Business Plan Examples: 24 Free Sample Plans by Industry

These business plan examples show you what a finished, lender-ready plan looks like for 24 common types of business. Each one is set in a real city, priced in the local currency and backed by numbers that add up.

Use them to learn the shape of a good plan. Then write your own. We’ll explain how to do that without falling into the copy-and-paste trap, which catches more founders than you’d think.

Browse business plan examples by industry

Pick the closest match to your idea. Click any card to read the full plan.

Business plan examples grouped by sector

If you prefer a list, here’s every sample, grouped so you can compare similar businesses side by side.

Sector	Sample plans
Food and drink	Coffee shop (Manchester), Restaurant (Dublin), Bakery (Bristol), Food truck (Lisbon)
Personal services	Hair salon (Birmingham), Barbershop (London), Beauty salon (Madrid), Dog grooming (Newcastle), Cleaning (Leeds)
Fitness and care	Gym (Glasgow), Personal trainer (Amsterdam), Nursery (Cardiff), Home care (Liverpool)
Property and trades	Construction company (Berlin), Landscaping (Cork), Real estate agency (Barcelona), Airbnb (Edinburgh)
Online and retail	Ecommerce (Stockholm), Clothing brand (Milan)
Professional and B2B	Consulting (Brussels), Marketing agency (Paris), Recruitment agency (Belfast), SaaS (Munich), Courier (Sheffield)

What makes good business plan examples worth studying

Not every example online is worth your time. Plenty are padded, vague or years out of date. When you judge any sample, ours included, look for these five things.

• A summary you can read in two minutes. If the executive summary runs to three pages, the writer didn’t know what mattered.
• A named customer. “Busy parents within a 15-minute drive” is useful. “Everyone” isn’t.
• Real competitors. Good business plan examples name rivals and explain why some customers will switch.
• Numbers with sources. Where did the rent figure come from? What’s the average spend based on? A good plan shows its working.
• Statements that reconcile. The cash at the end of the cash flow should match the cash on the balance sheet. If it doesn’t, don’t learn from that plan.

Hold our samples to the same test. A plan that can’t explain its own numbers isn’t one to learn from, wherever you found it.

Why every sample is set in a real place

A generic plan with “Year 1 revenue: $100,000” teaches you very little. Is that a lot? What does rent cost? What do staff earn? Without a place, the numbers float.

So each of our samples picks a city and sticks to it. The coffee shop plan works out costs for a site in Manchester, in pounds. The restaurant runs in Dublin, in euros. The food truck trades in Lisbon. You see how local rent, wages and prices shape the whole plan.

Even if you’re opening somewhere else, that grounding helps. You can see which lines will change for your city (rent, wages, average spend) and which won’t (the structure, the logic, the questions each section answers).

How to use a sample plan without copying it

This is the most useful part of this page, so take two minutes over it.

A sample plan is a worked example, like the solved maths problem at the back of a textbook. You study it to understand the method. You don’t hand it in as your homework.

Why copying business plan examples backfires

Bank managers, investors and visa assessors read a lot of plans. They’ve seen the popular examples too. A borrowed paragraph about “a growing demand for artisan coffee” with no local detail is the fastest way to lose their trust.

The bigger problem is the numbers. A copied cash flow won’t match your rent, your prices or your loan. The first question in the meeting (“where does this £4,200 a month come from?”) ends the conversation. Your plan has to survive questions, and only your own numbers do.

There’s a quieter risk too. When you copy, you skip the thinking. Writing your own market section forces you to find out how many customers there really are within reach of your premises. Sometimes that’s where you discover the idea needs changing, which is far cheaper to learn on paper than after signing a lease.

Common mistakes when adapting a sample

Even founders who don’t copy word for word slip into a few habits. Watch for these.

• Keeping the sample’s growth rate. A 15% yearly rise might suit one city and be fantasy in another. Base growth on your own capacity and market.
• Forgetting your own costs. The sample won’t include your van lease, your software or your accountant. Add every line that applies to you.
• Mixing currencies. If you trade in euros, every figure should be in euros, including start-up costs you’re paying in another currency.
• Leaving the sample’s team section in place. Your experience is one of the main things a lender judges. Write it fresh.

Choosing a sample for a mixed or unusual business

Few businesses fit a single box. A bakery with a café counter. A personal trainer who also sells online programmes. A cleaning company that does some landscaping in summer.

Open the two closest samples side by side. Use one as your main model and borrow the revenue logic from the other. For the bakery café, the bakery plan gives you production costs and wholesale customers, while the coffee shop plan shows how to project counter sales by covers per day.

If nothing comes close, the method still works. Every plan answers the same handful of questions. Our business plan template lists them section by section.

Sample plans by country and city

Industry is half the picture. Where you trade changes funding options, company structure, tax and what a lender expects to see.

Our country guides start with the UK and Europe: the UK, Ireland, Germany, France, Spain and more. Each one explains the local funding schemes, company types and quirks. The full list lives on business plans by country, and if you’re relocating, try our visa business plan guides.

Need local market data for your own plan? National statistics offices are the best free source. In the UK, the Office for National Statistics publishes population, spending and business data you can quote with confidence.

1,200+ more plans in the free library

Beyond these 24 industry samples, our free business plan library holds more than 1,200 sample plans and guides. It’s especially deep on Zimbabwe, South Africa and Zambia, plus general how-to guides that apply anywhere.

Use library plans the same way as the industry samples: study the structure and the local context, then write your own. If you’re starting a business in Southern Africa, the library is the place to begin. If you’re in the UK or Europe, the industry samples above are closer to home.

From sample to your own plan

Once you’ve read a sample or two, you’ve got three routes forward. None is wrong. It comes down to how much time you have, how comfortable you are with spreadsheets and how much rides on the plan. A plan for your own clarity can be rough. A plan for a £25,000 loan or a residence permit can’t.

• Write it yourself. Follow our step-by-step guide on how to write a business plan and use the free template outline.
• Write the words, build the numbers carefully. Our guide to financial projections shows how the income statement, cash flow and balance sheet link up, with a worked example.
• Let the generator draft it. Answer questions about your business and the Business Plan Generator writes a full plan with linked financials. If you start from a sample page, the generator is pre-filled with that industry.

Whichever route you take, the finished plan should be unmistakably yours. That’s what gets a yes. A generated plan costs $19, paid once, and the pricing page lists the optional add-ons.

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