In this episode of the podcast, we announce our Top Franchises for Women in 2026. With surveys from 8,550 female franchisees across nearly 330 brands, we’ve determined the best franchises to own for women. We break down the data for you.
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Episode Summary
In this episode of “From A to Franchisee,” we delve into the 2026 list of top franchises for women, celebrating female franchise owners and the brands that support them. Our host, joined by frequent guest and producer Allison Dudas, explores the unique methodology behind the rankings, emphasizing that no brand can pay to be on the list. Instead, the rankings are based on comprehensive surveys of franchisees, focusing on trust, training, support, and marketing.
The discussion highlights the significant participation of women in the franchise industry, with 8,550 female franchisees contributing to the survey out of 23,000 total respondents.
Resources
- Key4Women
- Top Franchises for Women
- Top Franchises for Culture
- Top Recession-Resistant Franchises
- Best Franchises for Moms and Dads
- How To Become a Successful Mompreneur
- Work Life Balance in Franchising
- Watch: An Insider for Conversation About the Best Franchises for Women
- Listen: Women In Franchising
- Listen: Barriers to Diversity in Franchising
- Listen: How Much Money Can You Make Owning A Franchise
Transcript
Allison Dudas (00:03)
Welcome back to our podcast from A to franchisee. And today we are going to talk about our top franchises for women. The list for 2026 is out. Woohoo! love celebrating female franchise owners and brands that are supporting female franchise owners really, really well. So today we’re here to talk about what we’re seeing in the data from ⁓ from the research that we did this time around. And I’m joined by Allison, ⁓ our producer of the podcast, and I’m going to say
now our frequent guests. Yes, I like that. Yeah, I like that. You have you should actually have like Allison’s corner. ⁓ create your own segment. Nobody puts Allison in a corner. Yeah. So we’re not here to promote any specific brand. here to talk about the brands on the list and the data behind it. That’s what we are doing today. So I think a great way to start that out is Allison, let’s start by explaining to people how these rankings work. What do we do to get all this? Yeah, that’s such a great question, because what makes this list different than a lot of
of other lists, best franchise lists that are going on. Well, firstly, no brand can pay to be on this list. They are on this list because they survey their franchisees. They ask them at the minimum a benchmark of 33 questions, things like, do you trust your franchisor? What is the training and support like? What’s the marketing like? General questions about what it’s like to own their brand. And when we collect that information from these franchisees, we have a ranking system.
based solely on their responses. And that is how we decide who makes these best of lists. And so for this particular list, we’re also looking at, so we’re looking at the entire system and how they rated the brand.
Then we’re segmenting out any franchise owners that self-report themselves as female. Yes. Right. OK. So let’s talk about the numbers behind it. How many brands, how many people were included in this research? OK. So of the 23,000 franchisees that we surveyed this past year, 8,550 of them were women. So we use the responses from those over 8,000 people to determine this list. Awesome.
So back in 2015, I think that’s when we did our first look at segmented data by gender.
And back in 2015, we were at 28 % of the franchisees that took our survey were female. And now we’re up to 32 % of the population we survey. So a little bit of improvement. Definitely. We’re seeing more women get involved. That’s great. OK. What else are some things that stood out from this year’s data when we look at it? OK. So, hmm.
63 % of the women surveyed are single unit operators, which means that they own just one franchise territory or location. that is a little bit higher. little bit higher. And we see 53 % of men only own one unit.
Right. Which means they own another unit within the same brand or they might own units in multiple brands. Right. Right. So what I think this data is pointing out is that we’ve got some women in business, but there’s certainly an opportunity for ⁓ their brands to coach them or people in their lives to start having conversations about
maybe building onto that business. Adding units, looking at other brands. But it also might be, so it could be, which is what I’m guessing is just they haven’t really encouraged themselves to think about that. Or their current business could really just fit their lifestyle at the point they’re at in their life. Totally. I think that’s a really good point. I also think it’s important to note that our most successful financial, the financial picture of franchisees is most
Impressive. OK, how do I want to say this? Franchisees make the most money if they own multiple units. So I do think that that’s an important distinction to make here, that women, there is so much space for women to build these empires. And right now, there is a lag behind men. And hopefully, in sharing some of this data, maybe more women will start to think about multi-brand, multi-unit ownership. Yeah. Yeah. There’s an economy of scale when you’re building a business.
units or the more brands you’re kind of building an empire. Right. We want to encourage, ⁓ we want to encourage all business ownership. Yeah. We definitely want to encourage more women getting into business ownership and then think about not just limiting yourself to one location. Right. Right. Love it.
