Franchise FAQs
Our Franchise Models
Territory, Scale & Expansion Under
It depends on the franchise model:
- Consultant partners can trade anywhere as there’s no fixed geographical territory. As such, national and international trade is permitted.
- Location partners are allocated a territory containing approximately 8,000 businesses, agreed in advance between the franchisee and Head Office. Location partners typically trade in tandem with their home location. Internationally, franchisees can trade in New Zealand, Dubai, Australia and Canada and this footprint is continuing to grow.
It’s an estimate of the number of potential businesses within your agreed Location partner territory. This is designed to give you plenty of opportunity to grow a strong client base locally. The territory and its encapsulated business are defined by postcode regions.
Absolutely. Growth is supported for Location partners, and encouraged. Expansion options include:
- Adding a new territory at 80% of the original entry and management fee
- Expanding an existing territory at 50% of the original entry fee, plus a 50% uplift in management fees
Territorial conflicts are rare, but if they happen, they’re resolved through discussion and fair commission-based agreements between franchisees. Exact terms can be shared later in the process under NDA.
If you wish to discover more, feel free to book a discovery call.
Training, onboarding & ongoing support
Onboarding is structured, supportive, and designed to make you as confident as entirely possible, with all the tools you need to run your marketing business successfully.
It includes:
- A full onboarding day (held at our Head Office in Cardiff, Wales)
- For international partners, this is an online session
- Additional structured induction sessions online over your first 3 months
- Website, CRM, systems setup, and PR launch within four weeks
- A step-by-step onboarding funnel to guide you through our franchise manual. It will take you through your learning and growth stages following your induction day
Training is delivered through a mix of one-to-one support and ongoing learning resources, including:
- One-to-one sessions with Head Office staff and our Marketing and Tech leads, where appropriate
- The Accelerator Programme with 25+ on-demand videos
- Ongoing demo videos and resources, continuously dropped into your learning management system
- Monthly webinars
No. Support doesn’t expire after 90 days – or even one year. You’re part of the network, and we’re here for the long haul.
What support exists continuously:
You’ll continue to have access to:
- A ticket system for support requests
- Q&A sessions
- Our central community hub and resource library
- Direct access to Head Office when needed
- Your own CRM hub with extensive training support videos
- Our AI driven marketing and service strategy ‘employee’, Kora
- Full marketing delivery team at head office for delegation of client work as and when you choose
Franchisees get access to core activ systems including:
- activ Flow CRM
- activKeep (service orders)
- Ticketing and support systems
- Kora – Bespoke AI Tool
- Reporting tools
If you wish to discover more, feel free to book a discovery call.
Financial performance, earnings & commercial viability
There’s no one-size-fits-all answer. Earnings vary depending on how you choose to scale. Some partners build towards quick revenue while others run their franchise part-time alongside other commitments and still generate strong, meaningful income.
Outcomes vary based on things like:
- Your time commitment
- How you use Head Office support (e.g. delegating work versus not)
- Commitment to in-house training
- Your networking and sales activity
- Marketing activity and consistency over time
We share deeper performance insights (including commercial data) through NDA-protected materials, once we get into the deeper discovery phase with you. We keep client revenue data confidential as part of protecting our network and our clients.
Yes. These are available via NDA during the exploratory process.
An average client spend is typically around £7,000 in year one, with many clients increasing spend over time as trust grows and results build.
If you wish to discover more, feel free to book a discovery call.
Fees, renewals & long-term commitments
No. There is no renewal fee at the end of the initial five-year term.
Monthly management fees remain the same as set out in your initial agreement, subject to year-on-year inflationary factors. Renewal fees won’t be introduced during or after your term.
Monthly management fees start from month seven, giving you space to onboard properly, build confidence, and focus on bringing in clients first.
After the initial term, franchisees move onto a new five-year agreement. That is, assuming both parties are happy and the partnership continues to feel like a great fit.
