Aspiring Franchisees Turn to Personal Savings, SBA and Bank Loans for Startup Funding
By: Michael Alston for Franchise Insights
September 17, 2025 – While the rankings of many of the categories of expected business startup funding changed over the past year, the top three – personal savings, SBA loans, and banks or other loan providers remained in the same order among the top three.
Franchise prospects consistently rank “personal savings” the top source for funding for their business launches, as cited among the top three sources by 45.1% of respondents in June and July surveys. Those prospects planning to take advantage of Small Business Administration loans and bank loans stood at 43.9% and 28.7% respectively. Another 15.2% of respondents expect contributions from business partners, with another 14.6% getting help from friends and family.
The rankings for the top three sources are in line with data from November 2024, when “personal savings” was the most often source selected, at 51.3% of respondents, followed by SBA and bank loans.. Similarly in July 2024, personal savings was at the top of the list of franchise funding sources at 52.5%.
Franchise prospects consistently rank “personal savings” the top source for funding for their business launches.
Funding remains a top concern of aspiring franchisees, though only 62.9% cited it as a key startup concern in the August 2025 Small Business Startup Sentiment survey. This was the lowest reading since September 2024, and only 27.4% of August 2025 respondents think that financing will be “harder or much harder” to obtain three months from now.
These results are according to surveys of aspiring business owners conducted by FranchiseInsights.com in June and July 2025. The total percentages above add up to more than 100% since respondents were instructed to choose their top three sources.
The “other” option was chosen by 8.5% of respondents. The top “other” sources cited were as varied as “gifts”, “grants”, and “community cooperative,” among many more.
FranchiseInsights.com conducts a monthly “mystery shopping survey” as well as the Small Business Startup Sentiment Index™ (SSI) of individuals who have recently inquired about businesses for sale. The data presented is from June through August 2025 as specified.
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.
Interested in more insights from our proprietary data set? Subscribe here to make sure you hear about them first.
Contact Franchise Ventures to get your share of today’s aspiring franchise owners.
Published on Saturday, September 6th, 2025.