Camp Bow Wow's 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document reports a median Total Franchise Owner's Benefit of $189,770.52 for 207 mature U.S. franchised locations in 2025. The official bottom- and top-profitability quartile medians were $39,098.39 and $392,463.45, respectively. Those figures are pre-tax business-owner benefit measures, not after-tax take-home pay.
The disclosure defines Total Franchise Owner's Benefit as operating EBITDA plus reported owner salary. It excludes interest, income taxes, depreciation, amortization and certain non-operating items. It also does not deduct financing principal. Because part of the measure can compensate an owner for work performed, it should not be read as passive income or personal after-tax income.
Evidence confidence: HIGH. The current Item 19 directly reports a defined owner-benefit measure for a broad mature U.S. franchised population; confidence is tempered by unaudited franchisee reporting and the absence of owner-role segmentation.
Legal franchisor
Camp Bow Wow Franchising, Inc.
Disclosure
2026 FDD, issued May 1, 2026; Item 19 results cover 2025.
Applicable units
U.S. franchised fixed-site Camps; the main group contains 207 locations open continuously for at least 24 full months.
Evidence status
Official same-brand revenue, expense, operating-result, owner-salary and owner-benefit data.
External benchmark use
None used to estimate earnings. Federal Trade Commission guidance is used only to explain Item 19 due diligence.
Date checked
July 20, 2026.
DERIVED — reported mean owner benefit divided by compatible mean revenue.
OFFICIAL — the reported mean annual dollar result.
OFFICIAL — revenue, not owner earnings.
OFFICIAL — mature U.S. franchised locations meeting all reporting criteria.
OFFICIAL — 100 of 207 exceeded the mean owner-benefit result.
How much may a mature Camp Bow Wow owner earn annually?
The strongest official central result is $189,771 per year in median Total Franchise Owner's Benefit. For the same 207-location population, the mean was $201,269. The profitability cohorts show much wider medians: the bottom 25% had a median of $39,098, while the top 25% had a median of $392,463.
These are 2025 results for U.S. franchised Camps that had operated continuously for at least 24 full months and submitted the required reports. They do not describe a new location's ramp-up, a conversion's transition period, a particular local market or a buyer's financing structure.
The same reporting group produced median revenue of $1,052,381 and mean revenue of $1,089,860. Gross Sales is the top line, while the owner-benefit measure follows the disclosed operating-expense categories and adds back reported owner salary.
Reporting Group One: 207 mature U.S. franchised locations, calendar year 2025
Interpretation: the official cohort medians support a broad decision range, but they are not minimum and maximum results. The cohorts were ranked by the owner-benefit measure, not by revenue.
Source: 2026 Camp Bow Wow FDD, Item 19, Tables 1–3, pp. 65–66. Values rounded to the nearest dollar.
How does average revenue become owner benefit?
The mean 2025 P&L converts $1,089,860 of revenue into a $156,665 operating result and $201,269 of owner benefit. The bridge is official, not an independent estimate: the reported operating result equals average revenue minus the four disclosed expense categories, and average owner salary is then added back.
Mean values; dollars per mature U.S. franchised Camp in 2025
Interpretation: Labor is the largest cost at 42.6% of mean revenue. The reported operating margin is 14.4%; the owner-salary add-back produces an 18.5% average owner benefit.
Source: 2026 Camp Bow Wow FDD, Item 19, Table 1 and definitions, pp. 65–67. The $156,665 EBITDA bridge differs by $0.01 from the displayed source value because the source's rounded component figures do not fully reconcile; the chart uses the reported EBITDA value.
Do not subtract the FDD fees again from these Item 19 results. COGS expressly includes monthly Royalty Fees, and Other Operating Expenses includes marketing expenses and miscellaneous fees. Item 6 separately discloses a mature-unit Royalty Fee generally equal to the greater of 7% of Net Revenue or the Minimum Monthly Royalty, a current 1% Advertising Fund Fee, a 3% Local Advertising Expense and recurring technology costs. Those obligations matter operationally, but the reported P&L already reflects the locations' recorded expenses.
Which results are closest to the current Camp prototype?
Reporting Group Two is the closest available same-brand proxy, but it is broader than the current prototype. The 2026 FDD describes the updated prototype as approximately 6,000 square feet, plus or minus 15%. Reporting Group Two includes 155 mature reporting Camps of 9,000 square feet or less, so it contains relevant smaller-footprint units but does not isolate the new 6,000-square-foot design.
For Reporting Group Two, the median owner-benefit result was $178,768 overall, $20,479 for the bottom 25% and $338,173 for the top 25%. These results are lower than the corresponding medians for the full 207-location population, but the FDD does not establish that footprint alone caused the difference.
Separate official disclosure populations; 2025 owner-benefit measure
Interpretation: the smaller-footprint subgroup provides a useful sensitivity check, not a clean forecast for a new 6,000-square-foot Camp. Unit age, market, pricing, occupancy, labor mix and service mix can also differ.
