Hi-5 ABA

The vendor opportunity at Hi-5 ABA

Hi-5 ABA operates 27 total units—26 franchised and 1 company-owned—making it a compact but concentrated target for software vendors selling into health-services franchises. The system contracted by 7.1% year-over-year, so the near-term addressable market is limited to these existing locations. Royalties run at 7.0% on a 5-year initial term. Average unit volume is not disclosed in the most recent FDD. For a vendor, the opportunity lies in displacing or integrating with a deeply entrenched mandated stack, not in adding net-new seats through expansion.

Who controls software purchasing

Purchasing authority sits at the corporate level. The FDD lists David Maddox as Director (Chairman), Chief Executive Officer, and President. Thomas Fremont serves as Chief Operating Officer for both Hi-5 Processing and Hi-5 ABA. Tim Maddox is Director of Franchising, and Ben MacGowen holds the Executive Vice President of Strategy Officer role. With no multi-unit operators mapped in our corpus, the franchisor’s executive team is the sole buying center. Any software pitch must clear this small, centralized group.

Mandated and current tech stack

The FDD mandates a specific set of systems. Motivity covers practice management, data collection, and billing. Paylocity by Paylocity Holding Corporation handles HR and payroll. QuickBooks by Intuit Inc. is the required accounting platform. There is no mention of optional or recommended alternatives—these are hard mandates. A vendor selling adjacent capabilities (scheduling, compliance, learning management) must demonstrate seamless integration with Motivity and Paylocity to be viable.

Procurement, renewals, and timing

No Item 8 procurement extract is available, so the formal supplier approval process is not disclosed in the most recent FDD. Given the mandated vendor list, the model appears closed. Renewal terms provide a potential entry point: franchisees must give written notice, satisfy all monetary obligations, sign a release, and may be asked to sign a materially different franchise agreement. This reset mechanism, tied to the 5-year term, could open software evaluation windows if the franchisor updates its tech requirements at renewal.

How to read the Hi-5 ABA FDD

The 2026 FDD is embedded below. Focus on Item 11 for the full franchisor’s obligations around technology, Item 8 for any supplier restrictions that may appear in the complete document, and Item 17 for renewal conditions that could trigger a tech stack review. The executive roster in Item 1 confirms the decision-makers you need to reach. Because the system is small and HQ-controlled, the FDD is your primary source for understanding exactly what is locked in and where a complementary tool might fit.

For a ranked target list of franchise systems matched to your software category, FranCloud can help.