Franchable MCP Connector

Connect Claude and other AI assistants directly to Franchable's franchise dataset: brand economics (fees, royalties, investment ranges), FDD Item 20 outlet tables, unit-level P&L analysis, semantic search inside a brand's Franchise Disclosure Document, literal search across every FDD at once, and daily alerts when new FDDs are filed — with a citation back to the source on every answer.

What you need

A Franchable account with connector access. To get set up, contact info@franchable.com.
Your franchable.com email and password. If you normally sign in with Google, set a password first via "Forgot password" on franchable.com.
On claude.ai, custom connectors require a paid Claude subscription.

Connect from claude.ai or Claude Desktop

Open Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector.
Paste the connector URL: https://mcp.franchable.com/mcp
Leave the OAuth client ID and secret blank — Claude registers itself automatically.
You'll be redirected to a Franchable sign-in page. Log in with your franchable.com email and password, approve access, and you're connected.

Connect from Claude Code

claude mcp add --transport http franchable \
  https://mcp.franchable.com/mcp

Claude Code opens the same Franchable sign-in page in your browser. Calling from your own software instead? Generate a personal API key on your Account page and send them as an Authorization: Bearer fmk_… header (partner organisations may also hold a key we issued).

Other MCP clients

Add a remote MCP server (streamable HTTP) with the URL above. Use OAuth if the client supports it, otherwise a partner key header.

Example prompts

"What are the royalty and initial investment for Jersey Mike's, and how many outlets did it open and close over the last three years?" — brand economics + Item 20 trajectory.
"Screen for food franchises under $500K total investment with the best cash-on-cash returns, then pull the full unit P&L for the top result." — cross-brand screening + FDD Analysis tearsheet.
"What does the Tropical Smoothie Cafe FDD say about territory protection and required technology fees?" — semantic FDD text search.
"Compare AUV and unit EBITDA margins across the major boba tea franchises." — multi-brand unit economics comparison.
"Which brands' FDDs mention Toast as their POS system?" — literal search across every indexed FDD at once (search_fdd_corpus).
"Alert me when a new Food & Beverage brand with at least 50 units files an FDD." — creates a new-FDD alert on your account (set_fdd_alert; it starts switched off until you say to enable it).

Available tools

Every tool looks data up and never changes the dataset — the one exception is set_fdd_alert, which saves your own new-FDD alert preferences (the alerts you manage at franchable.com/alerts) and nothing else. Tools your account does not have access to are simply not shown; partner keys we issue to organisations may see fewer tools.

Tool	What it does
`list_franchises`	All ~2,200 brand names, for exact-name lookup
`search_franchises`	Find brands by name substring and/or industry, with each row's FDD year and verification status
`resolve_brand`	Map a typed brand name to the exact stored name; flags names that match two separate records
`get_franchise`	Fees, royalty, and investment range for one brand (+ resolved fee schedules where an FDD Analysis exists)
`get_data_provenance`	Where a brand's numbers come from: FDD edition, FDD item, verbatim FDD passage, analyst note, fee cadence and formula, fiscal-year basis, verification status
`get_item20`	Outlet counts, openings, closings and transfers by year and state (FDD Item 20 tables 1-5)
`search_fdd`	Semantic search inside one brand's FDD text
`search_fdd_corpus`	Literal word or phrase search across every indexed FDD at once (2,134 brands): which brands mention a vendor, supplier, person or clause
`get_pnl`	P&L benchmarks: revenue, cost lines and margins behind Franchable's financial model
`list_fdd_alerts`	Your own new-FDD alert watchlists and their status (requires a signed-in account or a personal API key; not available on organisation keys)
`set_fdd_alert`	Create, change, pause or delete one of your own new-FDD alerts — the connector's one write tool (requires sign-in)
`get_fdd_analysis`	FDD Analysis tearsheet: unit P&L with per-line disclosed/modeled basis, cash-on-cash, DSCR, unit trajectory, franchisor Item 21 P&L
`screen_fdd_analysis`	Cross-brand unit-economics screen: AUV, EBITDA %, cash-on-cash, unit CAGR, franchisor margin, each tagged disclosed or modeled
`get_competitive_geography`	Metro/CBSA share, rank, and whitespace vs category peers (~180 brands)
`screen_franchises`	Screen the whole database on unit count, investment, fees, royalty, industry, square footage
`get_franchisee_insights`	Entity-level franchisee roster analytics: operators, multi-unit and multi-brand ownership, footprint
`get_cross_brand_operators`	Operators holding units in more than one brand
`get_franchisee_locations`	Unit-level locations: operator, address, lat/lon
`get_franchisor_intel`	FDD-mined franchisor health and deal terms (28-brand pilot vertical)
`get_ma_activity`	Page-verified franchisee ownership transfers and M&A (28-brand pilot vertical)

How results cite their sources

Every result leads with a ready-made attribution line ending in a franchable.com link, plus the FDD year and whether the record has been human-audited.
Directly after it comes a one-sentence disclosure summary, and every value carries a basis: stated in the FDD, arithmetic on disclosed values, or a Franchable estimate. Aggregates inherit the weakest basis of their inputs, so a brand with an Item 19 AUV over a modeled cost stack reports a modeled EBITDA margin and a modeled cash-on-cash return. Pass disclosed_only to the analysis tools to withhold estimates entirely.
Brand names resolve on their own: case, spacing, punctuation and possessives no longer change the answer, and a name matching two separate records returns both rather than a guess.
A null metric is not zero: where an FDD exhibit does not disclose operator identity, concentration figures are withheld rather than reported as 0%.
Coverage differs by asset: brand economics, FDD text, and Item 20 span ~1,500 brands; corpus-wide phrase search 2,134 indexed FDDs; FDD Analysis ~677; roster analytics ~430; competitive geography ~180; franchisor intel and M&A activity a 28-brand pilot vertical. A brand missing from one asset is not missing from the dataset.

Limits

There are no per-minute or per-day request caps, so your assistant can fan out as many tool calls as a question needs. For an entire franchisee roster, ask for the download link: the roster tools return a 24-hour CSV export of the complete list.

Data handling and support

The connector reads Franchable's own first-party dataset and never writes to it; the only thing it can change is your own FDD alert watchlist. Request logging is described in our Privacy Policy. Questions or issues: info@franchable.com.