Frequently asked questions

FDD Evaluation reads the Franchise Disclosure Document you are already considering and grades it against a fixed rubric of ten categories and one hundred factors.

It is an analytical assessment of a disclosure document. It is not legal, financial or tax advice, it does not predict profitability, and it is not a guarantee of franchise performance or investment success.

An overall score out of 100, all ten category scores with their own confidence ratings, what the FDD actually discloses in each category, the risk flags we found, and three due-diligence questions generated from what this specific document leaves open.

The free score is based only on the four corners of the FDD. No questionnaire, and no account required to see it.

Yes. Evidence is extracted from the document, a stored rulebook maps that evidence to a grade, and the database performs the arithmetic.

Every evaluation also records the exact rubric, benchmark and engine versions it used, so a result from today can be reproduced later even after the benchmark is re-cut.

No, and neither can the FDD in most cases. Item 19 is the only Item a franchisor may omit entirely, and many that do include one disclose gross sales while stating in terms that they exclude cost, expense and profit.

Where that is the case we say so plainly rather than letting a large sales figure stand in for owner income. What a franchisee actually takes home is a question for current and former franchisees, whose contact details are in Item 20.

The complete, searchable PDF you received from the franchisor. Most FDDs are delivered this way.

A scan or a photograph of a printed document has no text layer, so there is nothing to read. We reject those with a clear message rather than producing a score from partial text.

It is stored privately and is not shared with franchisors. We are not affiliated with any franchisor and have no commercial reason to tell one that you are looking, and we never sell or share your address.

The PDF travels over an encrypted connection into private, encrypted storage that accepts only PDFs. Nothing in it is public, and it is never listed, indexed or shown to anyone else.

We do retain a copy of the FDD itself after your evaluation. An FDD is the franchisor’s disclosure document rather than your personal information, and keeping it is what lets us compare next year’s edition of a franchise against this year’s. Retained documents are also the material we build future benchmark releases from — a release is published as a version, so your score does not move because somebody else uploaded something. A retained document is stored by its content, not under your name, and is never linked to you in any report.

No. This report is not legal advice and does not substitute for review by a qualified franchise attorney or accountant.

What it does is tell you where to look, so that the time you pay a professional for is spent on the provisions that actually matter in your document.