Scalable Models
What a unit costs, and what it gives back.
A Scalable Model is a business that has already been proven and written down: the trading format works, the supply chain is settled, the operating manual exists, and the whole of it can be handed to a new operator and opened again. Franchises are the largest such class and the only one that publishes its numbers, so they are the evidenced set below. The questions left are which model, at what price, and how long the capital takes to come back.
The category
Franchises are one kind. They are not the only kind.
What the platform requires is a model somebody else has already de-risked and that can be replicated without being reinvented: a trading history, documented systems, settled unit economics, and an owner who will keep supporting it. A franchise satisfies that by construction. So does a licensed operating format, a systemised owner-managed business whose method has been captured properly, and an established group's format opened under a partnership rather than a licence.
Franchises are published here because they are the class that publishes back. A franchisor states an all-in investment figure and puts its name to it, which is what makes the table below auditable line by line. Models outside that class are assessed against the same criteria, but their figures are established in diligence rather than quoted from a public source — so they are not tabled here, and the memorandum deals with them instead.
Source: Franchise Association of South Africa (FASA), 2023/24 Franchise Survey. The count is of franchise systems specifically; no equivalent published count exists for the wider category, or for Southern Africa beyond South Africa.
The evidenced set
Filter by sector
12 franchise systems
| Model | All-in investment per new unit |
Break-even & full ROI term |
Detail |
|---|---|---|---|
| Early RiseEcosystem Education & ECD | R2.54m Early Rise Holdings | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| vida e caffè Coffee & Café | R1.1m – R1.55m SA Franchise Brands, November 2022 | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Chicken Licken Quick Service Restaurant | R4.8m – R6.8m BusinessTech, 27 January 2025 | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Supa Quick Automotive | R1.5m – R2m SA Franchise Brands | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| PostNet Business Services | R800k – R1.1m Franchise Insight | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Martin's Funerals Funeral Services | R1m – R2.4m SME South Africa | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Dream Nails Beauty Beauty & Wellness | R890k SME South Africa / Dream Nails Beauty | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Titan Electrical Trades & Technical Services | R671k SME South Africa | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Kota Spot Quick Service Restaurant | R550k – R950k SME South Africa | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| InXpress Logistics & Freight | R288k – R500k whichfranchise.co.za | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| Kumon Education & ECD | R60k – R100k SME South Africa | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
| The Fish & Chip Co Quick Service Restaurant | R599k – R684k SA Franchise Brands directory listing | 3–4 yrs Sector benchmark | Detail |
Investment figures are as at the date given by each source and are not maintained in real time; confirm current figures with the franchisor before relying on them. Amounts are generally exclusive of VAT, lease deposits and working capital unless the source states otherwise, and most franchisors additionally require a proportion of the total in unencumbered cash.
What we do with this
A good model is necessary. It is not sufficient.
Everything on this table is publicly available to anyone. That is the point: the model is the commodity part of the equation. Any investor can buy a strong licence, and many do, and a material share of them still struggle — because the licence was never the binding constraint.
What is scarce is the rest of it. An operator who has been trained and assessed before they are trusted with capital. A talent pool deep enough behind them to staff the unit with a reliable management and floor team, not just an owner. A mentor contracted to stay. Financial oversight that reports to the lender. Those are the things UAFIN adds to a model off this table, and they are the reason the platform will not fund a model for which the ecosystem cannot supply them.