Home-based franchises

A home-based franchise is one you can start without leasing a shop, an office or a warehouse: you work from a spare room, run crews from your driveway or teach in other people’s spaces. Search results for the phrase are mostly paid listings, with little on what each brand actually expects. This guide works it out from each brand’s own estimate of what it costs to open.

What counts as home-based

Every franchisor itemizes the cost to open, line by line: the franchise fee, equipment, vehicles, opening inventory, marketing and so on. Brands that need a premises include lines for rent, a lease deposit, leasehold improvements or construction. The 194 brands below have a full itemized estimate with none of those, so nothing in the brand’s own budget pays for a place to work. Businesses that trade inside someone else’s store, such as a sushi counter in a grocery, aren’t included, and nor are restaurants or hotels.

That is a practical test rather than the franchisor’s label, so read the brand’s page before you rely on it. A few brands expect you to rent a small office or storage unit once you hire, even if the opening estimate doesn’t include one.

What a home-based franchise costs

Without rent or build-out, the cost to open is mostly the franchise fee, a vehicle or equipment, opening marketing and money to live on while you build up customers. The typical home-based brand starts at $71K, 29% of the $248K typical for brands with a premises. Of the home-based brands, 133 start at $100K or less, and 62 at $50K or less.

Home-based franchises run from a van

These 104 brands budget for a vehicle but no premises. They are service businesses that go to the customer: carpet and grout cleaning, pool care, junk hauling, mobile pet grooming, holiday lighting, bathroom refinishing and repair. The vehicle and its equipment are usually the biggest line after the franchise fee, and many brands require a wrapped, branded van.

Home-based franchises run from a home office

Another 90 brands need neither a premises nor a vehicle: staffing and recruiting, business coaching, travel agencies, shipping brokers, children’s classes held in schools and gyms, and similar work done by phone, laptop and in clients’ spaces. These are among the cheapest franchises to open, and the work depends heavily on the owner’s own selling.

Largest home-based franchises

Size is a fair test of whether the model works away from a storefront. These are the home-based brands with the most US locations, franchised and company-owned.

Among them, 47 publish yearly sales per location, from $52K (House of Colour) to $4.95M (Alair Homes). See the most profitable franchises ranking for how those compare with other brands.

Home-based franchises by industry

Home services and business services make up most of the list, followed by children’s education and enrichment, cleaning and pet care.

The trade-offs of a home-based franchise

A storefront brings customers to you; a home-based business has to go and find them. That is why marketing and the owner’s own selling matter more here, and why home-based brands lose owners faster: 5.0% of their locations a year against 3.0% for brands with a premises. Of the home-based brands with three years of figures, 68% grew, against 68% of the rest.

Before you buy, ask owners how long it took to reach a full schedule, how much of their work comes from the franchisor’s leads versus their own networking, and when they needed their first hire. The failure rates guide shows each industry’s exit rate, and the agreement terms guide explains territory protection, which matters more when every customer is one you drive to.