Every figure on this page is from a published source and dated, so you can check it, quote it, or take it to a board meeting. Collected August 2026. The short version: a franchise store usually pays for marketing three times, and the three bills are set by different people.
Franchise marketing costs are three separate bills: the marketing fund levy every store pays head office, the local area marketing each store runs inside its own trade area, and the cost of the tools or people who do the work. Networks argue about marketing budgets endlessly, and most of the arguments come from mixing these up. They are set by different people, buy different things, and are governed by different rules. Local store marketing is the second one, and it is the one head office controls least.
A percentage of each store's sales, paid to a central fund that buys brand campaigns for everyone. Set in the franchise agreement, spent by head office, regulated under the Franchising Code.
What a store spends inside its own suburb: local ads, sponsorships, flyers. Many agreements set a minimum, either a percentage of sales or a fixed monthly amount. Spent by the partner, near the store.
Whoever turns money into campaigns: an agency, a freelancer, the partner's own evenings, or a platform. This bill is the one that varies most, and the one nobody puts in the budget properly.
Australian industry guides put the typical marketing levy at 2 to 3% of gross sales (Franchise Business Australia), with the wider spread across systems at 1 to 4% (FranchiseInsights, May 2026). It sits on top of the royalty, which the same sources put between 4 and 12% with a norm of 8 to 10%. So a store turning over A$1 million a year is typically sending A$20,000 to A$30,000 to the marketing fund alone, before it has spent a dollar in its own suburb.
The rules around that money tightened recently. Under the Franchising Code that took effect on 1 April 2025, marketing funds sit inside a wider category called specific purpose funds, and the fund rules apply from 1 November 2025. Head office must prepare an annual financial statement within four months of year end and hand it to partners within 30 days, the statement must be independently audited unless 75% of contributing franchisees vote the audit away for that year, and the fund can only pay for disclosed, legitimate expenses (ACCC). What counts as legitimate, and what partners can do about a fund they cannot see into, is covered in marketing funds and the Franchising Code.
One thing the levy does not buy: orders for a specific store. Fund money builds the brand nationally. The store's own suburb is the next bill.
Local area marketing is where published averages get thin, because every agreement is different. Many set a minimum local spend, as a percentage of sales or a fixed amount per month. What can be priced is the media itself. On Meta, Australian accounts averaged A$1.47 per click in early 2026, with food and beverage cheaper at A$0.78 and local services dearer at A$1.90, against an average CPM of A$9.80 (WordStream Australia data, Q1 2026, 8,400+ accounts). On Google search, the cross-industry average was US$5.42 per click, with restaurants at US$2.05 and fitness at US$6.17 (LocalIQ, 2026, US data, so treat it as direction rather than gospel).
At those rates a store budget of A$300 to A$900 a month buys a real local presence: a few hundred clicks, or tens of thousands of impressions inside the trade area. The catch is the word inside. A radius around the store pin typically wastes about two thirds of its area on suburbs the store does not serve. That number is measured, not guessed: across 970 simulated Australian delivery zones the median covering circle put 65.4% of its area outside the zone, and fitting the ad shapes to the real service area cut the waste to roughly 12%. The working is on the zone targeting benchmark, and what it means for a store's budget is on delivery area targeting.
For food networks there is a fourth bill hiding in this layer: aggregator commissions. A top tier delivery app plan takes around 30% of the order, plus GST, which many operators treat as a marketing cost since it buys placement and demand. Moving even part of that volume to direct channels changes the sum more than any CPC ever will. That maths is on direct orders vs aggregators.
The least discussed bill is the labour between the budget and the ads. Priced from what Australian providers publish and what stores report, the options look like this. A local agency or freelancer running a single store's campaign typically charges A$250 to A$800 per campaign per store, every time it runs. Doing it yourself is free until you price the owner's evenings and the waste of an unmanaged account; across a network it is common to see a third of a small store budget spent on audiences the store cannot serve. A franchise marketing platform moves that work to software: head office builds the campaign once, every store activates it for its own area. Amplaro prices that per brand, from A$490 a month for networks up to 25 locations and A$1,190 up to 100, with franchise partners always free, on the pricing page. The full comparison, including the do nothing option, is priced out on what it costs to do it another way.
Which route is cheapest depends almost entirely on store count. At three stores an agency is fine. At thirty, per store agency fees pass A$100,000 a year and the software column starts winning by a wide margin. The return side of that equation, and how to measure it without trusting a dashboard, is on the return on digital LSM.
Take a 40 store food network where the average store turns over A$900,000 a year. The fund levy at 2.5% collects A$22,500 per store, A$900,000 across the network, spent centrally. Local area marketing at A$500 per store per month is another A$240,000 a year across the network, spent in the suburbs. The doing cost is the swing item: agencies at A$400 per store per month add A$192,000 a year, while a platform subscription plus the partners' own two minutes per campaign adds about A$14,000. Same brand, same media budgets, and the third bill varies by more than A$175,000 a year purely on how the work gets done.
Figures above dated August 2026, sources: ACCC Franchising Code guidance, Franchise Business Australia, FranchiseInsights (May 2026), WordStream Australia data via published Q1 2026 benchmarks, LocalIQ 2026 benchmarks, and the platforms' own published pricing. Where a source updates, the numbers here get re-dated, not quietly changed.
Published Australian guides put it at 2 to 3% of gross sales for most systems, with the wider spread at 1 to 4% (Franchise Business Australia; FranchiseInsights, May 2026). It sits on top of the royalty, and it funds brand marketing, not local campaigns for your store.
The media itself is cheaper than most owners expect: Australian Meta accounts averaged A$1.47 per click in early 2026, and food sat at A$0.78. A budget of A$300 to A$900 a month buys a real presence in one trade area. The bigger cost is usually the doing: an agency running it per store charges A$250 to A$800 per campaign.
Both, for different things. The franchisee pays the levy into a central fund that head office spends on the brand, and most agreements also require the franchisee to spend a minimum locally. Head office pays for the tools and people that make local execution possible, or leaves the stores to sort that out themselves, which is where networks drift apart.
The Code that took effect on 1 April 2025 folds marketing funds into a wider category called specific purpose funds, with the fund rules applying from 1 November 2025. Annual audited statements within four months of year end, delivered to partners within 30 days, an audit waiver only if 75% of contributing franchisees vote for one, and spending restricted to disclosed, legitimate purposes (ACCC).
Operationally they behave like one: a top tier plan takes around 30% of the order plus GST, and it buys placement and demand the way advertising does. Treating commissions as marketing makes the comparison honest, because a dollar moved from commissions to direct channel marketing is the highest return swap most food franchises have available.
The rules behind the levy are on marketing funds and the Code. Whether any of this money comes back is on the return on digital LSM. And the same sum from the cost side sits on what it costs to do it another way.