This is the official 2025 average Owner Discretionary Income range across the four revenue quartiles for full-year single Ace Handyman Services reporting territories. It is not net profit, passive income, or after-tax take-home pay. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document says this measure may include owner salary, owner distributions, and personal business expenses.
What does the FDD actually measure as owner earnings?
The official measure is “Owner Discretionary Income,” calculated as Gross Profit minus Total Expenses. For 2025, Total Revenue included labor, materials/trash/equipment, and service-charge revenue. Gross Profit subtracted craftsmen personnel costs, materials/trash/equipment costs, and mileage. Total Expenses then included AHS Software, automobiles, General & Administrative expense, local marketing, the National Brand Fund, rent, royalties, and tools/card fees/permits.
The FDD expressly warns that Owner Discretionary Income may include salaries paid to the reporting operator or owner, distributions taken by the operator or owner, and personal business expenses. It “may not represent” net profit. Taxes are not shown, and interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, and financing principal are not separately identified. Therefore, the measure is best read as a pre-tax owner-benefit indicator—not as personal take-home pay.
The top single-territory revenue quartile averaged $775,337 of Total Revenue but only $49,793 of Owner Discretionary Income, or 6% of revenue. The third quartile averaged lower revenue of $347,542 yet a higher 11% ODI margin. Expense structure, staffing, marketing, and owner compensation classification can matter as much as sales volume.
How did full-year single territories perform across revenue quartiles?
Average Owner Discretionary Income ranged from $3,994 in the bottom revenue quartile to $49,793 in the top revenue quartile. The cohorts contained 19, 19, 19, and 20 reporting territories, respectively. These are official 2025 FDD results, grouped by Total Revenue rather than by ODI.
Average Owner Discretionary Income by single-territory revenue quartile
Official 2025 averages; quartiles are ordered from lowest to highest Total Revenue.
Interpretation: the average earnings measure rises sharply above the bottom revenue quartile, but it is nearly flat between the third and second quartiles and increases only modestly in the top quartile.
Source: 2026 Ace Handyman Services FDD, Item 19, Tables 1–4, printed pp. 44–47. Values are official averages of Owner Discretionary Income.
Did higher average revenue produce a higher ODI margin?
Each point pairs the cohort’s average Total Revenue with its official average Owner Discretionary Income percentage.
Interpretation: revenue and owner-benefit margin did not move in lockstep. The third quartile had the highest average ODI margin, while the top quartile had the highest dollar ODI.
Source: 2026 Ace Handyman Services FDD, Item 19, Tables 1–4, printed pp. 44–47. Margins are the FDD’s stated Percentage of Total Revenue.
How do single-territory and multi-territory owner results differ?
Multi-territory reporting groups showed materially higher group-level Owner Discretionary Income, but the figures cannot be treated as per-territory earnings. The FDD aggregates all territories held by each reporting operator, and the number of territories per operator varies. Shared management, central office costs, territory maturity, and development timing are not separately disclosed.
| Cohort | Reporting population | Average Total Revenue | Average ODI | ODI for revenue-median unit(s) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Single — top quartile | 19 territories | $775,337 | $49,793 | $50,689 |
| Single — second quartile | 19 territories | $533,854 | $40,188 | $69,459 |
| Single — third quartile | 19 territories | $347,542 | $39,489 | $61,785 |
| Single — bottom quartile | 20 territories | $250,699 | $3,994 | $5,400 |
| Multi — top quartile | 19 operators / 68 territories | $1,514,055 | $223,597 | $292,208 |
| Multi — second quartile | 19 operators / 52 territories | $810,449 | $150,662 | $202,730 |
| Multi — third quartile | 19 operators / 52 territories | $595,435 | $71,561 | $94,078 |
| Multi — bottom quartile | 20 operators / 60 territories | $332,217 | $25,486 | $46,152 |
Source: 2026 Ace Handyman Services FDD, Item 19, Tables 1–8, printed pp. 44–51. “Median” values follow the FDD’s revenue-ranked definition; they are not necessarily the median of each financial line.
Do not divide the multi-territory group figures by territory or multiply a single-territory result by a planned territory count. Item 19 does not disclose each operator’s territory count, opening dates, centralized payroll, manager structure, or shared overhead. Any per-territory or portfolio forecast would require additional assumptions.
How does active owner involvement change the earnings interpretation?
Active owner involvement can convert part of the disclosed owner benefit into compensation for labor performed. Item 15 requires the owner or an approved Franchise Manager to supervise daily operations in person and devote at least 40 hours per week. The franchise also requires an experienced Office Manager. The official franchise website describes the current opportunity as an active owner-operator model rather than semi-absentee ownership.
Owner-operated territory
The owner may fill the Franchise Manager role. Because Item 19 says ODI may include owner salary and distributions, some of the reported amount may compensate the owner for full-time management work. It should be labeled owner-operator benefit, not pure passive business profit.
Manager-run territory
A hired Franchise Manager creates a substantial wage and payroll burden. Item 19 does not identify which reporting operators hired managers or how those wages were classified, so the official ODI figures cannot be converted reliably into manager-run residual profit.
