After protests by franchisees and franchise blogger Sean Kelly, editors at Forbes said they may consider franchise "churn" numbers when compiling rankings.

The naming of Snap-On Tools in particular sparked a firestorm of criticism, and Forbes said it will consider revisions to their methodology.

For many years, the franchise industry has waged a civil war over the key issue of "success" rates. Franchisors maintain that so long as a unit does not shut down, it is deemed a "successful" franchise, while franchisees counter that a high churn rate is more relevant to determining if a franchisee can be "successful."