Free on-site gate assessment - hinges, posts, and your LiftMaster or Nice gate operator checked before anything is quoted
The assessment is free and the quote is the invoice.
Before
After
Before
After
Before
AfterFranchisee Success Stories
The owners who do well with Portcullis aren’t chasing a fantasy. They’re tradespeople who got tired of watching customers get burned, or business-minded folks who saw that gate repair is one trade where honesty still wins. They show up, they give the price before the work, and they sleep fine at night.
Meet Our Owners
Todd M. - Fort Worth, Texas
Todd spent fourteen years running a landscaping crew before his knees started arguing with him every morning. He knew how to manage a team and talk to homeowners, but he wanted a business where the work didn’t depend on August heat or a sprinkler schedule. A buddy in Dallas had bought a Portcullis franchise in 2019 and kept telling him, “These people actually mean what they put in writing.” Todd finally drove up to watch a day in the field. He saw a tech named Luis explain to a customer that her FAAC operator needed a new limit switch, write $287 on the invoice before touching a bolt, and finish in forty minutes. That was it. Todd opened his Fort Worth location in 2022. He now runs three trucks, and he still takes the Saturday emergency calls himself because, as he puts it, “The person who answers at 2 a.m. is the one they remember when the neighbor asks who fixed their gate.”
Sofia M. - Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina
Sofia was a commercial property manager for eleven years, which means she had eleven years of watching vendors disappear after the deposit, or “discover” problems that doubled the bill. When she decided to work for herself, she looked at a dozen franchise concepts and kept noticing the same thing: the marketing materials glowed, but the franchisees she tracked down sounded exhausted and defensive. Then she found Portcullis. The Kingswell Guarantee wasn’t a slogan; it was a stamped document on every repair invoice, and the franchise disclosure actually listed the guarantee terms in plain English. She opened in Raleigh-Durham in 2021, focusing on the gated communities and light commercial properties she already knew. Her first year, she built relationships with three HOA boards by showing up in the window she gave and leaving the equipment pad cleaner than she found it. “I don’t sell,” she says. “I do what I said I’d do, and the boards handle the rest.”
Eric C. - Phoenix, Arizona
Eric came from a completely different world: he managed inventory for a regional auto parts chain. But he’d grown up working on his grandfather’s ranch outside Casa Grande, where everything broke and you either fixed it or you walked. He missed working with his hands and making actual decisions. What drew him to Portcullis was the specificity. The training didn’t just say “learn gate repair”; it broke down nine operator brands, from the LiftMaster systems common in Phoenix subdivisions to the Mighty Mule units retirees install themselves and then call someone when the remote stops syncing. Eric opened his Phoenix location in 2020, right when everyone suddenly wanted touchless entry for their home gates. He now employs four technicians, and he still does ride-alongs every month to make sure the written price habit hasn’t gotten sloppy. “The desert eats gates,” he says. “Dust in the photocells, heat warping the aluminum arms, monsoon rust on the chain. Customers here have been told ‘that’s just how it is.’ We show them it’s not.”
Yolanda M. - Nashville, Tennessee
Yolanda ran a small handyman business with her brother for eight years, but they kept hitting the same ceiling: customers trusted her for small jobs, but when something serious broke, they called a “real company.” She wanted a brand behind her that meant something, not a van with a magnet. She found Portcullis through a Kingswell company she’d hired to fix her own gate after the 2020 Easter freeze. The tech gave her a written price of $194 for a new control board, finished in an hour, and the gate still worked perfectly two years later when she called to ask about franchising. She opened in Nashville in 2023, serving the new construction corridors south of town where builders install gates as standard and homeowners have no idea who to call when the operator starts beeping at midnight. Yolanda answers her own phones until 10 p.m. “Live person, 24/7,” she says. “That’s not a gimmick where I’m from. That’s how you keep a customer from calling someone else while they’re sitting in their driveway.”
Your Story Starts Here
Every Portcullis location is independently owned and operated, bound to the Kingswell Guarantee: written price, real arrival window, clean job site, and written guarantee on every repair. If you’re serious about building something real in your market, call (940) 412-7340 or request our franchise information kit below. We’ll give you the actual numbers, the actual training schedule, and the actual territory map. No surprises after you’ve already turned the first bolt.
Written by Dean Prescott, Owner & Lead Technician, Portcullis Gate Repair.