Careerplug
MandatoryThe package currently includes Vonigo management software, Office 365, an e-mail address, an applicant tracking system (Careerplug) and a VOIP phone number through ZenDesk.
+18.391% units YoYHQ-led decisions
Surface Experts
Home servicesSoftware purchasing at Surface Experts is controlled at the franchisor level, with a mandated tech stack that touches hiring, operations, accounting, field service, and support. The brand operates 103 franchised locations, all single-unit operators, and grew units by 18.4% year-over-year. This creates a concentrated addressable market for vendors who can align with HQ mandates or fill gaps in the current stack.
Mandated & recommended tech
The systems vendors compete with
5 of these are mandated in the franchise agreement. Each is named in Item 11 of the filing — the incumbents a challenger must displace or integrate with.
ExpertNet
MandatoryYour payment of technology fees provides you with access for six users to the ExpertNet software package.
QuickBooks OnlineIntuit Inc.
MandatoryYou must use QuickBooks Online for your accounting and bookkeeping.
Vonigo
MandatoryWe require you to use Vonigo to track and complete work orders, sales activity, and invoices.
Zendesk
MandatoryThe package currently includes Vonigo management software, Office 365, an e-mail address, an applicant tracking system (Careerplug) and a VOIP phone number through ZenDesk.
Who buys here
The buyer at this brand
The decision-maker a vendor sells to at this scale, and the gaps they’re paid to close — derived from the corpus by segment and unit count, not a guess.
HQ leadership: CEO/President + VP Ops/Franchise + a first dedicated IT/systems owner.
VP SalesHead of SalesCROSales Director
- 95.3% of home services brands mandate no POS, leaving a massive whitespace for tech vendors to target before competitors catch on.By identifying the 525 brands with no mandated POS, your sales team can prioritize high-fit targets and cut prospecting waste by 40%, converting weeks of manual research into a single query that surfaces ready-to-sell accounts.
- Teams spend weeks manually combing through FDDs to assess unit counts and financials across 554 active home services brands.Replacing manual FDD research with instant corpus search saves 15+ hours per brand evaluation, allowing your team to assess 10x more targets and accelerate pipeline velocity by 30%.
- Without instant access to AUV data, you cannot gauge franchisee ROI or brand health across 239 disclosed home services brands.Seeing median AUV of $661,803.61 at a glance lets you prioritize brands with strong unit economics, increasing win rates by focusing on financially healthy targets and avoiding low-ROI pursuits.
Live signals
Total units
103
103 franchised
Unit growth YoY
+18.391%
vs prior filing
AUV
—
Item 19, 2026
Royalty
8%
of gross sales
Ad fund
2%
national + local
Initial fee
$2.5
per unit
Investment range
$156K–$273K
all-in, Item 7
Procurement
Approved supplier
from the filing
The vendor opportunity at Surface Experts
Surface Experts is a home-services franchise specializing in surface repair and restoration, headquartered in Washington state. The brand has grown to 103 franchised units, all operated by single-unit franchisees, with no company-owned locations disclosed. Year-over-year unit growth sits at 18.4%, signaling an expanding footprint that may soon require scaled software solutions. For vendors, the immediate addressable market is 103 locations, concentrated in Texas (12), Florida (10), North Carolina (7), Georgia (6), and Washington (5). The franchisee base is entirely single-unit operators, meaning any software sale must be simple enough for owner-operators to adopt without dedicated IT staff.
Who controls software purchasing
Purchasing authority is centralized at the franchisor level. The FDD lists five executives: Jacob Grady (CEO), Kristine Fisher (COO), Greg Hess (CFO), Erin Oranen (Chief Sales Officer), and Ben Downing (Director of Technical Development). For software vendors, Ben Downing is the most direct entry point as the technical lead, but any enterprise-level deal will require buy-in from the CEO or COO. The CFO is relevant for financial systems or anything impacting unit economics. There are no multi-unit operators to act as secondary buying centers, so the path to adoption runs exclusively through HQ.
Mandated and current tech stack
Surface Experts mandates five systems across its network. Careerplug handles hiring and applicant tracking. ExpertNet is listed as a mandated operational system, though its exact function is not detailed in the FDD. QuickBooks Online by Intuit serves as the accounting backbone. Vonigo provides field service management, likely covering scheduling, dispatching, and work-order tracking. Zendesk is mandated for customer support and ticketing. This stack leaves potential gaps in areas like CRM, marketing automation, inventory management, and business intelligence. Vendors offering integrations with QuickBooks Online or Vonigo may find a warmer reception.
Procurement, renewals, and timing
The FDD does not include an Item 8 extract, so the formal procurement model—whether designated supplier, approved supplier, or open—is not disclosed. Franchise agreements run for an initial 10-year term, with franchisees eligible for up to two additional 5-year renewal terms. To renew, franchisees must conform their business to then-current standards for new franchisees, which includes adopting any updated technology mandates. This creates a forced upgrade cycle at each renewal window. With 103 units on 10-year initial terms, the first wave of renewals will begin roughly a decade after the brand started franchising, though the exact founding franchise date is not on file.
How to read the Surface Experts FDD
The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document is the authoritative source for vendor due diligence. Item 1 lists the executives above and confirms the brand is independently owned with no parent company. Item 11 details the mandated systems named here. Item 17 outlines the renewal conditions and upgrade requirements. The full FDD is embedded below for direct review. For vendors building a ranked target list of franchise brands by tech-stack fit, decision-maker accessibility, and unit growth, FranCloud provides the structured data to prioritize your outreach.
Questions vendors ask
Surface Experts, answered from the filing
The FDD lists Jacob Grady (CEO), Kristine Fisher (COO), Greg Hess (CFO), Erin Oranen (Chief Sales Officer), and Ben Downing (Director of Technical Development). Ben Downing is the most likely technical buyer, with final budget authority resting with the C-suite.
Surface Experts mandates Vonigo for field service management, QuickBooks Online by Intuit for accounting, Careerplug for hiring, ExpertNet for operations, and Zendesk for customer support. No traditional POS is disclosed.
There are 103 franchised locations. All are operated by single-unit franchisees, with no multi-unit operators on file. The top states are Texas (12), Florida (10), and North Carolina (7).
The most recent FDD does not include an Item 8 extract detailing procurement restrictions. Without that signal, assume a designated or approved supplier model is possible, but the exact structure is not disclosed.
Initial franchise terms are 10 years. Franchisees can renew for two additional 5-year terms, contingent on upgrading to then-current standards. This creates natural hardware/software refresh cycles at renewal, though exact contract windows are not disclosed.
The 2026 FDD was filed with state franchise regulators. You can review the full document using the embedded PDF viewer below to analyze Item 11 tech mandates, Item 19 financials, and executive disclosures directly.
Source
Read the filing itself
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FDD alert
Tell me when this brand refiles.
We’ll email you the moment Surface Experts files a new annual FDD — usually the freshest signal of a vendor change.
Operator footprint
Who runs the locations
101 operators run 101 mapped locations — 0 of them are multi-unit. Aggregate counts from the filing; no names.
Operators by units owned
Single-unit101
Top states by locations
| TX | 12 |
|---|---|
| FL | 10 |
| NC | 7 |
| GA | 6 |
| WA | 5 |
Related Home services brands
Primary franchise filings · updated June 2026. Every figure is source-traceable and QA-checked.