Ace Hardware
Hardware Stores
Figures are from the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document filed in MN.
- Total investment
- $603,850 – $2,001,550+0% / +1% low / high since 2024
- Initial franchise fee
- $5,000No change since 2024
- Franchised outlets
- 4,885+3% since 2024
Compared with every brand we can rate, Ace Hardware is better than 55% of them
That is 420 brands across every industry, which is a rougher comparison than like-for-like — a cleaning franchise and a restaurant do not carry the same risk. We use it here because Hardware Stores has only 5 brands with enough finished loans to compare against. See the peers anyway →
We only know how 313 of this brand’s 646 loans ended. The government withholds the outcome on 263 of the others, so everything above is based on 48% of the record.
18 of 313 franchisees who borrowed to buy this brand did not repay. See every loan →
There is more in Ace Hardware’s filing
What it costs to open is free, above. Access opens what the franchisor disclosed about earning it back — here and on every other brand we have read:
- What Item 19 states its outlets earn, and on how many of them
- Every ongoing fee, not just the royalty — priced in dollars a year
- How many franchisees left, were terminated, or sold up
- Territory, renewal, non-compete and dispute terms
- What in the record is worth asking about, and why
- A five-year projection you can put your own rent, wages and borrowing into
One price opens all of it, on every brand we have read. Once opened it stays open.
The loan record stays free — how many of this brand’s franchisees borrowed from a bank to buy in, and how many never paid it back. That is a public government record and we do not charge for it. What you pay for is only what we read out of the franchisor’s own disclosure document.
Every figure, year over year2024 against 2025, all seven lines
Filed in MN and MN respectively. A franchisor may file different terms in different states, so the registries are named rather than blended. The three headline figures above carry their own movement; this is the rest.
| Figure | 2024 | 2025 | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee | $5,000 | $5,000 | No change |
| Investment, low end | $602,350 | $603,850 | +0% |
| Investment, high end | $1,990,180 | $2,001,550 | +1% |
| Franchised outlets at year end | 4,759 | 4,885 | +3% |