things that you love about them, there’s frustrations, but this one I love, it’s because that reflection of all all of it, ups and downs, no matter what, would I tell someone else to invest their money in this, 94%, that’s bananas. ⁓ so I love hearing that one.

Allison Dudas (13:31)
No.

Yeah, it’s it’s super encouraging. Ninety one percent rate their franchiseur and the overall opportunity above average. Eighty two percent rate technology and marketing programs above average.

Michelle (13:47)
I love that. And when we say above average, that means that they’re either answering with excellent, very good, or good. So those are all strong scores or what we call our top three box scores. So the great signals here that these are brands that we we really wanna open our audience up to checking out if they’re not on their radar yet.

Allison Dudas (14:05)
Yes, agreed. Really, really simple. Yeah, let’s share the top ten. so it’s across a lot of different industries, which is is definitely important to note. So it’s not just like, ⁓ food and beverage or ⁓ senior care, and that’s the the these are the only industries that you’re gonna make a lot of money. No, listen, listen up. So we’ve got next home, which is real estate, visiting angels, senior care.

Michelle (14:07)
What do you want to do? Wanna share the top ten?

Allison Dudas (14:31)
Fast Signs, which is B2B business, Culverse, Food, Two Men and a Truck, a Moving Company, So Home Services, Expedia Cruises, a Travel Franchise, The Learning Experience, Child Enrichment, Education, Wireless Zone, Retail,

Crestcom Business Services, Wild Birds Unlimited, Retail. So really, really great and such a variety. Such a variety.

Michelle (14:57)
Love it.

Yeah.

And you know, I love I just scanned the list real quick and I see probably around 10 brands that are in food. And I think food gets a bad rap in that, well, one, I think it gets a lot of attention in franchising, it’s where people’s brains go, but I think it gets a bad rap on the idea of revenue or profitability associated with it because that is where you see those product costs going up and it’s where you see labor costs going up. So it’s great to see that we have ⁓ a good mix of brands on here. But I did wanna just call out food because I feel like it is an expensive.

business to run, ⁓ but we’re seeing that it can be still be successful. So if that’s where your passion is, you know, that’s where you should be.

Allison Dudas (15:40)
Yeah, like it’s so nice to see Penn Station up here, you know, it’s so nice to see.

Michelle (15:45)
I mean they’re they’re always crushing it. Pliables. Like

I mean, it’s it’s fantastic to see that. I think the other thing too is just scanning this list because I’ve been in franchising for so long. I think it’s interesting to note that these are pretty established brands that I see on this list. That I mean there’s some some younger brands in here, but a lot of brands that we’ve been working with for a while. So I think that probably also lends to just that staying power and and that’s really what this list is about, right? That

it’s not a flash in a pan, it’s not a hot consumer interest. These are tried and true brands that are offering a good return for your effort.

Allison Dudas (16:24)
Yeah, like two men in a truck, Fast Signs and Wild Birds Unlimited have been serving with us for twenty years? I mean forever. Which is crazy. ⁓ but wow, like what an interesting correlation. They care about their franchisees enough that they continually ask them, Are you satisfied? How you doing? What do you think of us? And yet they’re making they’re making lists like this.

Michelle (16:33)
Yes, yes. Yeah.

Yeah, I love it. It’s good.

Allison Dudas (16:52)
Babe.

Michelle (16:55)
Right, now you’re gonna ask me the expert questions. I’m the expert.

Allison Dudas (16:58)
Yes. Yes,

you are an expert. All right. So Michelle, now that we’ve looked at the list a little bit, I really want to grill you because you are an expert in the franchising world and you really have so much to offer here. So I’m going to give you some questions. So best of luck. I hope that you can just give us your honest answers. So

Michelle (17:21)
I accept your

challenge. I’m ready.

Allison Dudas (17:22)
Okay, great.

Yeah, I’m gonna put you on the spot here. I know you’re ready. So what’s the first thing someone should look at when they see a brand on a profitability list?

Michelle (17:35)
So the one thing is I would say, you know, don’t get hung up first on the profitability. It’s a very important piece. You know, I I will tell every franchise or I speak to, I think the most important things for a brand is that they are profitable and that their franchisees validate well, that they are tuned in to the experience of their franchisee. So I I would say put equal weight on what the franchisees are saying about the other parts of the business and that profitability piece is extremely

important, but you still have to be really passionate about the end service product or what you’re doing. So I would say it should be fifty percent of your brain importance and weight.

Allison Dudas (18:17)
Yes, I love that. And I also wanna make I also wanna make another caveat because I also think if you see a brand on a list, you should find out whether or not they paid to be on that list. I think you should find out how that list was made. And

Michelle (18:32)
So you’re saying outside

of FBR, because none no one pays to be on our list. But you’re saying if you see another news source or something that is reporting this is a profitable franchise, you wanna know what they’re basing that on. That’s a great point.

