New Study Finds One in Five Franchise Consultants Responsible for Nearly Two-Thirds of All Placements

Franchise Consulting Index, the largest independent study of its kind, surveys 220 consultants across every major network on production, brand selection, and industry outlook.

Austin, TX  — A new independent study of the franchise consulting profession finds that production is heavily concentrated at the top: the most active 20% of franchise consultants account for 63% of all franchise units placed over the past year, while the top 10% alone account for 43%. Most consultants in the study placed four or fewer candidates in the same period.

The finding is among dozens published today in the inaugural Franchise Consulting Index (FCI), a research initiative from The Consultant Exchange (TCX) examining how franchise consultants and brokers operate across the United States and Canada. The FCI was built on a sample of 3,200 franchise consultants and brokers, of whom 220 responded — a 7% response rate. Drawn from every major industry-recognized network as well as independent practitioners, the FCI collected data on their placement activity, brand relationships, due diligence practices, and use of technology over the preceding 12 months.

“There’s no shortage of opinions about how this profession works,” said Steven Inglefield, founder of TCX and the report’s author. “There’s very little actual data. We wanted to put a number next to the assumptions — starting with our own.”

Other findings from the report include:

• 86% of placements occur in the $100,000–$500,000 investment range, with concentration heaviest in home services, senior care, B2B, and fitness.
• 88% of consultants report declining to present a brand to a candidate over concerns about the franchisor’s compliance history, financial stability, or litigation record — a filter the report describes as protective, judgment-based, and entirely informal.
• Responsiveness from a franchisor’s development team is the single most-cited reason consultants pull back from actively representing a brand, cited by 71% of those who gave a reason for reduced engagement.
• 63% of consultants report using AI tools regularly in their work, though AI ranks as a top-three research source for only 7% when evaluating a new brand — a gap the report notes as a clear area of unmet demand.

The report discloses this methodology in full, including response rate, fielding period, and survey design, and publishes the complete survey instrument as an appendix so that every finding can be traced to the question that produced it. As a non-probability sample, the study does not report a margin of error and does not project its findings onto the profession as a whole; its claim to significance rests on its scale and full disclosure rather than statistical inference.

TCX discloses in the report that it operates a commercial platform connecting franchise consultants with franchisor brands, and that no outside brand, network, or organization funded, reviewed, or influenced the research. Participation was voluntary and unpaid, and respondents were not asked about TCX.

The full report is available at franchiseconsultingindex.com