This is an independent estimate of annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit for one U.S. Card My Yard business, with a base scenario of about $4,100. It is not a franchisor-reported owner salary or net-profit figure. The 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document reports Gross Sales and an Estimated Gross Profit measure, but it does not disclose net income, owner compensation, or cash flow.
The earnings range below is an independent analytical scenario, not a financial performance representation by CMY Franchising, LLC. It combines identified FDD facts with an official IRS industry benchmark and explicit sensitivity assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by territory, unit age, revenue, local demand, labor, mileage, marketing, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
- Legal entities
- CMY Franchising, LLC is the legal franchisor; CMY Holdco, LLC is the parent identified in Item 1, under common control of FS PEP Holdco, LLC.
- FDD reviewed
- Card My Yard 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, issuance date April 8, 2026; Items 5, 6, 7, 15, 19, and 20.
- Financial performance status
- Official 2025 revenue, orders, ticket price, and gross-profit data for separate franchised-unit populations; company-operated locations are excluded.
- External benchmarks
- IRS Statistics of Income, 2023 Personal and Laundry Services sole proprietorship results; BLS May 2025 wage data for First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers.
- Date checked
- July 20, 2026. The official Card My Yard website and official franchise information page were checked separately.
How much may a Card My Yard owner earn annually?
An actively involved owner may generate roughly $1,800 to $8,300 in annual pre-tax active-owner benefit under the three scenarios modeled here. The base scenario is approximately $4,100. These are estimated per-unit amounts before personal income taxes and debt principal payments; they are not passive-income projections.
The revenue anchors come directly from 2025 cohort medians in the financial performance tables. The margin anchor comes from the same 2023 IRS sole-proprietorship sector because the FDD does not disclose complete expense data. The IRS benchmark is broad and not brand-specific, which is the main reason confidence is limited.
Revenue anchors use FDD medians; margins use the 24.4% IRS benchmark with a ±3 percentage-point sensitivity.
Interpretation: the model shows a relatively small owner benefit because reported median revenue is modest and the owner must still absorb the economic cost of operating labor. Published amounts are rounded to the nearest $100.
Sources: 2026 FDD, Item 19, Tables 1 and 4, pp. 54–58; IRS nonfarm sole-proprietorship statistics, 2023 Table 2. FranchisesBiz calculations.
What does the official disclosure actually measure?
Officially, Item 19 measures Gross Sales, total orders, average ticket price, and Estimated Gross Profit for specified franchised-location cohorts. It does not measure owner salary, owner draw, distributions, net income, EBITDA, free cash flow, or after-tax take-home pay.
| 2025 disclosed cohort | Locations | Average revenue | Median revenue |
|---|---|---|---|
| Locations opened in 2024, described as one year old | 24 | $9,298 | $8,550 |
| System, all franchise locations over one year old | 457 | $21,286 | $16,933 |
| Locations opened in 2018 or earlier, described as seven-plus years old | 94 | $35,317 | $30,272 |
Source: 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 1, pp. 54–55. Gross Sales is revenue, not owner earnings.
The disclosure states that its revenue and gross-profit figures exclude multiple costs needed to reach bottom-line income, including wages, additional cost of goods sold, vehicle maintenance, insurance, local marketing, Marketing Fund fees, utilities, and other operating expenses. The official $18,789 reported gross-profit estimate therefore cannot be treated as owner take-home pay.
How is the independent owner-earnings range calculated?
The estimate multiplies three FDD median-sales anchors by three explicitly labeled margin assumptions. The base 24.4% margin is the selected 2023 IRS sector’s aggregate net income less deficit divided by business receipts. The conservative and upside margins are a transparent sensitivity of three percentage points below and above that benchmark.
- Conservative: $8,550 median revenue for the one-year cohort × 21.4% = $1,830, published as $1,800.
- Base: $16,933 system median revenue × 24.4% = $4,132, published as $4,100.
- Upside: $30,272 median revenue for the seven-plus-year cohort × 27.4% = $8,295, published as $8,300.
- Estimated pre-tax owner earnings
- An analytical approximation of pre-tax benefit available to an active owner after normal operating expenses and recurring franchise fees, before personal income taxes and debt principal payments. It is not a cash-flow statement because the IRS benchmark may include noncash depreciation and interest deductions.
- Owner compensation
- Not a separate Schedule C expense in the IRS sole-proprietorship benchmark. The result is therefore labeled owner-operator benefit: it can include both business residual and compensation for the owner’s labor.
- Interest and depreciation
- Included at the broad IRS benchmark level when reported as business deductions, but no brand-specific financing structure is modeled.
- Capital expenditures
- Not separately forecast. The FDD’s annual $500 minimum inventory refresh is a disclosed obligation, while larger replacements or future product requirements remain uncertain.
- Taxes
- Personal federal, state, local, and self-employment taxes are excluded. No after-tax take-home estimate is published.
The IRS margin is an all-in industry net-income measure, so the 25% royalty and other FDD expenses are not subtracted a second time in the scenario formula. Instead, the model assumes those franchise obligations fit within the total expense envelope. That is a material assumption because the IRS sector includes many businesses with operating structures unlike a home-based yard greeting service.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Owner involvement is decisive. Item 15 requires a Principal Owner to devote full time and best efforts to supervision unless CMY Franchising, LLC approves a separate General Manager; the General Manager must also devote full time and best efforts. At the disclosed sales levels, paying a full-time manager appears economically incompatible with positive owner earnings.