Allison Dudas (18:45)
Exactly. I wanna know.

I wanna know because if I’m seeing you on a list and I do a little digging and I just see that there’s you know ⁓ curious information and it’s clearly a pay to play, I I’m gonna maybe move on from that list. and I’m gonna go to French business review instead. Yeah.

Michelle (19:04)
Yeah. Or or ask harder questions. Yeah. Or ask harder questions. You know, don’t

don’t let that be your yeah. And we d we are not saying we want our list to trump research. You still need to dig into that FDD. You still need to talk to franchisees to really get at that money story.

Allison Dudas (19:23)
Hmm, yeah. All right, I’m gonna ask you the second question. So how should a prospective buyer actually read an item nineteen? Like what’s in it and what’s not in it?

Michelle (19:33)
That is

that’s that’s a great point. So if you are talking to a ⁓ franchise brand

They are not allowed to disclose any financial information to you unless they have it in their FDD. So it’s the item 19, it’s a financial ⁓ representation. And what I always say is an item 19, I think, is pretty common now, but they’re all built differently. So there’s no standard way they have to report. It could be on company stores, it could be on stores that have been open more than five years. So the you just need to know that you’re what you’re looking

at and I always would recommend to not do this alone to go through this with a a franchise or attorney that can help you better understand. And we we have a podcast episode that goes through the FDD. That’s so great. and I think it could be really helpful. But I I still wouldn’t go it alone even after listening to our podcast.

Allison Dudas (20:31)
No, and it’s not because you needed an attorney to negotiate things per se, because a lot in an FTD is not and and a franchise agreement is not negotiable, but just to help you kind of go through and understand, because they are so unique to franchises as opposed if you’re buying someone else’s business, that they started from the ground up.

Michelle (20:51)
Yeah. Agreed.

Allison Dudas (20:53)
Okay, so what does a good validation call sound like, Michelle? What do you think? If you’re a f if you’re a potential franchisee and you’re trying to find out stuff about owning a franchise brand, what’s a good call sound like?

Michelle (20:58)
No.

Yeah,

I think that’s a great question. So we we you get the FDD, which has a list of every franchise owner that’s active in the brand, and call and talk to as many as you can. The first thing I would say is just like if you’re at a family dinner and I ask you Allison, hey, hey Allison, how much money do you make?

Allison Dudas (21:20)
Oof.

Michelle (21:21)
Right? No one no one ⁓ willingly wants to answer that. It could make them uncomfortable. So you need to think about the questions you’re asking them and how you pose them. What’s great is you’re asking a business owner that’s in exactly the business that you’re going into. So I always say things like

What you learned from the development team and talking to other franchise owners before you opened, is that in line with what you’re experiencing in the brand? Did it take as long as they said it would to hit break-even? ⁓ are they seeing a profit, understanding what year they are in the business? Asking those types of questions, I think, is how you can really understand if you have a clear picture, because I know the FDD is it’s released every year in April.

So that FDD comes out in April, and by November, and I will use specifically I will use the year 2020, COVID did so much to everyone’s business model as far as increasing costs, being able to find construction people that would get your project done on time. Those timelines changed, those dollar amounts changed, and it’s not going to be reflected in a physical document for five, six, seven more months. So those are the kinds of things you want to think about where we’ve seen inflation.

Really impact. We’ve seen labor go up. Asking those questions to try and understand is the picture in your business now what I’m seeing in the FDD, or just ⁓ well, side note to always have more money and expect longer times than anyone tells you just to be safe. But that’s the those are the kinds of things you’re trying to get at, or how many employees did you start with? So you can understand what that labor piece looks like to begin and making sure that there’s room to scale. So those are the kind of questions I would ask. If I just called someone and said, How much money are you making? They’re they’re not always

Allison Dudas (22:52)
Hmm.

Michelle (23:06)
going to not answer that, they’re going to be defensive on the rest of the questions that you’d like to have answered.

Allison Dudas (23:11)
Yeah.

Yeah, that’s a great point. It’s like you can’t ask them how much money, but you can ask other questions that kind of at least get to their feeling of sti stability and ⁓ their feeling of how much they’re thriving or not in the brand.

Michelle (23:24)
Or an accuracy

of the information that was given to them. Yeah.

Allison Dudas (23:27)
⁓ Yes, yes.

What are the red flags? So if if we’re looking at this most profitable list and we’re seeing these really high incomes reported, you know, particularly for ⁓ some of these top brands, what are the red flags that a high income number might hide?