Source: 2026 Camp Bow Wow FDD, Item 19, Reporting Group One Tables 1–3, pp. 65–66, and Reporting Group Two Tables 1–3, pp. 70–71.
How does owner involvement change the result?
The 2026 FDD permits a manager-run Camp, but its 2025 reporting tables do not publish separate owner-operated and manager-run earnings. Item 15 says the owner is not required to participate personally in direct operations; either the owner or a trained Manager must devote full time and best efforts to management and operation.
Item 19's Labor Expense includes wages and salaries for management positions. Its Owner's Compensation line separately captures owner salary recorded on the P&L, while Owner's Draw recorded on the balance sheet is excluded. This means the official Total Franchise Owner's Benefit can contain both residual business economics and compensation for owner labor, depending on how each franchisee works and accounts for pay.
| Official measure | Mean | Median | Owner-role interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| EBITDA | $156,665 | $145,680 | Operating result before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization. |
| Owner's Compensation | $44,605 | $5,578 | Owner salary recorded as an expense; Owner's Draw is not captured. |
| Total Franchise Owner's Benefit | $201,269 | $189,771 | EBITDA plus Owner's Compensation; not segmented by active versus manager-run ownership. |
Each median is calculated independently for its own metric. The median EBITDA and median Owner's Compensation should not be added together to reproduce the median Total Franchise Owner's Benefit.
An active owner may replace some paid management labor and receive more of the economic benefit as compensation for work. A manager-run owner may retain more distance from daily operations but bear the full manager payroll inside Labor Expense. The disclosure does not quantify the difference, so assigning a dollar premium to owner operation would be an independent assumption rather than an official Camp Bow Wow result.
What could make an owner's actual earnings materially different?
Location-level revenue, labor and occupancy economics are the largest visible drivers, while owner-role accounting and financing remain important unresolved variables. In the 2025 mature U.S. franchised population, Reporting Group One shows that Labor Expense averaged 38.8% of Gross Sales for the top 25% but 47.9% for the bottom 25%. Rent & Facilities averaged 12.7% for the top 25% and 22.1% for the bottom 25%.
The FDD states that franchisee financial reports were unaudited and not independently verified. It also allows cash- or accrual-basis reporting for Gross Sales, excludes newly opened locations from the mature cohort, and does not disclose separate results by market, owner role, debt load, service mix or exact 6,000-square-foot prototype.
Item 19 says 225 U.S. franchised locations were open at December 31, 2025 and 207 met Reporting Group One criteria. Item 20's year-end table lists 224 U.S. franchised outlets. The one-outlet difference does not change the reported P&L values, but a buyer should ask the franchisor to reconcile the population count and provide written substantiation.
- Request Item 19 substantiation. Confirm how Owner's Compensation, Owner's Draw, manager payroll and non-operating expenses were mapped into the reported categories.
- Interview both active and manager-run owners. Ask for hours worked, manager structure, owner salary, distributions and retained cash separately.
- Match the exact footprint. Compare the proposed 6,000-square-foot site with Camps of similar size, cabin count, age, service mix and local wage environment.
- Rebuild occupancy economics. Validate rent, common-area charges, utilities, maintenance and property-related costs against the top- and bottom-quartile ratios.
- Separate operating benefit from financing. Item 7 shows an estimated initial investment of $954,606 to $1,229,536 for the standard offer, but Item 19 owner benefit is before interest and debt principal.
- Do not estimate personal taxes from the FDD. Entity structure, state, deductions, owner pay method and other income determine after-tax take-home pay.
The Federal Trade Commission's Item 19 evaluation guidance recommends scrutinizing the source, limitations and assumptions behind financial performance representations and requesting written substantiation. The official Camp Bow Wow franchise FAQ also directs prospects to the current FDD for the financial-performance details.
What earnings range should a buyer carry into franchisee validation?
Use approximately $39,000 to $392,000 as the strongest official range of profitability-cohort medians for mature U.S. franchised Camps, with $189,771 as the overall median. For the broader small-footprint proxy of Camps at or below 9,000 square feet, the corresponding official cohort-median range is approximately $20,000 to $338,000, with a $178,768 overall median.
These are official owner-benefit results, not forecasts, guarantees or after-tax income. Labor is the largest average expense; Rent & Facilities shows the sharpest top-to-bottom profitability gap. The largest unresolved uncertainty is how a specific owner's market, manager structure, owner labor, debt and exact prototype economics will differ from the mature reporting population.
Central official evidence: $189,771 median annual owner benefit for 207 mature U.S. franchised locations in 2025. Range to validate: $39,098 to $392,463 across the bottom- and top-profitability quartile medians. Main driver: labor scale and efficiency, with occupancy burden also separating top and bottom cohorts. Key verification: obtain written substantiation and ask comparable franchisees to separate operating profit, owner salary, distributions, manager payroll, debt service and personal taxes.