For the seven single-territory Apex franchise owners in the 2025 Franchise Disclosure Document cohort, the official median EBITDA was $54,783 for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2025. The observed EBITDA range was $4,892 to $304,469. EBITDA is the franchisor's operating-earnings measure before interest, taxes, depreciation, amortization, and owner's compensation, so it is not the same as after-tax take-home pay.
Data basis
Legal franchisor: Apex Leadership Franchising, LLC. Disclosure: Franchise Disclosure Document issued October 20, 2025 and amended December 18, 2025; Item 19, pages 29–32. Population: 27 reporting franchisees operating 70 territories, including seven single-territory owners and 20 multi-territory owners. Benchmark sources: none used for the earnings figures; the article relies on the same-brand Item 19 disclosure. Date checked: July 16, 2026. The brand identifies Apex Leadership Co. as its official U.S. franchise website.
What the headline figure does and does not mean
The $54,783 figure is an official historical EBITDA result, not an independent forecast. It measures one single-territory cohort ranked by EBITDA and does not include owner's compensation, financing costs, personal income taxes, depreciation, or amortization. The confidence rating is Moderate because the earnings measure is direct and current, but the single-territory sample contains only seven owners, the disclosure does not separate owner-operated from staff-led businesses, and only 27 of 54 operating franchisees supplied the full financial information used for the EBITDA tables.
Seven owners, one territory each, fiscal 2025.
The mean exceeded the median, indicating that stronger results lifted the average.
Twenty owners; the median owner operated two territories. This is a portfolio result, not a per-territory figure.
Ten owners were too new and 17 did not provide all requested financials.
Item 19 EBITDA includes Royalties paid in fiscal 2025.
How much did Apex owners actually produce in annual EBITDA?
The official results differ sharply by ownership footprint. A single-territory owner had median EBITDA of $54,783 and mean EBITDA of $102,829. A multi-territory owner had median EBITDA of $238,336 and mean EBITDA of $230,478, but that cohort operated a median of two territories and an average of 3.2 territories. The all-owner cohort had median EBITDA of $151,228 and mean EBITDA of $197,384 across a median of two territories.
These are per-franchisee portfolio results, not per-territory averages. Dividing multi-territory EBITDA by the number of territories would create a derived figure that ignores differences in territory maturity, shared staff, scheduling capacity, and overhead. The FDD does not publish a validated per-territory EBITDA measure.
| Official Item 19 cohort | Owners / territories | Mean EBITDA | Median-owner EBITDA |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-territory owners | 7 / 7 | $102,829 | $54,783 |
| Multi-territory owners | 20 / 63 | $230,478 | $238,336 |
| All reporting owners | 27 / 70 | $197,384 | $151,228 |
Source: Apex Franchise Disclosure Document, 2025/2026, Item 19, pages 29–32. The FDD states that the tables are ranked by EBITDA dollars. Values shown in the “median” column for related fields describe the franchisee at the median EBITDA position and should not automatically be treated as independently calculated medians for every other metric.
Official fiscal 2025 EBITDA dollars per reporting franchisee portfolio.
Interpretation: Territory count is the dominant structural difference. The multi-territory result is a portfolio figure and cannot be compared with one-territory EBITDA as though both represent one identical unit.
Source: Apex Franchise Disclosure Document, 2025/2026, Item 19, pages 29–32. Values rounded to the nearest dollar for display.
What is a reasonable annual earnings range for a one-territory owner?
The strongest defensible planning reference is the official single-territory distribution, not a generic franchise margin. For seven single-territory owners, the FDD reported a $54,783 median EBITDA, a $17,948 bottom-quartile-group mean, a $261,968 top-quartile-group mean, and a full observed range of $4,892 to $304,469.
A practical reading is that $54,783 is the central historical reference, while approximately $18,000 to $262,000 shows how far the means of the lower and upper EBITDA-ranked quartile groups were separated. That is not a probability interval, guaranteed range, or forecast. With only seven owners, each quartile group contained two franchisees, making the quartile-group means highly sensitive to individual results.
Range lines show the lowest and highest EBITDA-dollar observations; the diamond marks the median EBITDA.
Interpretation: The wide ranges show why a single average is inadequate. Sales execution, number of territories, staffing, event volume, local costs, owner labor, and cohort selection can materially change the result.
Source: Apex Franchise Disclosure Document, 2025/2026, Item 19, pages 29–32. Minimum and maximum values are the owners with the lowest and highest EBITDA dollars in each cohort.
The EBITDA cohort excludes material parts of the system
Item 19 included full EBITDA data for 27 franchisees. It excluded ten franchisees operating 20 territories because they had been open less than 12 months, 17 franchisees operating 29 territories because they did not supply all requested financials, and three franchisees operating eight territories that ceased operating during fiscal 2025. The 17 nonreporting owners had Gross Revenue data only, with a $266,981 mean and $243,888 median-column result, but no expense or EBITDA information. Their absence from the earnings tables creates selection uncertainty that cannot be resolved from the FDD alone.
How does owner involvement change the meaning of EBITDA?
Owner involvement changes both the economics and the accounting presentation. Item 15 requires a Managing Owner with at least a 25% ownership interest. The Managing Owner must either work directly in the business or supervise Team Leaders and staff, and either the Managing Owner or a Team Leader must be actively involved full time with on-site management and supervision. The FDD therefore does not support describing the opportunity as passive.
