Direct earnings answer
A reasonable, limited-confidence range for one full-year 360 Painting franchised business is approximately $39,000 to $87,000 in estimated pre-tax owner-operator benefit, with a central analytical scenario of about $61,000. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document does not report owner profit: Item 19 reports 2025 Gross Sales, so every earnings number in this range is an independent estimate.
Data basis and definition
- Legal franchisor
- 360 Painting, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company. The FDD was issued April 22, 2026 and amended July 6, 2026.
- Item 19 status
- Official 2025 Gross Sales for 108 full-year Franchised Businesses operated by 92 franchisees; no Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, Cash Flow, or Owner Compensation disclosure.
- Published measure
- Estimated pre-tax owner-operator benefit: modeled business income that includes the economic value of the owner filling the required full-time Designated Manager role. It is not passive profit or after-tax take-home pay.
- Benchmark
- IRS Statistics of Income, 2023 nonfarm sole proprietorship data for Specialty Trade Contractors. This is broader than painting contractors and is not franchise-specific.
- Included and excluded
- The IRS net-income measure is after reported Schedule C business deductions, including depreciation and business interest where claimed. Owner wages are not deducted for sole proprietors. Personal income tax, financing principal, and capital expenditures are outside the estimate.
- Date checked
- July 15, 2026. No matching public 2026 FDD was verified on a franchise-controlled domain, so FDD citations below are plain-text Item and page references.
Item 19 evidence
What does the 2026 FDD actually measure?
The official evidence measures Gross Sales, not owner earnings, for a defined 2025 cohort of full-year U.S. franchised businesses. The cleanest per-unit anchor is the $387,352 median Gross Sales per Franchised Business; the corresponding average was $453,268. Those are revenue figures before operating costs, recurring franchise fees, owner compensation, debt service, and taxes. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 41–43.
Evidence confidence: LIMITED
Same-brand sales are current and well defined, but the earnings margin must come from a broad government industry proxy.
Population boundary
Item 19 includes 108 Franchised Businesses operated for the entire 2025 fiscal year by the same franchisee. It excludes 81 businesses operated by 56 franchisees that lacked a full-year record or usable CRM data.
OFFICIAL — 2025 Item 19 full-year cohort; revenue, not earnings.
OFFICIAL — operated by 92 franchisees for the entire fiscal year.
OFFICIAL — no full-year record and/or insufficient CRM data.
BENCHMARK — IRS 2023 Specialty Trade Contractors, all returns.
DERIVED — royalty, marketing fund, contact center, technology, and accounting fees.
The FDD’s $387,352 median answers “how much did the business sell?” It does not answer “how much did the owner keep?” A high-sales painting contractor can still produce low or negative residual income if project labor, subcontractor pricing, paint and supplies, rework, lead costs, insurance, vehicles, and required fees consume the revenue.
| 2025 Item 19 measure | Population | Average Gross Sales | Median Gross Sales |
|---|---|---|---|
| Per Franchised Business | 108 businesses | $453,268 | $387,352 |
| Per franchisee | 92 franchisees / 108 businesses | $537,944 | $411,455 |
| Top quartile, per franchisee | 23 franchisees / 34 businesses | $1,202,784 | $1,002,669 |
| Middle 50%, per franchisee | 46 franchisees / 49 businesses | $430,894 | $416,860 |
| Bottom quartile, per franchisee | 23 franchisees / 25 businesses | $104,394 | $100,793 |
| 36+ months operational, per franchisee | 60 franchisees / 70 businesses | $507,203 | $411,455 |
The quartile and operating-age tables are reported per franchisee, not strictly per unit. Because some franchisees own more than one Franchised Business, those values cannot be treated as single-unit owner earnings or multiplied without portfolio assumptions.
Scenario model
How was the annual owner-operator range estimated?
The $39,000–$87,000 range is estimated for one full-year home-based, mobile business. It starts with the 2025 Item 19 median Gross Sales per Franchised Business, applies an explicit 80%/100%/120% revenue spread, and pairs that spread with an IRS Specialty Trade Contractors margin sensitivity of 12.7%/15.7%/18.7%.
Example: $387,352 × 15.7056% = $60,836, rounded to approximately $61,000.
