64 Franchise Statistics to Know in 2025

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in 2024 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The U.S. had 33.2 million businesses in 2024. Out of these businesses, 821,589 are franchise establishments.

This may seem like a tiny fraction of all US businesses, but veterans own one out of every seven franchises in the US, which is about 14% of franchisees. They contribute $41 billion to the US economy, which is almost more than Georgia’s GDP in 2023.

Franchise statistics aren’t just numbers; they’re powerful resources to fuel your marketing initiatives. By leveraging these insights, you can tailor your strategies to your service area and maximize your business’s potential.

Why Are These Franchise Statistics Important?

Franchises operate a market-tested business model; the only difference when you’re licensed is that you’re setting up the business in a new, unproven location. When this is the case, understanding what data say about franchising deals and digital marketing options helps you optimize for short-term and long-term goals. If you still wonder why franchise statistics are important, read these:

To Understand Competitor Strategies

There are businesses in your service area that are already targeting your specific audiences. You need to know their approach to capturing demand and converting visitors through competitor analysis so you can optimize your marketing efforts for success. 

Understanding your competitors’ strategies is not just about keeping up, it’s also about staying ahead. By learning from their ad bidding strategies, SEO strategy, and use of user-generated content, you can gain a competitive edge. 

As a business targeting a local audience, franchise statistics can provide you with the insights you need to understand what makes each community tick. This knowledge can be the key to increasing conversions and foot traffic, giving you a strategic advantage in your market.

To Understand Local SEO

Local SEO relates to geolocation targeting so you can market your business to new, specific audiences in your service area. Franchise statistics will help you understand your ideal customers, their interests, online behavior, and the best way to get your brand in front of them through digital marketing.

The data will also guide you on effective SEO, PPC, or social media marketing strategies so you can get started on the approach with a high chance of converting fast. After all, the bottom line goal is higher engagement and conversions.

64 Franchise Statistics for Business Success

Every company that leans on data doesn’t regret it, especially if they optimize their operations to scale based on relevant data. Here are some data you can layer in to improve your marketing strategy and services:

General Franchise Statistics

1. According to Entrepreneur’s 2025 Franchise 500 list, the U.S. franchise industry has over 3000 business categories, with Taco Bell leading the pack in 2025.
2. A typical franchise agreement lasts about 5-20 years. If you’re a franchise, you can use this data to create a franchise agreement. If you’re a franchisee, this means you only have two decades on average to make the most out of a business you didn’t start on your own.
3. McDonald’s is the largest franchise in the world, with revenue of $25.94B in 2024
4. Franchisees pay about 4%—12% royalties every year. In 2023, McDonald’s generated around $12.5 billion in royalty revenue from franchisees worldwide.
5. An average franchise owner is about 44 years old.
6. 10.5% of U.S. businesses are franchises, and 14% of these franchises are controlled by veterans who generate $41 billion in annual GDP.
7. Of all the niches, the personal services brands seem to be growing as fast as fast food brands. According to data, the number of establishments will increase by 4.3% to 132,045 and jobs will increase by 3.8 % to 625,158. This category will also increase by 7.5 percent to $48.7 billion.
8. 97 of the world’s 100 largest franchises are from the United States.
9. Quick-service restaurants are worth 382bn USD in the franchise industry. They are considered the largest contributors, followed by the retail food, product, and services business line. If you’re starting, this could be an industry to try out
10. To open a Domino’s Pizza franchise though, you need a 682,000 USD upfront investment.
11. U.S. franchise establishments generated an economic output of about $896.9 billion in 2024
12. Franchises in the U.S. will grow more than the overall economy in 2025. The Congressional Budget Office expects U.S. economic growth of 1.9%

Source for section statistics:

• Fortunly
• Stock Analysis 
• International Franchise Professional Group
• Zippia
• Franchise Times
• Franchise Direct
• Statista
• Restaurant Business
• International Franchise Assosication
• Concho Valley

Statistics on Local SEO for Franchises

Most franchises focus on local consumers. One of the effective marketing strategies to reach these consumers is understanding (and dominating) local SEO and using the information to promote your business. Here’s how, according to data:

11. Google Maps searches for “shopping near me” grow over 100% globally annually. It grew by 136% in 2023. This means you need to have a digital presence in Google’s map pack and dominate local searches.
12. The top three most trusted platforms for researching local businesses are Google (66%), Google Maps (45%), and a business’s own website (36%).
13. Google handles 8.5 billion searches daily, and considering that an average user searches about 3-4 times a day and over 2 billion people use Google daily, optimizing your website to rank on Google can never go wrong
14. 62% of consumers would avoid using a business if they found incorrect information online
15. 60% of smartphone users contact businesses directly after finding them through a search engine through features like “click to call.” If you include your contact details on your local business websites, you’ll gain valuable leads.
16. 76% of mobile users who conduct local searches visit a store in 24 hours, with 28% of those searches converting into purchases

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15. 46% of web users are looking for local businesses. Most Google searches are for local information like addresses, hours, and directions. This means a solid local SEO agency can put your business in front of a vast audience who will visit your physical store (or request your services) if these details are available online.
16. Local and organic searches contribute to 69% of website digital traffic.
17. Local searches make up 22% of that website traffic. 
18. The top five most trusted platforms consumers use to find information about local businesses are Google (66%), Google Maps (45%), business website (36%), Facebook (32%), and Yelp (32%). This means your franchise business (and franchisees) should be listed and accessible in these places.
19. Google ranks businesses in its local pack based on their primary Business Profile category (193), the keywords in their Business Profile name (181), and how close they are to the searcher’s location (176). This means that you can improve your franchise’s visibility by optimizing your Google Business Profile.
20. 90% of small businesses use social media as a vital part of their marketing strategy. This means you can reach your target audience fast if you post entertaining and informative content regularly on social platforms with your target audience.
21. More than 71% of local businesses have websites, making ranking for near-me searches easy. It also optimizes its content for PPC ads and SEO to gain organic traffic and convert traffic to sales more efficiently.
22. Among Apple users, 58.6% prefer to use Google Maps vs. 26.3% for Apple Maps when searching for local businesses. This makes optimizing for Google Business Profile an easy way for potential customers to locate your business faster and rank online for specific queries.
23. In general, 88% of all consumers use Google Maps, while the remaining 12% use Apple Maps. This reinforces why Google Business Profile and being discoverable on a map is important to your franchise business.

Source for section statistics

• Think with Google
• Bright Local
• Statista
• SE Round Table
• Milestone
• WhiteSpark
• Synup
• Business Dasher

Statistics on Google My Business Profiles

22. Businesses with complete Google My Business profiles are perceived as 2.7x more reputable. Potential customers can shop through all they do and act based on the information. 
23. 40% of consumers claim to have searched for a local business to see its opening hours at least a few times per month. This means you should always optimize your business profile with your open hours so potential customers can know when you visit your physical store.
24. 70% of customers are most likely to visit a business with a complete Google My Business profile, and 50% will consider buying from them.
25. 95% of consumers will read online reviews before choosing a local business to buy from.
26. 88% of consumers would use a business that replies to all its reviews. 47% say they won’t even try checking out a business that doesn’t respond to reviews, let alone patronize it.
27. 87% of consumers use Google search engines to find information about businesses and services in a particular location. The best franchise SEO agency can skyrocket your visibility for these searches to increase conversion and sales.
28. An average local business receives 1,260 views monthly from Google My Business. These views are potential customers who want to know more about your business on Google Search or Maps. You can track your views and create posts with the GMB dashboard to stay visible to these customers
29. An optimized Google My Business profile can get 80 to 300 quality clicks monthly. The average number of calls could be as much as 48 per month, and clicks to the website were 59 per month. Aside from brand awareness, a complete GMB profile can convert leads faster.
30. 45% of companies receive appointment requests through Google Business Profile. With a detailed GMB profile, customers can access instant information about a business, like their opening hours and contact details.

Read more on optimizing your Google My Business profile for visibility and success.