So all and I think it’s important to also note that all franchisers that have ten or more franchisees are invited to participate in this research and there is a no-cost option so that we are really truly bringing the data from the brands that are providing great support and opportunities for all franchise owners and for female franchise owners specifically that it’s not limited to just people who pay right to do a survey. I think that’s a good call out. It is and there were 330 brands that participated this past
So this data set pulls from 330 brands. I love it. Okay. I want to share some of the data points. When we look at this population of female owners, can you share some of the kind of aggregate data that we’re seeing from this community? Yes. Yeah, I can. So we love to talk about these kinds of stats and you will see that if you go to franchisebusinessreview.com. If you take a look at certain reports that brands are published,
publishing on our site, like Cruise Planners publishes their report on our site, Kona Ice, ⁓ Apple Spice, et cetera. ⁓ across the board for women, again, these 8,500 plus women, 88 % would recommend their franchise brand to others. So that’s great because that is like the most important metric of. ⁓
I think people are familiar with this on the customer satisfaction side is like if you would recommend a product or a business to someone else, that’s the most important metric for a business to understand their health. So 88 % of these franchisees would recommend someone else coming into their brand is such a ringing endorsement. mean, this is like you’re kind of taking that big level step back from your business and saying, when I’m asked about financial opportunity and the support I get from their training department, the leadership giving us the
vision of their brand, there’s ups and downs to that relationship. And so when they kind of step back and say, gosh, just thinking about this, would I tell someone else, yes, get into this business, 88 % are saying yes, get into this business. That’s awesome. It is really awesome.
In-person participant 1 (06:53)
All right, so besides recommending the franchise to others, what other kind of data are you seeing from the whole community? Well, 88 % of the women we surveyed enjoy operating their business. Again, a pretty high score. And 86 % enjoy being a part of the franchise organization, whatever franchise brand they’re a part of. I think those are really exciting. I love the language that we use in our survey. Like, enjoy. I don’t know.
Because if you are working a job, you are giving so many hours to that job, and especially if it is your own job, your own business. So I think that anybody who’s ranking that they enjoy it, that’s something that is a total green flag. I love that. Well, and I think you and I both have owned our own businesses. So you have to enjoy what you’re doing to get you through the amount of hours being spent and the amount of time you spend on doing the parts of your every business owner has the parts that are not enjoyable.
So again, that reflection moment of I enjoy, like there’s nothing else I’d rather do no matter how hard this is. That’s what I like seeing. I’m laughing because I feel like, if I could divide myself into percentages, would say like 49 % of Allison enjoyed owning her business. Hence why I work here now. ⁓
80, I love this one, 82 % respect their franchisor’s leadership. Yeah, and I think this is great, especially if we’re talking to people that are thinking about getting into franchising. The most unique thing about a franchisor franchisee relationship that is much different than a corporate entity that has multiple locations is when a corporate entity rolls out
change, any kind of change or any kind of this is needed, this mandate, employees respond pretty quickly and easily because your boss who pays your check is telling you to do something. The difference in franchising is a franchisor, whether you agree with what they’re doing or not, really has to persuade a franchise owner to move their business in a different direction or adapt new things.
And you can’t do that if the franchisees don’t respect or trust that leadership. So I think that this stat is even more important than just saying, that’s great. They respect the people in those top seats. It’s really about that means the system is aligned as far as the business decisions being made and where the brand is going. Yes. Yes. I’m thinking of two franchisees I’ve spoken with recently. One was from FastSigns, who talked about during the pandemic.
the CEO of FASTSIGNS Catherine, is her name, would do weekly calls to help them all get through it, filled with tips and information. And then ⁓ we spoke with a franchisor. Actually, you did, Michelle, on the podcast ⁓ from New Again Houses. And do you remember how much he talked about just really, really trusting the leadership? It makes such a difference. Yeah. Yeah. If they’re bought in, they’re taking care of you and moving the brand forward. Right. Yeah.
