Franchises Under $100K

Keeping startup costs below six figures changes the shape of the franchise search. In this group, lower entry points tend to pull in service-oriented concepts first, with Home Services and Business Services leading the mix, followed by Food & Beverage and Real Estate. That matters because the day-to-day model can look very different at this budget level: many brands emphasize local operations, leaner staffing, or territory-based work rather than large physical buildouts.

There are 311 brands here with disclosed minimum startup investment at or below $100,000. The median startup investment is $61,925, which gives a better sense of the middle of the market than the full range alone. The broader spread still runs from $0 to $3,129,500, so some brands appear here because their disclosed minimum clears the threshold even if their upper end can rise much higher. In practice, that makes careful reading important, especially when a concept can be launched in more than one format.

Fees are part of the tradeoff. The median royalty in this group is 7.0%, and the median marketing fee is 2.0%. Outlet counts are moderate rather than massive, with a median of 54 locations, and 65.6% of brands disclose an Item 19. Together, that points to a segment where buyers often need to balance affordability with the amount of operating history, performance disclosure, and system scale they want to see before moving forward.

The category mix also shows that lower-cost franchising is not limited to one ownership style. Some concepts are consumer-facing retail or food businesses, while others center on home services, business support, or real estate activity. Headquarters are spread across the country, with Texas and Florida appearing most often among the leading states in this set, followed by New York and North Carolina. If you're comparing options at this level, the useful question is usually not just whether the minimum fits your budget, but how much business model complexity, local selling, staffing, and ongoing fees come with that lower starting point.