The manager-run comparison subtracts an annualized $48,589 wage benchmark, calculated from the May 2025 median hourly wage of $23.36 for First-Line Supervisors of Personal Service Workers multiplied by 2,080 hours. Payroll taxes, benefits, recruitment cost, and coverage for nights or weekends are not added, so the manager-run deficit may be understated.
The distance between each pair is the illustrative full-time manager wage. Values are pre-tax and before debt principal.
Interpretation: the model does not support passive ownership at these revenue anchors. An owner may retain a small benefit by supplying the operating labor, but a separate full-time manager would create a substantial operating deficit before payroll burden.
Sources: 2026 FDD, Item 15, pp. 45–46; official May 2025 national wage table. FranchisesBiz calculation: $23.36 × 2,080 hours = $48,588.80.
Which FDD costs place the most pressure on owner earnings?
The 25% royalty is the largest disclosed recurring burden, but fixed minimum payments matter disproportionately at low sales. The central marketing contribution, local advertising, promotional services, inventory refreshes, and mileage reduce the cash that remains for the owner.
| Item 6 obligation | Current disclosed requirement | Owner-earnings effect |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty Fee | 25% of Gross Sales; from month eight, the greater of 25% or the applicable monthly minimum | Directly reduces Net Proceeds and can behave like a fixed floor at low sales. |
| Marketing Fund | Currently the greater of 0.5% of monthly Gross Sales or $50 per month in year one and $100 per month thereafter | The annual minimum after year one is currently $1,200. |
| Local marketing | At least $300 in year one, $500 in year two, and $800 annually thereafter, plus 24 promotional yard greetings worth about $2,400 | Consumes cash and owner time; promotional services may also displace paid capacity. |
| Inventory refresh | At least $500 per year in sign purchases | Included in the reported gross-profit calculation, but larger replacement needs are not disclosed. |
| New products or equipment | Potentially $500–$1,000 per year if new products or services are required | Contingent rather than guaranteed, but it can reduce cash flow in affected years. |
Source: 2026 FDD, Item 6, pp. 15–23. Startup investment in Item 7 is not treated as an annual operating expense.
At the $16,933 system median, a 25% royalty is about $4,233. Adding the current $1,200 fund minimum, $800 mature local-advertising minimum, and $500 inventory refresh produces approximately $6,733, or 39.8% of median revenue, before mileage, insurance, utilities, supplies, labor, debt service, and other expenses. This diagnostic is not subtracted again from the scenario margin; it shows why the broad IRS proxy must be tested against actual franchisee profit-and-loss statements.
How much uncertainty remains in the earnings estimate?
Uncertainty is substantial because the FDD stops at its gross-profit estimate and because the financial-performance narrative contains internal inconsistencies that should be reconciled through written substantiation. The scenario range is useful for initial screening, not for forecasting a specific territory.
- Period wording: the introduction refers to calendar year 2023 as the Reporting Period, while the tables are explicitly labeled 2025 and use December 31, 2025 cohort dates. This article uses the table labels and treats the mismatch as a drafting issue to verify.
- Population wording: Table 1 reports 457 franchised locations, while Table 4 reports 410 and the introductory narrative also refers to 410. The populations are not merged in this analysis.
- Exclusions: newly opened locations, locations not operating for the full period, and two company-owned locations are excluded from the relevant financial-performance tables.
- Unaudited records: the disclosure says franchisee data come from unaudited books and records and have not been independently audited.
- Broad benchmark: the selected IRS sector includes operating models that may have different labor, rent, supplies, and franchise-fee structures.
Item 20 reports 31 franchised openings, 42 terminations, and 42 non-renewals during 2025, with 490 franchised outlets at year-end. Those figures do not prove why units left, but they reinforce the need to interview both current and former franchisees and to avoid treating full-year surviving-location results as a complete picture of buyer outcomes.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should verify the post-gross-profit expense structure, owner hours, and cohort definitions before using the $1,800–$8,300 range in a personal budget. The highest-value evidence will be written substantiation for the financial performance representation and recent unit-level records from comparable territories.
- Request the written substantiation and ask CMY Franchising, LLC to reconcile the 2023 Reporting Period wording with the 2025 table labels and the 457-versus-410 population counts.
- Ask current franchisees for 2025 monthly revenue, royalties, central marketing payments, local advertising, mileage, insurance, sign replacement, utilities, contractor wages, and owner hours.
- Ask former franchisees listed in Exhibit H why they left and whether low sales, renewal economics, workload, territory demand, or personal circumstances drove the decision.
- Separate owner labor compensation from residual business profit. Record how many installations, removals, customer issues, and marketing tasks the owner performs each week.
- Test financing separately. Debt principal is not deducted from the owner-operator range, and personal income or self-employment taxes are not estimated.
What is the strongest defensible earnings takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is approximately $1,800 to $8,300 per year for one actively operated unit, with a base scenario near $4,100. It is a scenario-based active-owner benefit, not an official FDD earnings result. The most important driver is reported revenue, which rises materially across the disclosed age cohorts. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the actual level of post-gross-profit operating expenses and the number of owner labor hours required.
Before making a decision, verify the financial-performance period and sample inconsistencies, obtain the franchisor’s written substantiation, and compare recent profit-and-loss statements and owner-hour records from current and former franchisees with similar territories. A manager-run structure should be treated as economically unsupported unless a specific unit’s documented sales and operating margin are far above the FDD anchors used here.