Franchise Brand Guidelines Software
Your partners are entrepreneurs, not designers. They will print the flyer tonight, with or without the right logo. Branddoq gives every location one address for rules and files, and a check that catches the wrong blue before it reaches the shop window.
What the head office sees
- A partner in one city prints a banner with a stretched logo because the file they had was a screenshot.
- Another location runs a local Facebook offer in a red that is almost, but not quite, the brand red.
- The manual sent out at onboarding is a 60-page PDF. Most partners opened it once.
- Every new opening triggers the same e-mail thread: logo files, font, colour codes, template for the opening poster.
- Local print shops ask for CMYK and Pantone values and receive a photo of a page.
Franchise brand guidelines live in a hard place. The people applying them change often, work under time pressure and mostly care about their own location. A document that has to be found, opened and read loses that race every time.
What changes with a living brand guide
- One address for the whole system. branddoq.io/your-brand goes into the partner handbook, the onboarding mail and the intranet.
- Rules and files together. The colour module shows HEX, RGB, CMYK, Pantone and RAL. Right below it, the download module holds the logo package and the poster template.
- Always the current version. You change a rule, publish, and every partner sees it. Nobody has to re-distribute anything.
- A check partners can run themselves. The AI Design Check takes a flyer as JPG, PNG, WebP or PDF and reports what deviates from the guide, with a reference to the rule.
How the workflow looks with Branddoq
1. Build the guide for the brand
Pages are stacks of modules: logo showcase with variants, clear space, minimum size and forbidden uses; do/don't pairs for the typical local mistakes; colour palette; typography with self-hosted fonts; principles; gallery of correct examples; downloads. The live preview shows what partners will see. If a printed manual exists, Premium and Enterprise can draft the guide from the PDF with AI guide creation.
2. Fill the media pool with local assets
Create folders per use case: shop signage, local advertising, social media, opening campaign, stationery. Partners download single files or a whole folder as ZIP. When a template changes, you replace one file, and every location gets the new one.
3. Protect the guide and invite partners
Set the guide to protected and invite partner users as viewers. Your brand team holds the editor and admin roles.
4. Let partners check before they print
The Design Check compares an upload with the guide on six criteria: colours, typography, logo, imagery, layout, tone. Colours are measured (ΔE2000), fonts and vector colours are read from PDFs, the rest is judged by Claude against the guide's own rules. The verdict is deterministic and the history is visible in your portal, so you see which locations check.
5. Keep the system current
New product line, new claim, new photo style: edit the draft, publish. Export the guide as 16:9 PDF slides for the partner convention if you need a deck.
Which plan fits which system
| Situation | Plan | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Pilot with a few partners | Trial, €0 | 1 guide, 3 pages, 10 basic modules, 1 GB, no AI, no credit card |
| One brand, all locations | Standard, €69/month | 1 guide, unlimited pages, 5 GB, 5 design checks/month |
| Up to three brands or concepts, partners check often | Premium, €149/month | 3 guides, 10 GB, 100 checks/month, AI features, 3,000 credits/month |
| Large system, contract and DPA required | Enterprise, from €499/month | Unlimited guides, 20 GB, unlimited checks, 10,000 credits, individual contract |
Prices include VAT, monthly, no minimum term. Payment via Stripe. Additional credits: €10, €45 or €99 for 1,000, 5,000 or 12,000 credits.
Limits to know
- There is no per-location or sub-brand hierarchy. The honest setup is one guide per brand, with local material organised in media-pool folders. Separate brands or concepts get separate guides.
- Guides live under branddoq.io/{slug}. Custom domains are not available yet.
- No SSO, no API, no DAM integration, no version history.
- The editing workspace is German today; the published guide is in the language you write it.
- The Design Check judges rules, not taste; a vague imagery chapter gives a vague imagery verdict.
- Hosted in Germany, self-hosted fonts, only necessary cookies, DPA available.
questions & answers.
Not as a hierarchy. All partners see the same protected guide. You can structure pages by use case and keep location-specific files in named folders of the media pool, but there is no per-location view or permission.
No. Premium includes three guides in one account, Enterprise includes unlimited guides. Each brand gets its own guide with its own media pool and its own address.
Through download modules on the guide pages or directly from the media pool, as single files or a folder ZIP. You upload the templates; Branddoq does not create them.
Yes. Every design check is stored with its result in the portal history, so you can see how often it is used and which criteria fail most.
see it for yourself.