⁓ Okay, 83 % say fellow franchisees are supportive of each other. Huge. And then 81 % say fellow franchisees support the brand. And I don’t think we talk enough about franchisee community and how powerful that can be. ⁓ know, Mathnasium franchisees are a perfect example of this. They are always talking about the support that they get from one another. you think about you’re in business, you own your own business, but
You can actually reach out to somebody who wants the same exact business. ⁓ Maybe in a territory that’s really, really similar to yours demographically, et cetera, and you can get all of their information. And ⁓ if that franchisee community is really positive and engaged, it just lifts everybody up. Yeah. And I think, if you’re researching franchises, asking the franchisor how they facilitate that, how easy they make it for you. Do they have mentorship programs?
Do they get good attendance at their annual conference? I think those are the ways that franchisors support this kind of community and this ⁓ fostering of learning from each other. It’s like a cheat code. Like I can call someone that’s had the same challenge and get to that answer, that solution, so much quicker because they’ve already gone through it. like that, the franchisor can absolutely set the tone of that and foster that or.
can kind of keep barriers up and kind of create more of that animosity of, don’t want that franchisee in my neighborhood. So good questions to ask if you’re looking at a brand. Really good questions. Yeah. Okay. So let’s talk about the demographics of the women that took our survey. Who are these women that own these businesses and are answering our survey? Do you want to share some of the demographics? Definitely. So the average age of these women, these 8,500 plus women, is 51.
Not surprising, right? You gotta have money to start a business. Yep, and you might be kind of past that crazy point if you are somebody who’s had children, you’re past that point of having really small children that require a lot of time. Let’s hope for these women at 51. They are not rearing little ones. I know, I know. And then the average tenure that they, so the average length that they’ve been in business is seven years. Love that. There’s some crazy stat. Maybe we can find it and drop it.
There’s some crazy stat around the financials, the number of businesses that cross a million dollar threshold. It’s very, very small. And there’s also another stat that’s around the average business that doesn’t make it past five years. And if we can find it, maybe we can include it in the show notes. But this is amazing that they’ve been in business seven years. Franchise agreements, typically 10 years. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s awesome. It is really awesome. And then going back to our point from before, 36 % of the women surveyed own multiple locations.
territories. Yeah, so that’s great. I love that. So many of these women, of course, are second career entrepreneurs. I speak to franchisees all the time that either used to be in education, they used to be in work in a corporate environment, they used to be a stay at home parent, and they’re kind of coming.
coming into a completely different phase of their career. So that’s something that is true of all franchisees for sure, but just notable. Many are scaling, 36 % are looking to expand. Obviously so much room for that.
I think the other thing to note, too, is that these women, like most franchise owners, probably are looking for a change. So it’s either more control over their schedule, or they’re being phased out of a role. They’re being laid off. Whatever the reason is, I think we’ll probably see that across both genders. But I think that’s where we’re also seeing more of that a little bit later age of business ownership. And I think, too, that the reality is starting your own business is scary.
I mean, not everybody can be a guest that we’re gonna have on soon, a 21 year old that bought his first franchise, right? Not everybody has that kind of chutzpah, has that kind of know-how, confidence to do that in your youth. You probably are building that up in your 40s, maybe in your 50s. Yeah, absolutely. So I think, you know, what we see,
candidates ask the most of when they’re doing their research is how much money can I make? So I wanna talk a little bit about the financial data that we have. And before we share it, I’m gonna have you share it. But I do wanna say we ask the question of the franchisee taking the survey to report their pre-tax income. And I just like to explain this is self-reported, so it also depends on…
who they’re using for accounting and tax services, what kind of recommendations they’re getting, what things they’re putting through their business, how they’re paying themselves a salary. So all of these things, I just want to say, they’re not going to be apples to apples. So this is, again, self-reported from the franchisees. So this is like my big asterisk covering our legalese that we are not giving any kind of financial performance representation of a specific brand or franchising. We are sharing information that’s been given to us by franchise owners.
And some of these people are still working a full-time job. And this franchise that they bought is a side hustle for a period of time. And then they move into it. There’s just so much variation. So take it all with a grain of salt. Look at it as an invitation to learn more. if you are exploring investing in a franchise to really get into that FDD and ask other franchisees in that brand the tough questions. Yes. Now that we’ve got the legalese aside, tell us.
What data we’re about to share? Who’s in the group that we’re going to share this information? So the data that I’m going to share here, it reflects owners that have been operating for two or more years. Perfect. Which is important because a lot of people don’t even break even for that first year, if not those first two years. sharing income information from somebody who just bought their franchise six months ago, bleh.
