According to the Franchise 500 list of 2021, Taco Bell is the most profitable franchise to own. As of 2021, Taco Bell has 7,567 open units. It has an initial franchising fee of $25k to $45k. It’s one of the fastest-growing franchises in the world.
The most profitable franchise to own is Express Employment Professionals, a staffing agency. Express Employment Professionals set new milestones this past year with an 8% increase in sales to $4.46 billion and employing 579,000 associates in 860 franchise locations across the globe.
RE/MAX, LLC, short for Real Estate Maximums, is a real estate brokerage franchise with 9,175 locations. Annual sales are $16.13 billion. Initial franchise cost is $43,000 – $239,500.
There are hardly any risks with franchising established businesses, making it safe for entrepreneurs. However, setting up a franchise isn’t cheap. There are several factors at stake when investing in a franchise.
Anytime Fitness has been consistently ranked as one of the top franchises to own with over 4,000 locations worldwide. The initial investment is relatively low and you’ll have the freedom to be your own boss.
The absolute best way to establish the most profitable franchise businesses is to review Franchise Disclosure Documents and establish the profit margins for over 2,000 franchises. Unfortunately, that requires a ton of labor (or an amazing web crawler), so we went with the next best viable option. We found an Insider Monkey report that ranked the top 10 most profitable franchises. It provides annual sales numbers and maximum initial costs. We took that information and went a couple of steps further. We divided the average annual sales by the number of franchises to find the annual revenue per franchise. This allowed us to determine the average monthly revenue per franchise.
The data also shows that franchisees from the 50 Most Profitable Franchise brands rate their satisfaction with their overall financial performance 19% higher than brands not on the list, and 9 out of 10 (90%) would “Recommend their franchise to others.” “Overall, franchisee income numbers are down slightly, by five percent from last year,” said Eric Stites, founder and CEO of Franchise Business Review. However, larger, multi-unit franchises are faring better this year, with reported incomes up by about five percent. It’s important to remember the income franchise owners can earn over time as they build equity in their businesses—to look at the whole investment and the long-term value of a business.