Franchise & partnership enquiries
Most preschool brands sell you a licence. We’d rather run the school.
We are open to partners, and we are open about the terms. What follows is what the Indian preschool franchise market actually offers, what it costs, where it goes wrong, and what we do instead.
The honest starting point
Why we have never sold a franchise
In a conventional preschool franchise, you pay a fee, sign a licence, lease a property, hire your own teachers, and run the school yourself. The brand supplies curriculum, training material, marketing templates and an audit visit or two — then hopes you maintain the standard.
For most businesses that trade is fine. For a preschool it is a bad one, because the product is the teaching, and the teaching is the people. A brand that hands teacher recruitment to a stranger has handed away the only thing that matters.
One weak unit does not damage one unit. It damages the name everywhere, permanently, and the parents who paid for it never get that year back.
So we have never granted a franchise in thirty-five years. We do not intend to start. What we do instead is set out below.
What a franchise really transfers
- To you: the brand name, curriculum, setup guidance, training material, marketing collateral
- To you, also: hiring, payroll, discipline, quality, compliance, parent complaints, staff attrition
- To them: a fee up front, and a royalty on your revenue every month for the length of the term
The market, honestly
What the national brands charge
Published, indicative figures for the major Indian preschool franchise networks. Ranges vary by city tier, property and negotiation — treat them as orientation, not quotations.
| Brand | Typical investment | Royalty | Area | Who runs the school |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Kidzee (Zee / Essel) | ₹12–25 lakh | ~10–20% of revenue | 2,000–3,000 sq ft | You do |
| EuroKids | ₹10–20 lakh | ~15% | ~2,000 sq ft | You do |
| Bachpan | ₹12–15 lakh | Royalty applies | ~2,000 sq ft+ | You do |
| Birla Open Minds | ₹10–12 lakh upward | Royalty applies | Varies by format | You do |
| Little Millennium | Mid-range | Royalty applies | ~2,000 sq ft | You do |
| Tree House | ₹5–10 lakh | Royalty applies | Varies | You do |
| Footprints (FOCO model) | ₹75 lakh | Revenue share to you | Company specified | They do |
| Banbury Cross | Upon enquiry | Upon enquiry | Site-dependent | We do |
Sources: published brand and franchise-directory material, 2025–2026. Figures are indicative and change; verify directly with any brand before committing capital.
Worth knowing before you sign anything
The cautionary case
Tree House Education was listed on the BSE and NSE and was, for a period, the fastest-growing preschool network in western India. Between 2016 and 2020 the share price fell from roughly ₹180 to under ₹5. The company closed a large number of company-operated centres, cut staff, and left franchise partners without the operational and marketing support they had been promised. Its own filings attributed this to aggressive expansion without adequate capital backing.
The partners had done nothing wrong. They had bought a name, and the name stopped being worth anything.
The lesson is not that franchising is fraud. It is that a brand growing faster than it can support is the single biggest risk you take on. Ask any brand you speak to — including us — how many units they opened last year and how many they closed.
Questions to ask any preschool brand
- How many centres opened, and how many closed, in the last three years?
- Can I speak to three franchisees you did not select for me?
- Who hires and fires the teachers — me or you?
- What exactly does the royalty buy, in writing, month by month?
- What happens to my investment if you enter financial distress?
- Is there a defined exit, and at what value?
Our model
You own the school. We run it.
Management, day-to-day operations, teacher recruitment and teacher training stay in our hands — because that is where standards are made or lost. Our partners hold ownership and the returns that come with it, without inheriting the operational risk of running a pre-school they have never run before.
You provide
- The capital
- The site, or the funds to secure one
- Local knowledge of the catchment
- Patience through the first two years
We provide
- The Banbury Cross name and thirty-five year record
- The full EYFS + Montessori curriculum as taught at Mahanagar
- Teacher recruitment, training and supervision
- Day-to-day management: admissions, timetabling, staffing, parent communication, events
- Campus design guidance, benchmarked to the 13,500 sq ft Mahanagar build
- Academic audit and quality accountability
Neither of us does
- Sell a licence to whoever pays first
- Open a second unit before the first is stable
- Compromise ratios to fill a class
- Put a child at risk to protect a number
Why this is different
Three ways to own a preschool
Standard franchise
Lowest entry cost, highest operational burden, and quality depends entirely on you. Royalty is paid on revenue whether or not the centre is profitable. Suits an owner who wants to run a school themselves and needs a brand and curriculum to start from.
Company-operated (FOCO)
Highest entry cost — the leading example in India is ₹75 lakh — but genuinely passive. The brand operates everything and you take a revenue share, with a defined exit. Suits an investor, not an educator.
The Banbury Cross partnership
We operate, as in the FOCO model, but at Lucknow economics rather than metro ones, and with a school that has been proved over thirty-five years on a single campus rather than replicated at speed across a network. We are not trying to open a hundred units. We are trying to open the right ones.
The commercials
Shared in full on enquiry
We set every figure out in writing before you visit, not at a closing call. These are the six parameters we will cover.
Nothing on this page is an offer, a prospectus, or a guarantee of returns. Any partnership is governed solely by a signed agreement, and we will encourage you to have it reviewed independently before you sign it.
How it works
Five steps, and a real chance of being turned down
1 · Enquiry
Tell us the city, the catchment you have in mind, and what you are hoping to get out of it. If we are not the right fit we will say so in the first conversation rather than the fifth.
2 · Visit Mahanagar
Come and stand in the school while it is running. Meet the Principal. Look at the ratios, the classrooms, the ordinary Tuesday morning. Everything we claim is checkable on site.
3 · Catchment study
We assess the location together — demand, competition, access, rent, realistic fee levels. If the numbers do not work, we tell you before you have spent anything.
4 · Terms & agreement
Written terms, independently reviewed by your lawyer. We would rather you negotiate hard now than feel misled in year three.
5 · Build & open
Campus design, staff recruitment and training, admissions launch. We run it from day one; you own it from day one.
Talk to us
Serious enquiries only, and we mean it kindly
If you want to buy a brand and run it your own way, we are not your partner and we will say so early. If you want to own a school that is genuinely well run, start with a phone call.
Banbury Cross Educational Society · Registration No. 2202, dated 23.12.1998, under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 · B-86/C, Sector C, Mahanagar, Lucknow 226006