Vendor Renegotiations: Savings, Scale, and Strategic Alignment

We’re pleased to share an update on recent vendor renegotiations that reflect our ongoing commitment to driving franchisee profitability while strengthening systemwide capabilities. Across technology, compliance, marketing, and purchasing, these efforts have delivered meaningful cost savings, improved contract terms, and stronger long-term alignment

1. Edge (Employee-Driven Growth Engine)

Edge drives review growth by converting in-spa guest experiences into Google reviews through frontline recognition, incentives, and real-time engagement, with seamless Zenoti integration that minimizes operational lift. With nearly 240 spas currently using Edge, our renegotiated, tiered pricing model: $175/month (1–249 locations), $150/month (250–349 locations), and $125/month (350+ locations) and a waived $500 onboarding fee, reduces per-location costs as adoption continues to scale. The tiered pricing model will save franchisees $25 per month over current charges once we onboard 10 more locations and move to the second tier.  

2. ​DISA Global Solutions 

DISA is our system-approved background/EVS screening and compliance partner, ensuring franchisees meet federal and state hiring requirements through secure, FCRA-compliant screening services. Following a newly announced $600 annual compliance fee, corporate intervened and successfully secured a full exemption for all Hand & Stone locations for 2026, with DISA committing to collaborative planning and advance notice on any potential fee structure changes for 2027.  

3. ​Reputation.com to SMG 

SMG serves as the single source of truth for guest experience by unifying review and survey data across platforms to deliver actionable, location-level insights and competitive benchmarking. By replacing Reputation.com with a consolidated CX and reputation platform, SMG delivers $70,000+ in annual savings for the National Marketing Fund while expanding insights, visibility, and response consistency across the system. 

4. ​800-Answer Technology 

800-Answer Technology is our centralized national telecommunications solution that intelligently routes every call to the right destination—your spa, our customer service team, or corporate—ensuring faster answers and a better guest experience. Through recent contract negotiations, we’ve reduced this cost by approximately $65,000 annually, which will be reallocated directly to the National Ad Fund and invested in national media to drive top-of-funnel awareness, leads, and new guest demand. 

5. ​​​Hand & Stone Purchasing 

Hand & Stone Purchasing continues to deliver meaningful cost savings for Hand & Stone franchisees by proactively managing vendor relationships and market changes. 
  
As an example, Hand & Stone’s purchasing power and our team’s negotiations have maintained significant saving on massage tables with Oakworks, our approved massage table manufacturer. Currently, Hand & Stone franchisees save 32-36% off the normal purchase price.  When Oakworks announced a national price increase, the purchasing team swiftly brought the ordering process in-house, which helped control costs and limit the price increase that franchisees would see.  By closely monitoring pricing trends and acting decisively, Hand & Stone Purchasing works behind the scenes to protect franchisee investments while maintaining the quality and consistency guests expect. 

6. Kepler  

We negotiated firmly with Kepler this year, and although we've increased resources in all areas, their fees remain unchanged from last year. To ensure continuous improvement, part of their fees will depend on meeting agreed performance targets for 2026. Importantly, their compensation structure in 2026 remains a fixed model, meaning their fees are set regardless of media spend fluctuations—unlike other common variable models tied to expenditure—which ensures their interests are fully aligned with ours. Last year’s RFP demonstrated that our rates were among the lowest; this year, we conducted another benchmarking exercise to confirm they remain highly competitive by comparing them to over ten similar companies. 

7. Indeed/Glassdoor 

We are pleased to share that we have secured significant savings to the annual cost of the companywide Hand & Stone Glassdoor page, which is paid annually out of the National Advertising Fund to promote employee experience. As a part of the negotiation, we have secured a savings of $53,000 in 2026 off the original annual cost of $93,000, which allows those funds to be re-purposed towards national consumer branding efforts. This savings is a result of the significant investment in job ad sponsorships made by franchisees in 2025 and forecasted for 2026.  

Overall, we are thrilled with the level of support and attention the Indeed team has dedicated to both our franchisee community and the corporate Recruiting team, and Hand & Stone is viewed by Indeed as one of the top performing and invested franchise accounts from both a strategic and volume standpoint. Looking ahead, we plan to test a new Indeed product in 2026 named Indeed Flex, which is focused on schedule optimization using predictive AI and presenting providers with ad hoc shift pick up in real time, presenting earning opportunity ranges alongside the shift offer.  

All of these efforts demonstrate that Hand and Stone continues to focus on using our system size to drive lower costs for franchisees across all areas of their business and we are excited to announce these recent renegotiations.