- Revenue spread: $309,882, $387,352, and $464,822 are 80%, 100%, and 120% of the official per-business median. The spread is analytical; it is not an FDD quartile or probability forecast.
- Margin spread: 12.7%, 15.7%, and 18.7% use the IRS 2023 all-return net-income-less-deficit margin for Specialty Trade Contractors, adjusted by minus or plus three percentage points for sensitivity.
- Industry mapping: the specific federal classification for the operating activity is NAICS 238320, Painting and Wall Covering Contractors. The available IRS margin is at the broader Specialty Trade Contractors level, which reduces comparability.
- No fee double count: the IRS margin is an all-in net-income measure, so FDD fees are not subtracted a second time. The separate fee analysis below shows why this broad benchmark may not translate cleanly to a franchised unit.
What does the three-scenario earnings model produce?
Estimated annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit per Franchised Business
Interpretation: the range is driven by both sales and margin; it is not a forecast of how often each result occurs. Sources: 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 41–43; IRS nonfarm sole proprietorship statistics, 2023 Table 1. Values use full-precision inputs and are rounded to the nearest $1,000 for display.
| Scenario | Revenue anchor | Margin assumption | Owner-operator benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $309,882 | 12.7% | $39,372 |
| Base | $387,352 | 15.7% | $60,836 |
| Upside | $464,822 | 18.7% | $86,948 |
The central scenario is a calculation reference, not a claim that $60,836 is the expected or most likely result.
Owner role
How does owner involvement change the result?
Owner involvement can change the economic result by approximately the cost of a full-time Designated Manager. This is a scenario distinction, not a disclosed Item 19 profit comparison: Item 15 requires direct, on-premises, full-time supervision, and an individual franchisee serves as the Designated Manager unless a business entity appoints another qualified person. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 15, p. 37.
The IRS sole-proprietor margin does not deduct a salary paid to the proprietor. IRS methodology explains that owner salaries are neither deducted as wages nor included as wages paid to the owner. Therefore, the modeled $39,000–$87,000 should be read as owner-operator benefit: it can include residual business income and compensation for management work. See the IRS sole proprietorship methodology and 2022 results.
Hiring a manager does not make the owner-operator benefit disappear from the accounting record automatically; it converts part of that benefit into payroll expense. The remaining manager-run amount is residual business profit before personal taxes and financing principal, and it can be negative.
What remains if the owner hires a full-time manager?
Illustrative residual after a $60,000 annual manager salary, before employer payroll burden
Interpretation: a manager-run model may leave little residual profit at the modeled central revenue and margin. The $60,000 salary is an editorial sensitivity derived by annualizing the high end of Item 7’s $0–$30,000 Designated Manager Salary estimate for the first six months. It is not an ongoingwage disclosed by the franchisor, and employer taxes, benefits, recruiting, and turnover costs would reduce the residual further.
Recurring obligations
How much do disclosed franchise fees affect the economics?
Core recurring charges equal approximately $51,571 to $63,966 across the three revenue scenarios, or 13.8% to 16.6% of sales. This is a derived fee calculation using 2026 FDD Item 6 rates for a business beyond its first year: 6% royalty, 2% Marketing Fund, the $220 weekly Contact Center minimum, $210 weekly Technology Fee, and $85 weekly Accounting and Business Advisory Services Fee.
| Scenario | Modeled sales | Royalty + Marketing Fund | Contact center + technology + accounting | Core charges / sales |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $309,882 | $24,791 | $26,780 | $51,571 / 16.6% |
| Base | $387,352 | $30,988 | $26,780 | $57,768 / 14.9% |
| Upside | $464,822 | $37,186 | $26,780 | $63,966 / 13.8% |
The $220 weekly Contact Center minimum remains greater than 2% of sales in all three scenarios; 2% becomes greater at annual sales above $572,000. This table excludes conditional or variable amounts such as an Advertising Cooperative, convention attendance, non-compliance charges, local operating expenses, and startup investment. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 15–17.
