Great Clips franchise cost, FDD fees & initial investment
Source: Great Clips Franchise Disclosure Document, issuance date March 30, 2026 · Franchisor: GREAT CLIPS, INC. · FDD year 2026 · As filed — verify.
Free teaser — Items 5, 6 and 7 as filed
| Initial franchise fee (Item 5) | $20,000 |
|---|---|
| Advertising / brand fund (Item 6) | 5.0% — as filed: “Continuing Advertising 5% of your Biweekly You must also engage in certain local advertising and sales promotion” |
| Estimated initial investment (Item 7) | $187,800 – $419,900 |
Sources: Items 5, 6 and 7 — Great Clips Franchise Disclosure Document, issuance date March 30, 2026. As filed — verify.
Item 19 — financial performance representations
This franchisor includes Item 19 financial performance representations in its FDD. Item 19 makes financial performance representations (sales by range, operating cash flow), but no single systemwide average/median gross-sales figure was extracted automatically; consult Item 19 of the source FDD for the full tables.
Outlet trend (Item 20, Table No. 1 — from the 2026 FDD)
Total outlets at fiscal year-end — Item 20, Table No. 1, as reported in the 2026 FDD (a single filing's own three-year table, shown as filed).
| Fiscal year | Total outlets |
|---|---|
| 2023 | 4,427 |
| 2024 | 4,439 |
| 2025 | 4,441 |
Change across the three reported years: +14 outlets (growing). These counts come from a single filing's own three-year table — they are outlet counts, not a multi-year filing diff.
What changed — 2026 FDD vs 2025 FDD
Headline figures from this page's filing (2026) set against the prior filing we hold (2025). The audit below diffs every fee line, every Item 7 row and the Item 3 and Item 20 detail across the full verified set (2023 + 2024 + 2025 + 2026 FDDs).
| Metric | 2025 FDD | 2026 FDD | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Initial franchise fee (Item 5) | $20,000 | $20,000 | Unchanged since 2025 |
| Advertising / brand fund (Item 6) | 5% | 5% | Unchanged since 2025 |
| Estimated initial investment — low end (Item 7) | $187,800 | $187,800 | Unchanged since 2025 |
| Estimated initial investment — high end (Item 7) | $419,900 | $419,900 | Unchanged since 2025 |
| Total outlets (Item 20, latest fiscal year reported) | 4,439 (FY2024) | 4,441 (FY2025) | +2 outlets |
Sources: Great Clips Franchise Disclosure Document, issuance date March 30, 2026; Great Clips Franchise Disclosure Document, issuance date March 30, 2025. Changes are this desk's arithmetic on the as-filed figures. As filed — verify.
Multi-Year Redline & Risk Audit — Great Clips
$79
A line-by-line diff of this brand's FDD across filing years: what the franchisor changed, what it quietly restated, and what it stopped disclosing — built only from filings we actually hold.
- Line-by-line Item 5 & 6 fee diff across every filing year held
- Item 7 investment-range shifts, low end and high end, with calculated changes and formulas
- Item 3 litigation and bankruptcy changes between filings
- Item 20 openings, closures, transfers and turnover — the churn under the headline count
- Every figure cited to its filing, item and page
- Restatements shown with both numbers — never overwritten
- A closing “What this report does not include” section naming every gap
- The source FDDs the audit cites, bundled with the report
On sale
We hold a verified multi-year set of this brand's filings — 2023 + 2024 + 2025 + 2026 FDDs — each retrieved from the state franchise registry and passed through the desk's verification gate: issuance date confirmed, the cover Item 7 range verified against the Item 7 total, and the Item 20 outlet table parsed. The audit below is built from exactly those filings.
Buy the audit package — $79The paid package bundles the audit plus the source FDDs it cites. Delivered by email after purchase — see the FAQ for how delivery works.
Market context: a professional FDD review by a franchise attorney commonly runs $2,000–$5,000. A Redline audit is a document diff, not legal advice — it shows you exactly what changed between filings so any review you commission starts from evidence.
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Citation: Great Clips Franchise Disclosure Document, issuance date March 30, 2026. Document: Beauty/Great Clips_2026_YneHtu9O.