Franchises
The locator is where national marketing hands the customer to a local owner.
Send national demand to the local owner who will actually answer the phone, with head office keeping control of how it looks.
Bring your location data
CSV import, Google Sheets sync or dashboard edits.
Shape the visitor journey
Search, filters, hours, directions and custom actions.
Match your site
85+ available settings, markers and provider map styles.
What your network looks like
Units owned by separate franchisees under one brand: single-unit owners, multi-unit area developers, units resold between owners, and units signed but not yet trading, all opening and closing on their own timetable rather than head office's.
Why a generic map falls short
Head office pays for the ad, the franchisee's phone rings, and the locator is the exact point where one becomes the other. A plain map treats every pin as the same business, so a resold, renamed or not-yet-open unit quietly takes calls that belong to a different owner, which is the complaint that reaches the franchisor first and loudest.
What visitors need to do
- A phone number, email and booking link per unit that reaches the franchisee, not the support centre
- Mark units as opening soon so a signed territory shows on the map before it trades
- Let each unit hold its own hours while head office holds the design
- Let a field or regional manager fix a unit's details without being given the keys to billing and branding
How Handled covers it
- Team roles of owner, admin and editor, so a regional manager can correct unit details without touching plan, billing or brand settings
- Custom fields and per-unit action buttons, so each franchisee's booking, ordering or quote link is theirs
- Tags for opening soon, now open and the services a unit offers, filterable by the visitor
- Opening hours per unit with live status, because a franchisee sets their own trading hours and head office's are wrong
- Google Sheets sync with change review, so the ops team's unit sheet stays the source of truth and every change is previewed before it goes live
Not every franchises business is the same
Single-unit owner operators
Food, coffee, barbering, pet care: one unit, and the owner is behind the counter. National advertising is the reason their phone rings, so appearing on the map the week they open matters more to them than anything head office builds afterwards. They set their own trading hours, which are rarely head office's, and they notice immediately when the map has them shut.
Multi-unit area developers
An owner who has bought a region and committed to opening a number of units on a schedule. Their patch always contains units at three different stages at once: trading, signed but not yet open, and fitting out. The map has to represent that honestly, because a pin that takes calls before the doors open costs the developer money and goodwill.
Mobile and home-based service franchises
Cleaning, lawn care, grooming, tutoring, van-based repairs. There is no premises to visit and often the registered address is somebody's house, which should never be published. What the visitor needs is the area covered and a way to reach the owner, so these entries live or die on the service radius and the contact details rather than on the address.
Networks with company-owned units alongside franchised ones
Most franchisors keep a handful of corporate stores for training and testing. They sit on the same map, look identical to a customer, and route completely differently: one goes to a franchisee's mobile, the other to a regional team. Marking which is which stops head office answering for a franchisee and stops a franchisee being blamed for a corporate site.
Setting it up
1. Audit the unit list against the franchise register
Before importing anything, sort every unit into trading, signed but not open, resold within the last year, and closed. The website list is almost always the stalest of the four and the register is almost always right. Resales are where the damage hides, because the old owner's mobile number outlives the ownership by months.
2. Decide what an unopened unit shows
A signed territory can appear tagged as opening soon with an enquiry link that goes to head office, or it can stay off the map until the lease completes. Both are defensible, the mistake is doing it accidentally. Pick one rule and apply it to every unit, so franchisees can see they are being treated the same way.
3. Give each unit its own contact and hours
Phone, email, booking or ordering link and trading hours belong to the franchisee, through per-unit action buttons and custom fields. This is the step where the resale problem gets fixed, so check the new owner's details rather than copying the row across, and confirm the hours with the unit rather than with the ops sheet.
4. Hand editing to the field team
Give regional and field managers the editor role. They can correct a unit's details without reaching plan, billing or brand settings, which means a wrong phone number is a message to a manager rather than a web ticket that waits a fortnight. Head office keeps the design and the plan.
5. Put the ops spreadsheet behind the sync
The unit sheet the ops team already keeps becomes the source of truth through Google Sheets sync, with every change previewed before it goes live and a missing row never silently deleting a unit. Review the first diff line by line, because that is where you find out how far the sheet had drifted.
What to prepare before you publish
You do not need a perfect data system to start. A clean first list is enough to test the visitor journey, then you can keep it current from the workflow that suits your team.
- Location name and address
- Phone, website or booking link
- Categories, products or services
- Opening hours and special hours
- A map provider key
- The page where the locator will be embedded
Questions we get asked
Can a franchisee edit their own unit listing without seeing the rest of the network?
Not per franchisee. Handled has owner, admin and editor roles and they apply to the whole account, so there is no login scoped to a single unit. In practice the editor role goes to field and regional managers, who can correct any unit without reaching plan, billing or brand settings, and franchisees send changes to them or into the ops sheet behind the sync.
How do we show a signed unit that is not trading yet?
Tag it opening soon and point its enquiry link at head office, or keep it off the map until the lease completes. Both are defensible and the mistake is doing it differently for different owners. Pick one rule, apply it to every unit, and a franchisee can see they are being treated like everybody else on the map.
What needs changing on the locator when a unit is resold to a new owner?
The phone number, email, booking link and trading hours, all of which belong to the franchisee rather than to the unit. Resales are where stale data hides, because the previous owner's mobile outlives the ownership by months. Confirm the new owner's details with the unit instead of copying the old row forward.
Can a home-based mobile franchisee keep their home address off the map?
Yes, and they should. List the area rather than the door: place the entry on the town, leave the street address out of the published fields, and set a service radius over the patch they work. Visitors get the coverage and the contact details, which is all a van-based franchise needs, and nobody gets the owner's house.
Can head office keep control of the design while units keep their own hours?
Yes. Branding, layout and widget settings sit with the owner and admin roles at account level, while hours, contact details and action buttons are held per unit. A franchisee adding Saturday trading does not touch the brand, and head office restyling the map does not overwrite anyone's opening times.
What does a franchise locator cost for a network of fifty units?
Fifty units sit inside the $19 a month plan, which holds 200 locations and two seats, and $39 lifts that to 2,000 locations and five seats for a larger network. The trial runs 7 days, takes no card, and there is no free plan when it ends. The Mapbox or Google Maps key is yours, so map usage is billed by the provider rather than marked up here.
If you need something that is not here
Handled is small enough to build to order. If your trade needs a field, a filter or a behaviour the locator does not have yet, say so and we will tell you honestly whether it is a week away or not something we will do.