Item 19 defines Labor as event-execution labor and supporting administrative salaries, but it excludes owner's compensation. This creates an important comparability issue: wages paid to a non-owner Team Leader, Sales Professional, or manager reduce EBITDA, while compensation paid to an owner is excluded from the EBITDA calculation. An actively working owner's EBITDA can therefore contain both residual business profit and the economic value of labor performed by that owner.
Do not add an assumed manager salary to the official EBITDA
The historical cohort mixes unknown owner-role structures. Treating every reported EBITDA figure as manager-run and then adding a market manager wage would overstate owner benefit. Treating every figure as owner-operated would also be unsupported. The defensible approach is to use the published EBITDA as the operating measure and verify each franchisee's owner hours, staffing model, owner compensation, and paid management costs separately.
Which recurring obligations can move forward owner earnings?
The fiscal 2025 EBITDA tables already deduct Labor, Merchandise COGS, Overhead, and Royalties. They do not provide a line-by-line bridge, so the article cannot independently reconstruct each owner's profit. Forward results may also differ because the Marketing Fund began after the fiscal 2025 measurement period.
Royalty
8% of Gross Revenue, excluding Gross Revenue attributable to Anython. Item 19 says Royalties paid during fiscal 2025 are included in Operating Expenses.
Anython royalty
6% of all dollars fundraised through Anython. This uses a different base from the standard royalty and should not be treated as another 6% of ordinary Gross Revenue.
Marketing Fund fee
Phased from 0.5% of Gross Revenue beginning October 1, 2025 to 2.0% from April 1, 2027 onward. The FDD states the fund did not collect fees in the prior fiscal year, so this later burden was not part of fiscal 2025 history.
Local marketing
At least $750 per month after the opening-marketing period. The FDD recommends considering at least $1,000 per month, but the recommendation is not the contractual minimum.
Administrative support
Currently $75 per contracted school per year. The number of contracted schools is not disclosed in Item 19, so the annual total cannot be reproduced from the FDD tables.
Technology fee
Currently $0. The franchisor may begin charging it on notice, initially up to $150 per month, with the potential maximum subject to future annual increases described in Item 6.
Gross Revenue must not be presented as owner income
The single-territory cohort's mean Gross Revenue was $386,205, while mean EBITDA was $102,829. The median-EBITDA owner had $405,105 of Gross Revenue and $54,783 of EBITDA. Because the FDD ranks the table by EBITDA dollars, those revenue and margin values describe the selected owner or EBITDA-ranked group; they are not a complete revenue distribution. Merchandise, labor, overhead, royalties, and future fee changes sit between Gross Revenue and owner cash.
How should debt service, taxes and reinvestment be treated?
The official EBITDA is before interest and owner's compensation, while Item 10 states that Apex does not offer or guarantee financing. Without defined loan terms, a standardized debt-service deduction would be speculative. A financed owner can have materially less annual cash after interest and principal than the Item 19 EBITDA amount.
Personal income taxes are also outside the analysis. Entity type, state, deductions, owner payroll treatment, and individual circumstances determine after-tax cash. Depreciation and amortization are excluded from EBITDA, and the FDD does not publish recurring replacement-capital spending. Working capital, vehicle and equipment replacement, additional teams, and retained cash can further reduce distributions even when EBITDA is positive.
What should a buyer verify before relying on the EBITDA figures?
The buyer should validate the official Item 19 results against written substantiation and franchisee-level operating details. The most important unresolved question is how owner labor and paid management differ across the seven single-territory owners and 20 multi-territory owners.
- Request Item 19 written substantiation and confirm how each reported Labor, Merchandise COGS, Overhead, Royalty, and owner-compensation entry was classified.
- Interview single-territory owners near the median, lower quartile group, and upper quartile group rather than speaking only with top performers.
- Ask how many hours the Managing Owner works, whether the owner acts as Team Leader or Sales Professional, and which non-owner salaries are included in Labor.
- Confirm whether fiscal 2025 EBITDA included all required local marketing, administrative support, vehicle, storage, insurance, and event-related overhead.
- Model the post-October 2025 Marketing Fund fee separately, because the fee was not collected during the fiscal 2025 Item 19 period.
- Review Item 20 contacts, including former franchisees and owners whose businesses transferred, closed, or were reacquired, to test whether the reporting cohort is representative.
- Separate loan principal, interest, capital replacement, personal taxes, and owner distributions from the FDD's EBITDA measure.
The Federal Trade Commission's franchise buying guidance explains why buyers should examine the disclosure document and speak with current and former franchisees. The governing disclosure framework appears in the FTC Franchise Rule in 16 C.F.R. Part 436.
What is the strongest defensible Apex owner-earnings conclusion?
For a one-territory U.S. owner, the strongest official reference is $54,783 of median annual EBITDA for fiscal 2025. The seven-owner cohort's EBITDA-ranked quartile-group means ran from about $17,948 to $261,968, while the full observed range was $4,892 to $304,469. These are official historical operating results, not forecasts, and EBITDA is before owner's compensation, financing, personal taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
The largest earnings driver visible in the disclosure is operating footprint: the multi-territory cohort's median portfolio EBITDA was $238,336, but it represented a median of two territories and cannot be converted into a reliable per-territory figure. The largest unresolved uncertainty is owner-role mix, because the FDD excludes owner's compensation while including non-owner labor and does not separate owner-operated from staff-led results.
A buyer should therefore use $54,783 as a central single-territory historical reference, treat the wider official distribution as evidence of substantial variability, and verify owner hours, staffing, full expense classification, Marketing Fund effects, written Item 19 substantiation, and franchisee-level cash outcomes before forming a personal earnings expectation.