Methodology
How CommonFranchise builds its data.
Every number on the site comes from a public Franchise Disclosure Document. Here’s how we extract, validate, and update each field.
Editorial integrity
CommonFranchise generates revenue from brand subscriptions, lead access, and disclosed featured placements. We do not earn referral or success-based compensation when a franchisee signs an agreement. What a franchisee chooses, when, or whether they choose at all has no impact on what we’re paid.
Independence
- Rankings on /top, comparisons on /compare, and matches in /quiz are computed from disclosed FDD data using the methodology described on this page. Paid placement status is not an input.
- Recommendations to applicants are based on stated criteria — budget, geography, experience — not on whether a brand has paid for placement.
- Methodology, field definitions, and source filings are public and auditable from this page.
Disclosure
- Any paid placement is labeled Sponsored with a tooltip explaining the disclosure, conforming to the FTC’s endorsement guides (16 CFR Part 255).
- Sponsored content is visually segregated from editorial content — rankings, comparisons, and brand pages.
- Sponsored placements are flat-rate or subscription — never success-based, never per-signed-franchise.
What we won’t change for money
- Ranking inputs, weights, or thresholds.
- Sourcing — we don’t suppress unfavorable data on request.
- Item 19 figures, or our refusal to fabricate them where none was disclosed.
If you spot anything that looks like editorial drift, email editorial@commonfranchise.com and we’ll respond on the record.
Source: Wisconsin DFI
Our primary source is the Wisconsin Department of Financial Institutions (WDFI) franchise registration database. The United States has fourteen franchise-registration jurisdictions that require franchisors to file their FDD with the state before offering franchises there. Wisconsin is one of those fourteen, and unlike some registration states, Wisconsin publishes registered FDDs as a public, machine-readable record.
We chose Wisconsin because it gives us the broadest, cleanest feed of registration-grade filings without requiring manual records requests. A large majority of national franchise brands register in at least one of the fourteen states, and most register in Wisconsin.
Limitation: not every US franchisor registers in Wisconsin. Brands that only operate in non-registration states, or that register elsewhere, may not appear in our directory. We are actively expanding to cover additional state filings.
Extraction process
Download
Automated scraper pulls active FDD filings from the Wisconsin DFI registration database as structured PDF files.
Convert
Each PDF is run through pdftotext to produce a normalized plain-text version we can parse programmatically.
Extract
Regex-based parsers locate Items 5, 6, 7, and 19 and pull out fees, royalties, investment ranges, and earnings tables.
Review
Parsed output is validated against source PDFs. Unusual values and parser failures are flagged for manual review before publishing.
What we extract, per brand
- Item 5 · Initial Franchise Fee
- The one-time payment required to sign the franchise agreement. Usually a single dollar figure or tight range.
- Item 6 · Other Fees
- Ongoing royalty rate (percent of gross sales or flat fee) and advertising/brand fund contribution. Often expressed as a range.
- Item 7 · Estimated Initial Investment
- The full low-to-high range a franchisee should expect to spend opening a single unit, inclusive of franchise fee, build-out, equipment, inventory, and working capital.
- Item 19 · Financial Performance Representations
- Average unit revenue, profit, or other operating metrics, when the franchisor chooses to disclose them. If Item 19 is not disclosed, we mark the brand accordingly rather than fabricating a figure.
Data freshness
FDDs are updated annually. We fetch new filings from Wisconsin DFI on a periodic cycle and re-run extraction against any brand with a newer registered filing. Each brand page surfaces the FDD filing year we pulled from, so you always know how recent the numbers are.
Known gaps
- 810 brands is not every US franchise. Any franchisor that does not register in Wisconsin will not appear here until we add their jurisdiction.
- Item 19 is optional. Roughly 62% of brands in our dataset disclose unit-level Item 19 financial performance representations. The rest include a disclaimer instead. We flag the distinction on every brand page and never synthesize an Item 19 figure where none was disclosed.
- Parsers aren’t perfect. Unusual FDD formatting can cause extraction errors. Flagged cases go through manual review before publishing, but edge cases slip through. That’s why corrections below matters.
Current coverage
- Brands
- 810
- FDDs analyzed
- 810
- Cost data
- 82%
- Item 19 numbers
- 502
Definitions: Cost data means at least one parsed Item 5 or Item 7 value. Complete cost data means both franchise fee and estimated initial investment range. Item 19 numbers counts brands whose FDD discloses actual financial performance figures, not just a disclaimer.
Corrections
Are you a brand owner who spotted an error on your profile? A prospective franchisee who noticed a figure that doesn’t match your copy of the FDD? Email corrections@commonfranchise.com with the brand name and the specific field in question. Include a link to or excerpt from the source filing when possible. We respond to every correction request.
Not legal advice
CommonFranchise is a data platform. Nothing on this site constitutes legal, financial, or investment advice. Before signing any franchise agreement, read the full current FDD directly from the franchisor and consult a franchise attorney and a CPA. Our data is meant to help you compare, not to replace that process.
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