Franchise Direct Scraper

Scrape FranchiseDirect.com — one of the largest online franchise opportunity directories, covering thousands of brands across food, retail, home services, automotive, and more. Search by keyword, browse by industry category or curated collection (low-cost, home-based, veteran-friendly, master franchise, and more), filter by investment range, or drill into a specific US state or one of 190+ countries. No login, no API key, no cookies required.

What this actor does

• Four modes: search (keyword + industry + location + investment filters), topFranchises, newFranchises, and collection (17 curated editorial lists)
• Real industry taxonomy: 36 official FranchiseDirect industry categories
• Real location taxonomy: every US state plus 190+ countries
• Investment filtering: cap results by minimum required investment, from under $10,000 up to under $500,000
• Optional deep enrichment: fetch each franchise's full profile page for financials, business type, training, home-based status, and financing assistance
• Empty fields are omitted — every record only contains what was actually found

Output per franchise

• name — franchise brand name
• tagline — short marketing headline from the profile page (when fetchDetails=true)
• shortDescription — one-paragraph summary shown on the listing card
• description — full profile overview text (when fetchDetails=true)
• category — human-readable industry category (when fetchDetails=true)
• categoryPathSlug — industry path segment derived from the listing URL
• minInvestment — minimum cash required, as a number
• minInvestmentDisplay — minimum cash required, formatted (e.g. $125,000)
• franchiseFee — franchise fee, or fee tiers if the brand offers multiple options (when fetchDetails=true)
• totalInvestmentRange — total estimated investment range (when fetchDetails=true)
• requiredNetWorth — minimum net worth requirement (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• royaltyFee — ongoing royalty fee/structure (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• supportFees — ongoing support fee, if disclosed separately from royalties (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• territoryRestrictions — territory/exclusivity terms, if disclosed (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• businessType — e.g. Franchise, Business Opportunity (when fetchDetails=true)
• trainingProvided — boolean (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• homeBased — boolean (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• financingAssistance — e.g. 3rd Party, In-House (when fetchDetails=true and disclosed)
• availableLocations — text describing where the franchise is currently offered (when fetchDetails=true)
• businessStatus — franchise listing status, e.g. open (when fetchDetails=true)
• franchiseId — FranchiseDirect's internal listing ID (when fetchDetails=true)
• testimonials[] — franchisee quotes with attribution, when the profile page publishes any (when fetchDetails=true)
• logoUrl — franchise logo image URL
• profileUrl / sourceUrl — canonical FranchiseDirect profile page URL
• recordType: "franchise", scrapedAt

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
mode	string	search	search / topFranchises / newFranchises / collection
searchQuery	string	food	Free-text keyword (mode=search)
industry	string (enum)	food-franchises	Browse by industry category (mode=search)
location	string (enum)	any	Filter by US state or country (mode=search)
investmentTier	string (enum)	any	Cap results to franchises under this investment amount
collection	string (enum)	lowCostFranchises	Which curated editorial list to pull (mode=collection)
homeBasedOnly	boolean	false	Only keep confirmed home-based opportunities (requires fetchDetails=true)
fetchDetails	boolean	true	Also fetch each franchise's profile page for a fuller record
maxItems	integer	20	Hard cap on emitted records (1–200)

Examples

Example: browse the food industry, low investment

{
  "mode": "search",
  "industry": "food-franchises",
  "investmentTier": "100000",
  "maxItems": 30
}

Example: keyword search across all industries

{
  "mode": "search",
  "searchQuery": "cleaning",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Example: franchises available in California

{
  "mode": "search",
  "location": "california",
  "maxItems": 25
}

Example: curated low-cost franchise list

{
  "mode": "collection",
  "collection": "lowCostFranchises",
  "maxItems": 20
}

Use cases

• Franchise brokers & consultants — build a searchable database of current opportunities for clients
• Market research — track investment ranges and new brand launches across an industry
• Lead generation — surface franchise opportunities matching a specific budget or region
• Franchise development teams — monitor competitor listings and positioning
• Investment analysis — compare minimum cash requirements and total investment ranges across brands

FAQ

Is this affiliated with FranchiseDirect.com? No. This is an independent, third-party actor that reads FranchiseDirect's public listing pages. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by FranchiseDirect.

Do I need an account or API key? No. All data comes from FranchiseDirect's public browse and search pages, which require no login.

Why do some franchises have fewer fields than others? Franchise brands disclose different amounts of information on their profile pages. Fields like franchiseFee, homeBased, or trainingProvided are only included when the brand's page actually discloses them — the actor never fabricates or fills in placeholder values.

Can I combine industry, location, and investment filters at once? The actor navigates by one primary filter at a time (location takes priority, then industry, then keyword, then investment tier) since that is how FranchiseDirect's own site reliably filters results. Any investment cap and keyword you also provide are then applied as an additional check on top of the primary filter's results, so combining them still narrows your results correctly. Combining industry and location together is not currently supported since FranchiseDirect does not expose a single reliable page for that combination.

What does homeBasedOnly require? Home-based status is only disclosed on each franchise's profile page, so homeBasedOnly only takes effect when fetchDetails is also enabled.

How fresh is the data? Each run fetches live pages directly from FranchiseDirect.com at request time — there is no caching.

What are the curated collections? FranchiseDirect maintains editorial lists such as Low Cost Franchises, Home Based Franchises, Master Franchises, and Franchises for Veterans. The collection mode pulls directly from these lists.