The IRS Specialty Trade Contractors margin may not fully represent this fee structure. Generic contractors may not pay a franchisor royalty, Marketing Fund, Contact Center Fee, Technology Fee, and Accounting Services Fee, while a franchisee may receive services that replace other independent-business expenses. Because the IRS all-in margin does not isolate franchise fees, subtracting the Item 6 charges again would risk double counting; not subtracting them creates a separate comparability risk. This is the largest modeling uncertainty.
Uncertainty
How wide is the evidence gap around owner earnings?
The evidence gap is substantial because no same-brand profit-and-loss measure is disclosed. The range is therefore uncertain and scenario-based for a single full-year unit, even though the revenue anchor is official. The strongest known sales data still omit unit-level labor, subcontractor payments, paint and supply costs, lead costs, rework, vehicle expenses, insurance, manager compensation, and owner distributions.
Why the Item 19 cohort is not the entire system
The 108-business cohort represented businesses open for the whole 2025 fiscal year under the same franchisee and with usable CRM data. It excluded 81 Franchised Businesses. Item 20 separately reports 148 franchised outlets at year-end 2025 and no company-owned outlets, after systemwide net changes of +19 in 2023, −7 in 2024, and −5 in 2025. Transfers rose from 7 in 2023 to 10 in 2024 and 13 in 2025. These figures do not prove a profit outcome, but they make closure, transfer, and cohort-selection questions material. Source: 2026 FDD, Item 20, pp. 43–50.
Why per-owner sales do not equal per-unit earnings
Item 19 reports average and median Gross Sales both per Franchised Business and per franchisee. The per-franchisee figures include 92 franchisees controlling 108 businesses, and the top quartile includes 23 franchisees controlling 34 businesses. Multi-unit scale, shared overhead, manager layers, and development timing are not disclosed. Therefore, the $1,002,669 top-quartile median per franchisee cannot be interpreted as one-unit revenue or converted directly into owner income.
Why taxes and debt are outside the answer
The estimate is pre-tax. Personal income tax depends on entity structure, state, filing status, deductions, and other owner circumstances. The estimate also excludes financing principal and acquisition financing assumptions. Item 10 states that 360 Painting, LLC does not offer direct or indirect financing and does not guarantee a note, lease, or obligation. Interest may appear in the IRS industry accounts where claimed, but an individual buyer’s loan structure can materially change cash available for distributions.
Buyer verification
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should treat the range as a screening model and replace its broad assumptions with same-brand operating records. The most important next evidence is the written Item 19 substantiation and standardized profit-and-loss statements from current franchisees with comparable sales, territory characteristics, unit count, and owner role.
- Request the written substantiation for the 2026 FDD Item 19 financial performance representation, including the Gross Sales source data, CRM exclusions, and treatment of transferred or ceased operations.
- Ask whether each interviewed franchisee owns one Franchised Business or multiple businesses; do not compare a portfolio-level revenue figure with a single-unit expense structure.
- Obtain full-year profit-and-loss statements that separate project labor or subcontractors, paint and materials, lead generation, vehicles, insurance, franchise fees, manager payroll, depreciation, interest, and owner distributions.
- Identify who performs the Designated Manager role, the hours worked, and the market cost of replacing that owner labor with an employee.
- Reconcile Item 6 charges to actual statements, including minimum fees, local advertising, any Advertising Cooperative, convention costs, and required services.
- Compare franchisees at 12–23, 24–35, and 36+ months, and ask about ramp-up, seasonality, weather, cancellations, warranty work, and sales concentration.
- Interview former and transferred franchisees listed in Item 20, not only current high performers, and ask what caused the exit or transfer.
Decision synthesis
What is the strongest defensible earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is approximately $39,000 to $87,000 per year in estimated pre-tax owner-operator benefit for one full-year franchised business, with a central analytical scenario near $61,000. It is scenario-based, not an official owner-earnings disclosure.
The most important earnings driver is the combination of sales volume and project-level labor or subcontractor economics; owner involvement is equally consequential because Item 15 requires a full-time Designated Manager. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand profit data and the use of a broad IRS Specialty Trade Contractors margin that may not reflect 360 Painting’s recurring fee structure. Before making a decision, a buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, unit-level P&Ls, owner versus manager labor, and exit experience through current, former, and transferred franchisee interviews.