Broad replacement-labor proxy: May 2025 BLS median hourly wage of $50.85 for General and Operations Managers × 2,080 hours. This is not an Ace wage quote and excludes payroll taxes and benefits.
The BLS manager benchmark is a labor-value reference, not an earnings estimate. Do not mechanically add it to owner-operated ODI or subtract it from manager-run ODI: the FDD does not disclose owner participation, manager pay, or account classification by reporting unit. The practical conclusion is narrower—owner labor is economically material and the Item 19 measure is not passive cash flow.
Which recurring obligations are already reflected, and which cash demands remain uncertain?
The Item 19 expense tables include royalties, the National Brand Fund, local marketing, AHS Software, rent, automobiles, General & Administrative expense, and other listed operating costs. The 2026 Item 6 schedule sets the current Royalty Fee at 6% of Gross Revenues, the National Brand Fee at 2%, and the Software and Internet Fee at $599 per month, subject to a stated maximum of $1,200 after notice. Local marketing minimums rise to $50,000 annually from the third full year for a standard AHS Business and $25,000 for a Mini AHS Business.
However, Item 19 says operators may incur different, additional, isolated, or recurring expenses. It does not separately identify financing interest, principal payments, depreciation, capital expenditures, or personal income taxes. The Item 7 initial investment of $132,200 to $226,000 for a standard territory is a startup requirement, not an annual operating expense, and should not be subtracted from one year of revenue.
Owner Discretionary Income should be evaluated before personal income taxes and before financing principal payments. A buyer using debt must model interest and principal separately from Item 19, using the actual loan amount, rate, term, fees, and amortization schedule.
How much confidence should a buyer place in the official range?
The evidence confidence is high for what Item 19 reports, but lower for predicting a specific buyer’s future take-home pay. The same-brand disclosure is current and covers a large, defined full-year population. Its main limitations are cohort selection, unaudited records, owner-role mixing, and incomplete expense classification.
- New territories are absent. Forty territories had not been open for at least 12 months at December 31, 2025.
- Incomplete reporters are absent. Thirty-four otherwise eligible territories were excluded because their operators did not provide complete 2025 financial reports.
- Closed territories are absent. Twenty-six territories operated by 22 operators closed during 2025 and were not included in Item 19.
- Affiliate outlets are absent. Eighteen affiliate-operated territories were excluded, so the tables are franchised-operator evidence rather than company-operated economics.
- Mini AHS Businesses are mixed in. Four Mini territories were included but not broken out, preventing a format-specific earnings conclusion.
- Records were unaudited. The franchisor relied on QuickBooks reports submitted by operators and states that it did not audit or guarantee their accuracy.
- Revenue quartiles are not earnings quartiles. High and low columns relate to the highest- and lowest-revenue reporting units, not the highest and lowest ODI.
- Owner labor is not separated. Salary, distributions, and personal business expenses may be embedded in ODI, while hired-manager status is undisclosed.
For a full-year single territory, the strongest defensible planning reference is therefore the official $3,994 to $49,793 average ODI band across revenue quartiles. The ODI values attached to the revenue-median units range from $5,400 to $69,459, which demonstrates sensitivity to the statistic selected, but they should not be relabeled as the median of owner earnings.
What should a prospective owner verify before using these figures?
Verify the owner-role classification and reconstruct cash flow from source records. The Federal Trade Commission advises buyers to examine Item 19’s population, assumptions, limitations, and written substantiation, and to speak with current and former franchisees about actual costs and earnings.
- Request the written substantiation for Item 19 and reconcile the ODI formula to sample profit-and-loss statements.
- Ask how owner salary, distributions, personal business expenses, Franchise Manager wages, Office Manager wages, payroll taxes, and benefits are booked.
- Interview single-territory operators in each revenue quartile, including operators with hired Franchise Managers and owner-operators.
- Ask the franchisor to identify results for the four Mini AHS Businesses or explain why the format cannot be separated.
- Review the 26 territories that closed during 2025 and ask former operators about revenue, labor utilization, marketing, debt, and reasons for exit.
- Build a local budget using actual wage rates, insurance, occupancy, vehicle costs, licensing, local marketing, financing, and working-capital needs.
What is the most defensible Ace Handyman owner-earnings range?
For a full-year single reporting territory, the best current evidence is the official 2025 average Owner Discretionary Income range of approximately $4,000 to $49,800 across revenue quartiles. Multi-territory reporting groups averaged approximately $25,500 to $223,600 per operator group, but those results are not per-territory figures. The most important earnings driver is the conversion of revenue into gross profit after craftsmen and materials costs, followed by General & Administrative expense and local marketing. The largest unresolved uncertainty is owner involvement: Item 19 does not separate owner labor, hired-manager expense, distributions, or passive residual profit. Before relying on the range, a buyer should verify Item 19 substantiation, accounting classifications, closed-territory outcomes, and manager-run versus owner-operated economics with current and former franchisees.