Michelle (23:44)
So if you’re seeing high income numbers and and you feel like there might be something off, what what I would really look at is the number of years and the number of locations or units that the franchisee has been in business. or again, if you’re if you’re referring to something in an item 19, just are you looking at corporate versus franchised? So I don’t know that high income would be a red flag, but I think just understanding where that number came from, ⁓ so that you just know it might take you five years to get that number or five locations.

locations.

Allison Dudas (24:15)
Yeah, finding

out the context I think is key.

How do you advise somebody weighing a single unit versus planning for multi unit growth?

Michelle (24:24)
Yeah, so I well one, this goes back to our conversation of like if you have that multi-unit vision in your ⁓ in your a a twinkle in your eye as you start, I think that’s great. ⁓ what I would advise though is if you are looking at a brand that wants you to sign a multi-unit deal. So you are a first-time business owner and they are saying, We’re only gonna sell you a five-pack. You have to open up five locations. What I I’m not going to advise you on a single versus multi-unit. I think it’s harder as a first

Time business owner to think about multi-unit from the start. You are going to be held to a schedule in that whatever you sign for in that five-pack. It’s going to have a very specific outline that you need to open this unit by this time, that unit by this time. And there are sometimes financial implications of you not developing, or they could pull it away from you and sell it to someone else. So, what I look for is how much room are they giving you to build that out. And they really should want to prove you are doing well.

Unit one before you pull on unit two, because it does you and it does the brand no favors by forcing you into that schedule. So for this, I guess I wouldn’t advise I I mean, as myself, a first-time franchise owner, I would not sign a multi-unit deal. There are some brands that don’t sign anything but a multi-unit deal. So if you’ve got your heart set on a brand and a specific model, what I would do is talk to other franchise owners that came in that same way to understand was it ⁓ is it

Is it realistic to hit the timelines they’re putting in front of you and how much do they work with you to find the right location and to get number two open and make sure it’s successful before moving on? So those are the questions I would ask before just signing on that dotted line.

Allison Dudas (26:07)
Hmm,

that’s a really good point. If someone takes just a final question, if someone takes one thing from this most profitable list of twenty twenty six f to factor into their decision, what should it be?

Michelle (26:24)
well I think it should be two things in in that the brand is already elevated above others. I mean there’s something like around three thousand, I think, active franchise brands in the United States, meaning they’ve filed an FDD. So do they all grow? No. But I would say when you’re faced with three thousand opportunities and we can give you fifty that are tuned into what their franchisees are saying, have

strong scores from their franchisees on how they’re performing as far as training and support, their leadership team, the financial opportunity. And then we’re showing that they’re the most profitable out of all the research that we’ve done. I think this is a great list to start with because it offers, and I really think that all 200 on our list are a good place to start with if you’re trying to find the right match for yourself. But these 50 cover most of the areas that we talk about in segments of franchising, food, business services, senior care.

So if it’s available in your territory, this is a great list to start. So that’s what I would say is this is like your your top of funnel of brands that you’re considering.

Allison Dudas (27:31)
Yeah, I love that. Awesome. All right. So Michelle, unsurprisingly, you did very well ⁓ when I grilled you. So thank you for yours thank you for your expertise. You did. You did.

Michelle (27:38)
Okay. I survived another day.

So as you use this list to do your research, I I think ⁓ FBR is always here to help you try and get to that decision of do I want to buy a franchise or do I not want to buy a franchise? And so for this conversation, what I would say is, you know, really look past that first year, that first two years of the business to understand ⁓ once you’re settled into the business, what is that financial opportunity looking like? So that’s kind of what I would how I would use this specific list. ⁓ but these are these are numbers that are coming from the people that are in the business.

running the business. So there’s no better place to start than with our lists because you’re getting the experience. Who doesn’t love a review of something before they buy it? And we’ve got that for them right here on this list.

Allison Dudas (28:28)
Yes.

And check it out. Go to franchisebusinessreview.com. Check out the most profitable list there. And of course our other lists that might really help you in your search. And make sure to subscribe and follow along. And we’ve got one more episode left in our first season, Michelle. I can’t believe it.

Michelle (28:48)
We did a really great job this year. I feel like we’ve rolled out more education for franchise buyers than than any other source this year. Really and truly, I’ll stand by that.

Allison Dudas (28:56)
Yeah, I

agree because this is a really huge decision and small business ownership is truly what makes this country go round and it feels really good to be a part of mm getting good content, good education out there about franchising, which is a really wonderful way to become a small business owner.

Michelle (29:14)
love it. I totally agree. Franchising is a great opportunity for people. So just finding the right one ⁓ makes sense.

Allison Dudas (29:21)
Well thanks for tuning in and have a good one.

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