2025 AFDR

The 2025 Annual Franchise Development Report (AFDR) delivers data collected from franchisors with responses organized by industry, unit investment, system-wide sales, brokers, and more. The annual report provides franchisors with the ideal tool for studying their development practices, benchmarking their sales and recruitment budgets against their own industry categories, and setting goals and budgets for the year ahead. The report also includes research into online recruitment practices, the growing use of mobile and social tools by prospects, and best practices by franchisors.

The 2025 report introduces a new format to provide clearer communication of the data and an easier-to-use format. The survey information is segmented by industry sector, systemwide revenue, total investment, B2B/B2C, brokers, and exceeding, below or on target with goals. 

In addition to the growing information on use of brokers, we have added baseline information on the use of Franchise Sales Organizations (FSOs).

The In-Depth Research Report Covers

• Lead generation budgets
• Team salaries
• Cost per lead
• Cost per sale
• Top producing lead sources
• Top producing digital lead sources
• Industries exceeding goals
• Lead to deal close ratios
• Application to close ratios
• Discovery day to close ratios
• Development personnel compensation structure
• Broker budgets, results, and commissions
• Resale percentages
• … and much more.

Further Segmentation Includes

• Industry category:     
  • Food
  • Retail Food
  • Retail non-food
  • Service brick & mortar
  • Service without brick & mortar
• Cost per unit
• Investment range
• Annual systemwide revenues
• Broker usage

The AFDR Offers Benchmarking Opportunities

• How does your sales budget compare with other brands in your segment?
• Are your closing ratios in line with your industry and investment level?
• What marketing initiatives drive the most leads and deals closed?
• How do digital initiatives stack up to drive leads?
• Successful "outside the box" initiatives used in the past year
• Are your brokers delivering—and is their price per deal too high?
• Are you using referrals, and how much are you paying for them?
• Some franchisors are exceeding their sales goals. What are they doing differently from those falling short?

The 2025 AFDR is packed with timely information and benchmarking data that can help your franchise system grow faster and close more deals—while saving thousands of dollars in cost per sale. Based on in-depth surveys from franchise companies, this thoroughly researched report reveals the success drivers that are sure to boost the output and quality of your sales department.

Filled with the most comprehensive sales and lead generation data in franchising, the 2025 AFDR, at almost 350 pages, is a must-buy tool for franchisors, development consultants, and advertising, marketing, and technology suppliers—and is ideal for benchmarking and building budgets and media plans.