A customer satisfaction rating scale is the numbered or visual system businesses use to collect and measure how happy customers are with a product, service,

At a Glance Choosing the wrong real estate team when selling a $500K+ home in Tucson does not just cost you time. It costs you

Between January 2026 and April 2026, our research team analyzed growth strategies used by small businesses across the United States. We evaluated 34 commonly recommended

Hunter Stokes is the President of Franchise.com, the most comprehensive franchise research platform connecting aspiring business owners with growing franchise systems across the United States

Our research team analyzed Google review data across 30 small business industries in the United States, finding that 56% of all Google reviews are 5-star

Introduction Customer satisfaction scores are among the most reliable predictors of business health. According to the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI), the national cross-industry average

Google ratings have become the primary filter consumers use when choosing a hair salon. In 2026, 94% of customers rely on reviews when selecting a

Google reviews have become the defining factor in restaurant discovery and selection. In 2026, 87% of consumers read online reviews before choosing a local business,

The following benchmarks were aggregated from publicly available datasets published by the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA), Gartner’s 2025 CMO Spend Survey, Intuit’s 2025 Small Business Advertising Trends Report, HubSpot, the Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), IBISWorld, and WordStream. The analysis covers small business marketing spend across five revenue tiers, seven industries, seven marketing channels, and six categories of local visibility investment.

Small business growth in 2026 is not evenly distributed across the United States. Some states are seeing strong business formation, while others are experiencing a