5 Best Franchise CRM Software (2024 Comparison)

Published on April 29th, 2024

This guide will rank and review the 5 best franchise CRMs based on their pros and cons, features, pricing, and customer reviews.

When it comes to connecting the right franchisors with the right franchisee candidates, you’re going to have some unique needs.

Thankfully, there are a handful of CRM and franchise management software companies that really understand those needs because they’re made by franchisors and consultants.

That’s not a problem.

The problem I’ve found when trying to dig deep into CRMs made for the franchise industry is the lack of transparency. Most franchise CRM websites are very generic and offer little helpful information about what you’d expect from buying their software.

This makes finding the right franchise CRM a time-sucking process because you’ll likely be forced to schedule a demo just to get basic information for things that should be simple, like pricing.

I’ve spent the past week researching the best franchise-specific CRMs so you can avoid as many pointless demos as possible. I’m also categorizing each CRM by whether it’s best for consultants and brokers — or franchisors and franchisees.

Feel free to skip to the section you’re most interested in:

What Is A Franchise CRM?
1. Best For Franchise Consultants & Brokers: VipeCloud
2. Good Option For Franchisors, Franchisees, Or Consultants: ClientTether
3. Best For Franchisors & Franchisees: FranConnect
4. Good Option For Franchisors & Franchisees: FranchiseSoft
5. Good Options For Franchise Consultants & Brokers: IFPG’s Franchise Sales CRM

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What Is A Franchise CRM?

A Franchise CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software helps franchisors, franchisees, or franchise consultants and brokers to generate, manage, and engage with leads and clients.

In other words, a franchise CRM is the heart of your management and communication with your business relationships.

Here are some key features and functions of a Franchise CRM:

Contact data management
Email & SMS communication
Marketing and sales automation
Reporting and analytics for your sales and marketing
Integration with your other key business software
Compliance and standardization for growing franchises

1. Best For Franchise Consultants & Brokers: VipeCloud

If you’re a broker or consultant that’s focused on generating leads, managing your sales process, and closing deals – without paying “speciality” software pricing – then VipeCloud is a great option to consider.

The cherry on top? VipeCloud’s CRM is the most affordable on this list.

You can get started with VipeCloud for free without talking to a salesperson.

Although, if you want to talk to a CRM expert, you can schedule a stress-free consultation where we’ll show you how our franchise consultant clients are using VipeCloud to generate and engage with more franchisee candidates.

Besides VipeCloud offering every feature you’d need in a sales CRM, it also enables you to parse your existing lead sources.

Pros

Start with a free trial (without having to talk to a sales rep)
Offers sales and marketing features that the expensive CRM companies offer
Is the most affordable franchise consultant CRM on this list
Customers rave about VipeCloud’s personal and quick customer support
SMS, social media, & email marketing features
Easily set up forms and automation series to nurture franchisee candidates

Cons

Although VipeCloud has features made for franchise consultants, it’s not completely focused on the franchise industry

Features

SMS – Send text messages to your clients or leads via 1:1 or 1:many messaging.

Pipelines – Track your sales and operational process using customizable pipelines.

Reports – Track your most important marketing and sales KPIs using various reports.
Social media post scheduler – Schedule your social media posts in advance, ensuring consistent and timely content across your social platforms.
Contact management – Organize and track all of your leads’, prospects’, and customers’ information to nurture more valuable relationships.
Tasks – Create and assign action items to ensure all necessary activities are completed in a timely manner.
Estimates – Create and send cost estimates to prospects to communicate pricing information. Then, track how your prospects engage with your estimates.

Scheduler – Schedule meetings with leads and customers easily using a link.

Segmentation – Divide your customer base into distinct groups based on various characteristics so you can send more relevant SMS and email messages at scale.
Integrations – Seamlessly connect your email, social media, Zapier, Zoom, QuickBooks, or other apps using VipeCloud’s API.
Forms – Create custom input forms (like contact forms or survey forms) that collect information from your customers or leads that can automatically be added to your pipelines or segmented contact lists.

Email – Send, track, and organize your emails from one platform to simplify communication and follow-up efforts.

Pricing

VipeCloud offers 4 affordable and scalable pricing tiers based on your needs.

Here’s how the pricing plans measure up:

Plus – $20/month paid annually
Pro – $40/month paid annually
Enterprise – $60/month paid annually
Agency – $80/month paid annually

Visit our pricing page for more details on each plan.

Customer Reviews

Out of every CRM on this (some of which don’t have any reviews on popular review sites), VipeCloud has the most recent reviews across Capterra, G2, and Software Advice. Most reviews are overwhelmingly positive, with many users praising VipeCloud’s support team and ease of use.

Here’s what Christy B. has to say about using VipeCloud:

“Overall: I’m not sure how I ever did business before VipeCloud. This platform allows me and my staff to handle all clients in one space and provide services to all of them at once.

Pros: VipeCloud makes it very easy to manage business contacts and communicate with them effectively. We not only add all contacts into one place and manage easily, but we are also able to provide services to our clients with one click. Very user friendly platform and customer service is top notch.

Cons: I feel like I’m not utilizing all features and it’s just because I’m not tech savvy. I want to use the automated options more, but don’t understand it. Maybe better explanation of new features that become available. This is mainly on me! I do feel like it would be nice to have a price break at a certain number of clients since we have grown so much.”

2. Good Option For Franchisors, Franchisees, Or Consultants: ClientTether

ClientTether is a franchise CRM and franchise management software made by franchisors.

Because of this, it’s tailor-made with features for franchisors, franchisees, and franchise consultants.

Most users value its ability to make following up with leads easier and the pre-made templates and workflows that make building marketing campaigns easier.

They’re also well known for their helpful support team.

However, because they’re a very specialized software, they likely won’t be as affordable as other alternatives like VipeCloud.

ClientTether offers a free trial, but you’ll need to book a discovery call with their sales team first to get access.

Pros

Comes with helpful integrations
Good for engaging and converting leads, lead-to-quote conversion, and lead nurturing
Helpful customer support team to help with implementation
Customized for the franchising industry
Setup leads to enter workflows automatically
Has SMS features
Presetup action plans
Helpful automation for staying on top of follow-ups
Specifically made for franchisors and franchisees