If anything ever looks unclear, we’ll walk you through it. We want you to feel fully confident and informed at every step and we’re happy to clarify details in writing where needed.
Utilising the Head Office team
Head Office is here to make your journey simpler, smoother, and more scalable. Support typically includes:
- Administrative help to reduce the day-to-day load
- Training and coaching, including 1:1 sessions, network webinars, and group learning
- Delivery support, so you can outsource surplus workload or tasks you’d rather not take on
Delegating work means you can profitably hand over certain tasks or project delivery to the Head Office team for completion – freeing you up to focus on clients, sales, and growth. There are a few ways to structure this, each with different financial outcomes, which we can talk you through the options in detail after a discovery call and NDA.
Tech & marketing creative control
Yes and the timing is important. Head Office builds the website, fully reviews it, tests it, and makes sure it’s in great shape before it ever reaches your client. Once the site goes live, full editing access transfers to you as the franchise partner, so you can update and evolve it as needed.
If anything looks off, we act quickly. We are proud to boast a 99.9% network uptime of our websites and digital platforms. We manage hundreds of websites for clients all over the world and we know how to keep things safe, secure and working. You don’t need to do anything in this process, our dedicated tech support team handles everything on your behalf. Our tech support manager has been at activ since 2009, so he really has seen it all.
Before launch, we typically include two rounds of amendments as standard. These are handled by Head Office, whether the changes are requested by you or directly by the client. We keep the process structured so projects stay efficient, clear, and on track.
Head Office is responsible for delivering a fully tested, quality-checked website before go-live. Depending on the delegation route you take, you generally manage the client relationship and guide the project locally. Once the site is live, ongoing edits and updates sit with you and the client. Our tech team is here to help for bigger and more complex requirements.
It can — and it’s very common in the digital world. Websites often change over time based on client-led edits or “quick tweaks” made without a bigger strategy behind them. The good news is: as the trusted marketing partner, you’re in a strong position to steer clients back toward best practice and keep standards high.
If anything ever falls short (it’s not something we’ve encountered), Head Office will take it back and fully reconfigure it. Franchisees are never expected to redesign Head Office work themselves prior to launch.
If you wish to discover more, feel free to book a discovery call.
Client ownership & exit position
Client ownership terms are clearly defined within the franchise agreement, so you’ll always know exactly where you stand (available following the Discovery Call and signing of an NDA).
If a franchisee chooses to leave after the term, clients hosted within activ systems default back to Head Office.
Operations, compliance & risk management
Client contracts include:
- 14-day payment terms
- The right to pause hosting for non-payment
- The right to recover overdue fees
Bad debt issues are rare thanks to deposit structures and clear payment processes.
Franchisees are required to hold:
- Professional Indemnity (£1m)
- Public Liability (£1m)
Yes. Head Office provides GDPR-ready essentials including:
- Privacy policies
- Data processing agreements
- Cookie policies
- Accessibility support
Franchisees manage their own accounting software, but invoicing processes are covered during onboarding. If you want extra support, additional admin help is available from Head Office.
Brand strength, proof & technical scalability
activ is built as a national, award-winning brand – not a one-person consultancy. We sit in the sweet spot: offering smaller businesses the trusted marketing partner they’ve always wanted, without the cost and distance of a big agency, and without the limitations of doing everything alone.
Yes. We focus on long-term outcomes rather than short-term wins, and we can share concrete examples such as CTR improvements, conversion growth, and traffic increases.
SEO is a long-term strategy — and like all marketing, it can naturally fluctuate. We focus on building sustainable visibility and results over time, not quick fixes.
We’re built to avoid single points of failure. The tech team is cross-trained, and we can onboard additional staff quickly if required. Our head office team has a clear succession planning and resource growth structure.
Yes. We currently manage close to 1000 websites, and the infrastructure is built to scale further as the network grows.
Ready to Take the Next Step?
Have questions about how a franchise partnership with activ can work for you?
