BiggerPockets Money Podcast · Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Alex Sarnack of Franzi explains that the cost to enter a franchise business varies widely, from low-cost options like commercial cleaning ($10K-$20K) to large ventures like swim schools ($4M-$6M). However, he notes that $50,000 to $150,000 is often sufficient to access franchises capable of replacing a corporate income or enabling empire building.
“So the answer I'm going to give you on the range of how do you get into this and what does it cost is pretty wide because there are side hustle franchises that are 10 to, you know, 20k to get into and it's like card my yard or, you know, basically buying a bucket and a mop and doing commercial cleaning, you know, services franchise and it's very, very low cost to get into. But then you have businesses that are all the way up to the, you know, 4 to $6 million range where it's a giant swim school, you know, for kids swimming lessons or an indoor play park that is just much more infrastructure and more cost. And so the real range is anywhere from 10k to 5 million.”
“But I would say if you have 50 to 150k, you can get into the majority of the, let's call them, you know, good income replacing or empire building even concepts where you can buy multiple territories and start to, you know, scale up and build out a meaningful portfolio of concepts and territories.”