How Much Does a Ben's Soft Pretzels Franchise Owner Make?

Item 19 officially measures Gross Sales, not owner earnings. It provides store-by-store revenue for calendar years 2023, 2024, and 2025, separates franchisee-owned from company-owned stores, and identifies formats including stand-alone, mall, Walmart, Meijer, mobile, and venue locations. The applicable 2025 stand-alone figures therefore describe revenue performance for a narrow store format; they do not reveal food cost, payroll, rent, operating profit, owner draws, debt service, or personal taxes.

The FDD defines Gross Sales broadly as sales or revenue from the business, excluding sales tax remitted and redeemed coupons. Stores had to be open for the full measurement year. Two baseball-park franchises and stores that were not open for the full year were excluded; transferred stores remained included. The Item 19 figures were prepared from franchisee and affiliate information without an audit, and written substantiation is available to a prospective buyer on reasonable request.

Source: Ben's Soft Pretzels 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 31-35. The $525,388 central revenue figure is derived, not reported by the franchisor. It is the median of the four listed stand-alone values, calculated as ($288,503 + $762,272) / 2.

The range is an independent scenario estimate for a mature stand-alone traditional store. It applies a broad official corporate net-income margin to the two unfootnoted middle 2025 stand-alone sales observations and their midpoint. The calculation is reproducible, but it is not a forecast and it is not a franchisor representation.

The base margin comes from the IRS 2022 Corporation Complete Report, Table 1. For Food services and drinking places, the table reports $585.275 billion of business receipts, $48.056 billion of net income, and $12.775 billion of deficit across 310,215 active-corporation returns. Net income less deficit divided by business receipts equals 6.03%. Because the IRS category is broader than a pretzel QSR and the data are older than the FDD sales period, the conservative and upside margins are explicit sensitivities of three percentage points below and above the benchmark: 3.03%, 6.03%, and 9.03%.

Rounding: calculations use full-precision inputs and are rounded to the nearest $100 for publication. The scenarios are analytical cases, not probabilities. Owner-operator benefit adds $63,040 of manager labor value to manager-run residual profit.

What is included and excluded?

• Included in the margin proxy: normal tax-return deductions reflected in the IRS aggregate, including cost of goods sold, payroll, occupancy-related expenses, interest, depreciation, and other deductions as reported by corporations.
• Recurring franchise fees: the model assumes they are embedded within the all-in industry deduction structure where applicable. The 6% royalty and current 1.5% Advertising Fund Fee are therefore not subtracted a second time.
• Excluded from owner earnings: personal income taxes, financing principal payments, owner distributions in excess of business earnings, and new capital expenditures.
• Not the same as cash flow: IRS net income is tax-based and can differ from cash available because depreciation, timing, working capital, and capital spending are treated differently.

Owner involvement can change annual economic benefit by roughly the cost of a qualified full-time manager, but that increase is compensation for work. Item 15 states that the individual franchisee, an equity owner, or a Store manager must devote full time and best efforts to management and provide direct, on-site supervision. A hired manager does not need equity ownership, but must complete the franchisor's training.

The BLS reports a May 2024 median wage of $63,040 for food service managers in Food services and drinking places. Adding that wage to manager-run residual profit produces the owner-operator benefit range. The model does not add payroll taxes, benefits, overtime, or recruiting costs, so it values only the published wage. It also does not assume an absentee owner: the FDD's operating requirement still places responsibility on the franchisee.

For a traditional stand-alone store, the most material disclosed recurring franchise charges are a 6% royalty, the current 1.5% Advertising Fund Fee, and $229 per month for POS and technology. At the base revenue anchor, those charges plus the current $500 convention fee equal about $42,652 per year, or 8.12% of Gross Sales. This is a fee illustration, not an additional deduction from the scenario margin.

Source: Ben's Soft Pretzels 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 4-9. The illustration uses $525,387.50 before rounding. It excludes rent, the $200 monthly lease-administration fee where applicable, local advertising changes, card-processing charges, insurance, training, supplies, repairs, and other variable operating expenses.

Venue economics should not be merged into the stand-alone model. The FDD lists a 7.5% royalty for a Venue location, and certain Captive Venue agreements may have different Advertising Fund treatment. Mobile, Walmart, Meijer, mall, and venue sales also show materially different operating patterns in Item 19. The official Ben's Soft Pretzels franchise site likewise identifies traditional, venue, mobile, Walmart/Meijer, mall, tourist, and stand-alone formats.

The confidence is LIMITED because the FDD does not disclose profit and the model relies materially on a broad external margin. The arithmetic is simple; the difficult question is whether a 2022 all-corporation Food services and drinking places margin is representative of a specific 2025 Ben's Soft Pretzels stand-alone store.

• Sales mix uncertainty: transaction volume, menu mix, catering or event revenue, and local pricing can move Gross Sales without producing the same change in margin.
• Cost structure uncertainty: food cost, hourly labor, manager staffing, rent, common-area charges, utilities, delivery commissions, and card fees vary by site.
• Owner-role uncertainty: an owner may replace some manager hours but still need shift leaders, relief coverage, payroll taxes, and benefits.
• Financing uncertainty: operating earnings are shown before loan principal and personal taxes. Interest is included only to the extent reflected in the IRS aggregate, not the buyer's actual loan.
• Population uncertainty: Item 20 shows 81 franchised outlets at year-end 2025, but Item 19 does not provide an explicit stand-alone reporting percentage or a summarized format average.

The range should be treated as a screening model, not a budget. The most useful next evidence is written substantiation for Item 19 and normalized profit-and-loss information from current and former stand-alone operators listed in Item 20 and Exhibit B.

• Request the franchisor's written substantiation for every 2025 stand-alone Gross Sales figure and confirm whether any amendments change the May 13, 2026 disclosure.
• Ask several comparable stand-alone franchisees for annual food cost, hourly labor, manager payroll, occupancy, royalty, advertising, technology, repairs, insurance, and owner hours.
• Separate residual business profit from owner wages, draws, distributions, retained earnings, depreciation, and noncash tax adjustments.
• Confirm whether the location requires local advertising, lease-administration charges, delivery commissions, card-processing fees, remodel spending, or unusual venue obligations.
• Model the buyer's actual debt amount, rate, term, and principal schedule separately; do not convert operating earnings into after-tax take-home pay.

For initial screening, use $8,700 to $68,800 per year as the defensible manager-run pre-tax owner-earnings range for a mature stand-alone traditional store, with $31,700 as the base scenario. Use $71,800 to $131,900 only as estimated owner-operator benefit, because that figure includes $63,040 of management labor performed by the owner.

The range is scenario-based, not official earnings data. The most important drivers are stand-alone Gross Sales and the combined food, labor, and occupancy margin. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand store-level profit data. Before relying on any number, a buyer should verify the exact Item 19 cohort, obtain the franchisor's written substantiation, and reconcile multiple franchisee interviews to actual profit-and-loss statements.