Work Schedule Flexibility Tops Cost of Entry in Recent Polls of Franchise Prospect Preferences
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
July 1, 2026 – In over six years of survey data on characteristics that make franchises most attractive to individuals seeking franchises, “low cost of entry” and “higher earnings potential” have consistently been ranked the highest. But in recent months, “flexibility of work schedule” has risen to second most important by individuals seeking business ownership, surpassing “low cost of entry.”
Control over working conditions – including “flexibility of work schedule” and “ability to work from home” were often the third or fourth most important characteristics since the onset of the pandemic in 2020. In the most recent surveys, “ability to work from home” rose to fourth place, from sixth place in summer 2025 surveys.
“Extensive training and support” and “systems and technology platform” took fifth and sixth places, respectively, one spot down from their fourth and fifth place rankings in summer 2025.
Recent prospects included “flexibility of work schedule” in the top two rankings for the first time.
In the monthly FranchiseInsights.com Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™, respondents have been asked to rank eight franchise characteristics in order of importance to their ultimate selection, along with a “not important to me” option for each. The data presented are weighted averages of the responses ranked by individual respondents.
For the March to May 2026 surveys, we added a ninth characteristic – “not likely threatened by artificial intelligence.” Our rationale was to gauge the impact that AI might have on franchise ownership, in view of the fact that many franchise concepts involve human-to-human interactions that are less likely to be displaced.
Thus far, AI-survivability was ranked only above “pandemic resilience” as a consideration, but we have a baseline for spotting the emerging importance of this characteristic. Further, 19.4% of respondents ranked it “not important.”
AI-survivability does not seem to be an important consideration among franchise seekers yet.
“Well-known brand” ranked seventh, was indicated as “not important” to 19.5% of respondents, suggesting openness to newer concepts or lesser-known brands, or potentially reflecting the lack of capital required for an established concept.
Finally, “pandemic resilience” had the lowest ranking, and 15% of respondents said it was unimportant (and therefore not ranked), as the economic disruptions of the pandemic are years in the past.
The “not important” percentages do not sum to 100% since most respondents gave at least some ranking to each of the characteristics.
Since “low cost of entry” and “high earnings potential” were ranked highly by almost all respondents, and deemed “not important” by 5.9% and 6.7% respectively, it goes without saying that they remain top considerations. But while that is useful for honing marketing messages, it means that they are less useful in determining information about what drives the individual decision processes of prospects, and insights into their personas, as Franchise Insights first explored in March 2022.
FranchiseInsights.com compiles the monthly Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale. Data for this analysis was from the period March to May 2026.
Franchise Ventures is the leading franchise lead-generation platform for potential franchisees to thousands of growing franchise systems in the United States and Canada. Its franchise lead generation brands include Franchise.com, Franchise Solutions, Franchise Gator, Franchise Opportunities, Franchise For Sale, SmallBusinessStartup.com and BusinessBroker.net, and together they provide the largest aggregation of prospective franchise buyers in the U.S.
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Published on Wednesday, July 1st, 2026.