Top 10 Franchise Sectors by Number of Brands
PlainFranchise ranks franchise sectors by the number of distinct franchise brands operating within each sector, using the sectors aggregate table. Computed fresh from our sectors data on every page load.
Research period:
Research question
Across the franchise industry's sector taxonomy, which sectors host the largest number of distinct franchise brands, and how do investment-fee profiles, royalty rates, and average revenue differ between high-density sectors like food service and lower-density sectors like personal services?
Methodology
This ranking is generated live from PlainFranchise's own sector database, sorted by number of tracked brands. Investment ranges, franchise fees, and royalty rates come from each franchisor's own Franchise Disclosure Document, which the FTC's Franchise Rule requires every U.S. franchisor to provide to prospective franchisees. No figure here is hardcoded, every number reflects the current state of PlainFranchise's database and updates as new FDD filings are reviewed and added.
Sectors with no tracked brands are excluded from this ranking rather than shown with a placeholder value. See the methodology page for the full FDD compilation process and update cadence.
Top 10 Franchise Sectors by Number of Brands
Live data, computed fresh from our database on every page load
The ranked top 10
Every row below reflects our current dataset of 10 records. Refresh the page after we reingest new source data to see the latest values.
| # | Sector | Brands | Avg low investment | Avg franchise fee | Avg royalty rate |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Food & Beverage | 69 | $768,905 | $35,439 | 5.5% |
| 2 | Retail | 31 | $326,147 | $34,414 | 5.4% |
| 3 | Home Services | 31 | $86,656 | $33,107 | 6.9% |
| 4 | Education | 16 | $222,750 | $48,403 | 7.6% |
| 5 | Health & Fitness | 15 | $496,267 | $41,739 | 6.6% |
| 6 | Automotive | 11 | $706,909 | $33,889 | 5.9% |
| 7 | Business Services | 10 | $64,450 | $37,175 | 14.1% |
| 8 | Senior Care | 9 | $88,222 | $49,328 | 4.7% |
| 9 | Real Estate | 8 | $69,250 | $30,667 | 5.4% |
| 10 | Travel & Hospitality | 7 | $3.9M | $40,166 | 5.0% |
Source: PlainFranchise FDD compilation, sourced from franchisor-provided Franchise Disclosure Documents under the FTC Franchise Rule. Values update as PlainFranchise reviews new filings. PlainFranchise FDD compilation, sourced from franchisor-provided Franchise Disclosure Documents under the FTC Franchise Rule. Values update as PlainFranchise reviews new filings.
Findings
Top entity in the ranking
The top-ranked record in this dataset is Food & Beverage, with a value of 69 on the Brands column. The full top-10 set is rendered in the table above. Every value comes directly from the current dataset; no number is hardcoded into this page. When the PlainFranchise publishes a revision, the ranking and the prose around it update automatically.
Distribution shape
The gap between the top-ranked record (69) and the 10th-ranked record (7) characterizes how concentrated the top of the distribution is. Where the top value is many multiples of the median value of the visible set, the population is highly concentrated, a small number of entities accumulate the bulk of the measured quantity. Where the top and bottom of the visible set are close together, the distribution is relatively flat across the top end. The full distribution beyond this top-10 cut is summarized in the aggregate context section below and explored in the linked entity profiles.
Aggregate context
Across the full population behind this ranking, here are the summary statistics: how many records exist in total, the sum of the ranking metric across all qualifying records, and the mean per-record value. The methodology page documents the exact filter applied (records with null or zero values on the ranking metric are excluded). This aggregate row is computed from the same dataset that powers the ranking above.
Source provenance
The figures in this ranking come from each franchisor's own Franchise Disclosure Document, provided under the FTC's Franchise Rule. PlainFranchise reviews and compiles these filings, so the ranking above always reflects the latest figures in our database. See the methodology page for the review process and update cadence.
Why this ranking matters
Rankings like this one let a reader scan a population quickly and identify outliers, concentrations, and patterns that warrant deeper investigation. The detail pages linked from each entity in the table above give the full per-entity context: time-series history where available, related metrics from adjacent tables, and links onward to the underlying source records. The methodology page explains how an entity earns inclusion in the dataset and how the ranking column is computed at the source.
What this analysis cannot tell us
Sector boundaries follow the franchise industry's conventional taxonomy and do not always map cleanly to NAICS or SIC industry codes. Multi-concept franchisors that operate brands in several sectors are counted in each sector their brands occupy. Average investment ranges combine widely varying brand-level disclosures, a sector that contains both low-investment home-based brands and high-investment full-build-out brands will show a wide average that may not represent the typical franchise opportunity. Item 19 revenue disclosure is voluntary; only brands that elect to disclose average unit revenue contribute to the sector-level average revenue figure, and these self-selected disclosures may skew toward higher-performing brands within the sector.
Secondary cut from the same source
Top 10 sectors by average per-unit revenue disclosed in FDD Item 19 (minimum 5 brands per sector to qualify)
Sources
- Franchise Disclosure Documents (FDD) - filed with state franchise registries under the FTC Franchise Rule
- FTC, Franchise Rule - ftc.gov