You know, they’re probably really in that grind. We’ve certainly spoken to franchisees who are killing it that early on, but that’s not, and that’s just not the reality with owning your own business in those newborn stages. So the idea is their business is up and running. I mean, we asked for their annual pre-tax income, so we can’t even ask them if they haven’t been there a year. So we’ve given them a year to kind of settle in. So this is the data collected from franchisees that have been open and operating two plus years. Yes.
The average gross revenue that they are reporting is 1.2 million. Okay. So that’s the top line revenue for their business. And then their average pre-tax income of the women reporting is 95,000 a year. So again, that could be that they’re having their car paid for by their business. That could be a million different things, but there you have it. There’s the number, how much money you can make.
There we go with a lot of asterisks We’ll share in the show notes how much money can you make that’s a great call out and he gives a specific number But then it’s like but listen to this and what about this and don’t forget this Basically, we’re we’re not here to give you like a tied up in a bow. It’s just one part of the story Yeah, how much money you make is not the key driver for a lot of people But you want to know that you want to know the answer to that. So there you have it
⁓ Okay, so when we talk about the brands on the list, Allison, are we seeing that there’s a certain segment of franchising that really dominates this list, that women are essentially outperforming or are happier or making more money than others? I think that’s a great question. Surprisingly, no. This top franchise list for women is very diverse in terms of kind of brands.
I want to also clarify there are some sectors that have more female franchisees than others. Some are sectors you might expect, some are not. So travel, the travel industry, we see more female franchisees, child enrichment, fitness, health, and that’s just important to know.
But in terms of across this list, it’s very diverse. We see food and beverage. We see senior care, home services, real estate, business services, travel. Yeah, and I don’t even think we said there’s a hundred brands on the list. We didn’t even tell people. there’s a hundred brands. So we talk about food and beverage, ⁓ know, Culver’s a fan favorite if you like frozen custard.
You mentioned senior care, visiting angels comes to mind when we look at senior care. So we have a good representation across different types of, or different segments of franchising. So ⁓ we don’t want to hone you in in a certain area. We’ve got a breadth of brands for you to take a look I think there’s space for, women are being welcomed into every industry. It’s more that you should be discriminating about what brand you pick. Yes.
And how it lines up with what your goals are your personal goals are yeah So if somebody is listening to this and they are considering our favorite Tony Harris Taylor term if they’re franchise curious What do you think they should focus on if they’re just getting started? Great question, so I think a lot of times people might be drawn to a certain brand Maybe they maybe it’s something simple like the logo is really catchy or what they sell is really enticing
But I actually think you need to look beyond that. You need to ask things like, are the franchisees happy? Right? Like, do people actually enjoy? Like, yeah, maybe you’re selling the most amazing product, but all the franchisees are miserable. Don’t be a part of that brand, right? And you should ask them if they respect their leadership. As Michelle mentioned, as you mentioned, Michelle, trusting the franchisor is really critical.
I Yeah. I mean, you are your own boss, but you also really need to have a connection with corporate because they make some big decisions for your for your business. Yeah. I would also talk to the operations team, the people that are going to be supporting you to understand. And we’re not saying that if you talk to someone and they’re like, sometimes we don’t always agree that that’s a red flag because it is true. These these people work for the corporate office. You’re not going to always have the same goals and your
Satisfaction could go up and down depending on what they’re asking you to do, but you have to generally understand that they’re there to make you, to support your success because if you’re not successful, they won’t be successful. So I think it’s great to ask questions like when there’s not alignment or when a franchisee really is unhappy, how do you guys work through it? Ask those questions. They shouldn’t be afraid to tell you, know, if they’re telling you it’s always, we’re just always this great cult of happy people walking around and.
It’s not very believable. So asking about how they work through those hard times, what kind of support they get if businesses are struggling, I think those are good questions to ask to understand would you work well with this person even if you don’t see eye to eye? Do you believe that they have your best interests in mind as they make decisions for the whole brand? You’re in charge of your four walls, what’s happening in your community and your business, but this corporate team has a much wider lens.
And their job is to make sure that your brand is the best value when you want to exit and you want to sell it. That’s really their job. Right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You have to you have to think about that. Yeah. And I do go back to that recommend question. I think when you reflect on your seven years in a brand that you would still recommend it to others, that’s a really telling sign that highs, lows, successes, failures, that they’re telling someone else that they would.
do it again or they would recommend someone else to join that system, I think that’s really telling of the strength of the brand. Great. ⁓ We talked so much about satisfaction. Are you satisfied? Not like, are you always happy? But are you satisfied? And what does that look like? And that’s what we measure. That’s what our data shows. Yeah.
