FranchiseGator Franchise Data Scraper

What does Franchise Scraper do?

Franchise Scraper extracts structured franchise opportunity data from Franchise Gator — one of the largest franchise directories on the web. For every franchise profile you get the investment range, franchise fee, liquid capital and net worth requirements, territory availability, training and financing options, year founded, units count, and the request-info lead link — everything a franchise broker, consultant, SBA lender, finance broker or prospective franchisee needs to qualify an opportunity, in clean JSON/CSV/Excel.

The actor runs on Apify's infrastructure with proxy rotation included, so your own IP is never exposed and runs are repeatable on a schedule.

Why use Franchise Scraper?

• Lead generation for brokers & consultants — pull fresh franchise profiles with financial requirements and reach out to matching candidates.
• Market mapping for lenders & finance brokers — compare liquid capital, net worth and investment thresholds across hundreds of brands to pre-qualify SBA/loan candidates.
• Competitive research for multi-unit investors — track units counts, royalty fees and agreement terms across categories.
• Structured output — download as JSON, CSV, Excel or consume via API, webhooks, or direct integrations (Google Sheets, Zapier, Make, n8n).

How to use Franchise Scraper

1. Open the actor and go to the Input tab.
2. Leave Start URLs at the default (the full Franchise Gator profiles sitemap) or paste your own URLs:
   • franchise profile pages (https://www.franchisegator.com/franchises/<slug>/),
   • listing pages (categories, states, A-Z directory) — these also unlock the internal-JSON enrichment,
   • any .xml sitemap.
3. Set Max Items and click Start.
4. Download results from the Output tab in your preferred format.

Input

Field	Type	Description
startUrls	array	Profile URLs, listing/category/state/directory URLs, or sitemap XMLs. Default: full profiles sitemap (~4,700 franchises).
maxItems	integer	Maximum number of franchise profiles per run (default 50).
enrichWithInternalJson	boolean	When a franchise's internal ID was captured from a listing page, query Franchise Gator's internal JSON endpoint too — adds franchise fee, year founded, royalty fee, agreement term, industry detail. Default: true.
proxyConfiguration	object	Apify proxy settings. UNBLOCKER group by default — required, see FAQ.

Example input

{
    "startUrls": [
        { "url": "https://www.franchisegator.com/states/texas-franchises/" },
        { "url": "https://www.franchisegator.com/franchises/1-800-got-junk/" }
    ],
    "maxItems": 100
}

Output

One dataset item per franchise:

{
    "url": "https://www.franchisegator.com/franchises/1-800-got-junk/",
    "franchiseName": "1-800-GOT-JUNK?",
    "category": "Cleaning & Maintenance",
    "investmentRange": "$90,000 - $150,000",
    "franchiseFee": null,
    "liquidCapitalRequired": "$80,000 - $90,000",
    "netWorthRequired": "$150,000",
    "territoryAvailability": "Franchises are available in select U.S. states, including Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Maryland, New Jersey, and Texas.",
    "trainingDetails": "Training: Available",
    "financingOptions": "Financing: Available",
    "yearFounded": null,
    "unitsCount": "170+",
    "requestInfoLeadLink": "https://www.franchisegator.com/franchises/1-800-got-junk/",
    "description": "A 1-800-GOT-JUNK? franchise is an outstanding opportunity...",
    "logoUrl": "https://assets.franchisegator.com/images/sponsors/1056/1800GotJunk_Logo.jpg",
    "fboId": null,
    "dataSource": "profile-page",
    "scrapedAt": "2026-08-25T07:00:00.000Z"
}

You can download the dataset in JSON, HTML, CSV or Excel from the Output tab.

Data table

Field	Description
franchiseName	Brand name of the franchise
category	Primary category/industry from the profile breadcrumb
investmentRange	Total investment min–max
franchiseFee	Up-front franchise fee (from internal JSON when available)
liquidCapitalRequired	Minimum liquid capital (cash) requirement
netWorthRequired	Minimum net worth requirement
territoryAvailability	Where the franchise is currently awarding territories
trainingDetails	Training availability/details
financingOptions	Financing availability/details
yearFounded	Year the brand was established (internal JSON when available)
unitsCount	Total units/locations
requestInfoLeadLink	Profile URL where prospects can request free information
royaltyFee, agreementTerm, industry, industrySubsector, incorporatedName, alternateName, franchisingSince	Extra fields from internal JSON enrichment
fboId, dataSource, scrapedAt	Provenance metadata

How much does it cost to scrape Franchise Gator?

Franchise Gator is protected by AWS WAF. This actor routes all traffic through the Apify Unblocker proxy group, which reliably bypasses the WAF challenges. Unblocker usage is billed by Apify as proxy usage (roughly $0.45 per 1,000 pages on top of compute) and is included in many plans' monthly allowance. A 500-franchise run typically costs well under $1 in total platform usage. Free Apify users get a 10-item preview per run; paid plans run up to the maxItems cap.

Tips and advanced options

• Want complete data (fees + founding years)? Include at least one listing URL (state, category or A-Z directory) in Start URLs — listing pages expose the internal IDs that unlock fee/founding-year enrichment. Sitemap-only runs skip enrichment for most items.
• Target a niche: use category URLs like https://www.franchisegator.com/categories/sba-approved-franchises/ or industry URLs such as .../industries/food-restaurant-franchises/.
• Keep runs cheap: lower maxItems; the actor stops as soon as the cap is reached.
• Scheduling: run weekly via Scheduler to keep your franchise database current.

FAQ, disclaimers and support

• Why can't I use plain datacenter proxies? AWS WAF serves CAPTCHA challenges to datacenter and standard residential IPs. The Unblocker group solves them automatically. If your plan lacks Unblocker access, contact Apify support or upgrade.
• Why is franchiseFee sometimes null? Fees live in Franchise Gator's internal JSON endpoint, which requires the franchise's internal ID. IDs are only published on listing pages, so sitemap-only runs may miss them. Add a listing URL to maximize coverage.
• Is this legal? The actor only reads publicly available pages and respects robots.txt disallowed paths. It never submits request-info forms on anyone's behalf — requestInfoLeadLink is provided so you can contact the franchisor directly.
• Feedback or a custom feature? Open an issue on the actor's Issues tab.