You Can Buy More Than One!

Want to own multiple franchise locations? These are the best brands for multi-unit owners.

- TRACY STAPP HEROLD

In franchising, the growth opportunities are endless. You could buy one unit—and then, if you succeed, you could buy a second. Then a third. Then onward into the hundreds or even thousands!

The franchise industry is full of people like that. More than 40% of all franchise units are owned by multi-unit franchisees, and the average franchisee owns 2.4 units. (That’s data we collected from applicants for our 2025 Franchise 500 ranking.) There’s plenty of variation within the industry, of course, with some systems still dominated by single-unit owners and others made up entirely of multi-unit franchisees. But ultimately, there’s no doubt that multi-unit franchise ownership continues to gain popularity, which is why we've ranked the top brands for existing and prospective franchisees who are interested in it.

To do that, we first took into account each company’s 2025 Franchise 500 score, which is based on an analysis of more than 150 data points in the areas of costs and fees, size and growth, support, brand strength, and financial strength and stability. Then we looked at factors related more specifically to multi-unit ownership, such as discounts offered for multi-unit franchisees, whether brands sell only multi-unit or master license deals, what percentage of a brand’s franchisees own multiple units, what percentage of a brand’s total units are owned by multi-unit franchisees, and how many units the average franchisee within each brand owns.