Source for section statistics:

• Google Support 
• BrightLocal
• Business Dasher
• Publer
• Cube Creative

Statistics On Localized Content for Franchises

31. Franchises can potentially lose between 8-13% of customers if they do not translate their content into their consumer’s local language.
32. 73% of consumers want product reviews in their language. It helps them understand what people say better. For example, if your target market is Mexican-Americans or any other mixed race, consider having reviews in their language as much as you have reviews in English.
33. Also, 76% of online shoppers would rather buy products with information in their native language. You need to speak in the language the community understands, and sometimes, this may mean speaking in languages other than English. 40% of these respondents say they will never buy from websites in other languages.
34. 66% of businesses use online machine translation (MT) to automatically translate their webpages based on users’ IP addresses or language preferences.
35. 75% of respondents will patronize again if customer care is in their language.
36. However, 66% will buy a product if it’s cheaper, regardless of the language. The percentage drops as their Language literacy drops. In the end, 48% will still prefer buying cheaper products, even when it’s not in their language.
37. 79% of people believe user-generated content (UGC) significantly influenced their purchasing decisions. You can use this content to create more buzz around your products or services.

Source for section statistics:

• Zoe Marketing and Communication
• CSA Research 
• Nosto

Statistics on Social Media Marketing For Franchises 

37. 5.17 billion people use social media. Marketing your franchise on your social media gives you access to these users in your local area.
38. Facebook is the most used platform, with Instagram following closely behind it.
39. 54.1% of Facebook users worldwide are 34 years or below.
40. 91% of businesses have a Facebook presence, but only 62% of these brands invest in Facebook for conversions. This means you can use Facebook ads location targeting feature to “buy” new users to your website or local business pages.
41. 27.4% of U.S. Instagram users are between 25 and 34 years old.
42. Instagram’s engagement rates are three times higher than Facebook’s (0.50% to 0.15%), which is a drop from its 0.70% in 2024 but still higher nonetheless.
43. Since 90% of Instagram users follow a business, this proves that Instagram is an excellent platform for your small business to gain visibility on social media and win in marketing.

Some content ideas for Instagram include single videos, carousels, slideshows, story ads, and more. However, if you’re not in the food, hospitality, beauty, health, fashion, or real estate industries that perform really well on Instagram, don’t spend a lot of marketing budget on the platform.

42. Pinterest has about 537 million monthly users.
43. Pinterest’s users are mostly women, 76.2% of whom are women, and 17.2% are men.
44. 27% to 35% of all U.S. adults use Pinterest regularly. The platform is the fourth most visited after Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube, with even TikTok behind it.
45. Out of all these regular users, nearly half— about 46%— say they regularly buy luxury brands and products on Pinterest.
46. 70% of Pinterest’s luxury shoppers are Gen Zs.
47. Pinterest recorded 1.3 billion user visits to the sites through both mobile and desktop in March 2024. Having a business profile on Pinterest gives brands access to these 1.3 billion people.
48. TikTok has approximately 955.3 million users.
49. X (formerly Twitter) has over 611 monthly active users globally. In the US alone, the platform has over 50.5 million monthly active users.
50. YouTube has 2.49 billion active monthly users.
51. About 70% of YouTube visits are mobile users.
52. YouTube users spend about 28 hours every month on the Android app, which is less than the 34 hours per month a typical Android user spends on TikTok.

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One thing every social media marketing strategy has in common is video marketing.  This is what research says:

54. 91% of businesses in this study use video as a marketing tool.
55. 88% of video marketers agree it is an important part of their marketing strategy.
56. The 12% of marketers who don’t use videos are unsure of the ROI of video marketing.
57. The other 15% who don’t use videos don’t know where to start. 
58. However, 68% of marketers who don’t use videos say they plan to start. 

Source for section statistics:

• Backlinko
• Statista
• Hootsuite
• Social Insider
• Business Dasher
• Pinterest
• Sprout Social
• Piniterest Business
• DataReportal
• WyzOwl

Conclusion 

These statistics show that franchises have different marketing challenges and opportunities. There are over 821,589 franchise establishments competing for visibility across different categories, and with 76% of mobile searchers visiting local businesses within 24 hours, having a strong local presence is essential for your growth.

But implementing these insights takes expertise, and this is where HigherVisibility comes in. We’ve helped franchises like Fitness19 generate over 36,000 leads in just 2 years by turning these statistics into actionable strategies.

Our approach combines:

• Local SEO optimization that puts your locations in front of high-intent searchers.
• Multi-location digital strategies that maintain brand consistency.
• Data-driven content creation that resonates with local audiences.
• Proven track record of franchise marketing success.

Contact us today for a free consultation. You can also learn more about how we can increase your franchise’s visibility in local search results.