So if you’re researching a brand, think we say this in most episodes, the two things that I think are the most important is franchisee feedback, satisfaction, engagement, and unit profitability. So doing your homework to look at those things, that is your best foundation, and then figuring out the right brand for your goals, your lifestyle. We have lots of content to try and help you hone in on that. But let’s talk about, why does this list matter in 2026 specifically?
big question. I mean I do think more women are exploring business ownership. I think it’s a great way to take control of your financial future. I think women are wanting to be more self-determining. ⁓ I think franchising in general is a really great way to own your own business. There are so many. I mean I know that this list is about the best franchises for women but there’s also a list that we have
that talks about recession resistant franchises. And those are just worth talking about because these are businesses that are long lasting, that no matter the economy, they’re going to be necessary. People are going to count on them. And I think women should think about that. Women are, in general, I think we’re pretty practical.
Right? We’re forward thinking. We’re the buyers of most things in our families. I think we have a great lens as far as what a consumer need is for a service, for a product. But I also think there’s a lot of chaos. mean, we’re not going to get into politics, but there’s a lot of chaos happening in our world right now. And we had that great conversation on a recent episode about recession resistant franchises in that. Or we’re going to. We haven’t published it yet.
We’re going to have a great conversation about recession, recession franchises. But I think that you can be hung up on now is not the right time because it’s unstable of what’s happening in the economy. Because money costs more money. ⁓ I mean, it does. Money costs more money right now. But it was a great conversation because just the idea of this is big picture. So if this is your dream, don’t get scared away by what’s happening around you.
hone in, do your research, and you can always wait. You can say no, you can wait, but I’ll go back to what franchisees tell us the most when we interview them. I wish I’d done it sooner. I mean, it comes up. Every time. Yeah, it’s amazing. So I think that’s why this is an important list this year, because we want to give people hope, and we want to give people direction to make good decisions. ⁓ And if no one else around you is telling you, now is the time to think about this and think about how it fits into your world, we’re here to tell you that.
We’ll be your cheerleader. Absolutely. Yeah. Go you. Yeah. I’m channeling Ali Krauss there. She actually is a cheerleader. Which is so cool. But I just think so many franchisees talk about the reason that they get into a franchise is because of autonomy and flexibility and work-life balance. Who doesn’t want that more than women? Yeah. Who doesn’t want that more than women? Right? I’d like it. Yeah.
I’d like some of that. my gosh. Yeah. So again, we have data from over 8,500 women. 88 % of them would recommend that you join their franchise. So why not take a look at this list of 100 brands as a place to start? Look for those strong ⁓ teams that are supporting their franchisees, that community around them that are supporting them. Do your research. Reach out to FBR if you have questions, if you want to celebrate that you joined a franchise system.
We are all here to support those decisions. And we’re also here to support you if you decide it’s not for you. We love that more than even helping someone find the right franchise. ⁓ So we’re here. Yeah, we’re here. So make sure you go to franchisebusinessreview.com. Go to our awards section. Our newest award is the best franchises for women of 2026. Explore different industries. Push yourself. Maybe you never thought about senior care. Think about it. Great industry to be a part of.
Maybe you have your mind set on health and wellness. Well, sure, think about that. There’s some franchises on there. What about travel? There’s just so many opportunities. So use our data as a starting point for deeper due diligence. Check out which brands are sharing their franchisee satisfaction reports and dig into them. It will, at the minimum, it will give you a starting point to go, hmm, what should I look for? What sounds interesting to me?
What are some red flags? What are some green flags? And then you can kind of further go. You don’t just have to Google franchises and go with the top one that you’ve heard of. That’s like so not what you have to do. Yeah, and we’re really proud of the clients we work with because they are committed to getting feedback from their franchise owners and they will share it with you and they want to be transparent. They want you to know what it’s like to come in and run the business and be part of the brand.
So, you know, any of these hundred that you see, we would tell you they’re worth having a conversation with. Definitely. I I even think about some of our brands that have been surveying with us for over 20 years. Wild Birds Unlimited is on this list. Two Men in a Truck is on this list. I mean, these are franchise brands that really care if their franchisees are happy, really, really care. And they have made this list for women. So check them out. Thanks for joining us.
