This is the most defensible planning range for annual pre-tax owner benefit per Comfort Keepers franchisee portfolio, not per individual territory. The central result is about $264,000, while a separate annualized pairing of the 2025 FDD's Performance Management Group data produces approximately $269,000-$294,000. The franchisor's official Item 19 measure is an Owners' Discretionary Profit ratio of 10.8% on average and 11.0% at the median; the FDD does not directly report annual dollar earnings.
What is the data basis?
The analysis uses a current U.S. Franchise Disclosure Document and current official public sources. The FDD is cited in plain text because no matching public 2025 copy was verified on an official franchise-controlled website.
The FDD directly reports an owner-benefit percentage, but the 51-franchisee PMG sample is selective and unaudited, its 24-month revenue presentation must be annualized, and Item 19 does not fully define which owner compensation or operating-cost adjustments are included in Owners' Discretionary Profit.
Median Owners' Discretionary Profit
Reported for 51 PMG franchisees over the stated January 2023-December 2024 period.
Median annual Net Revenue
Across 199 franchisees operating 600 qualifying Franchised Businesses in the September 2024-August 2025 reporting period.
Base annual owner-benefit estimate
$2,398,016 median Net Revenue multiplied by the official 11.0% median Owners' Discretionary Profit ratio.
PMG financial reporters
Fifty-one of 72 PMG participants supplied full-year financial data; the table says the data were not audited.
Royalty rate
Subject to stated minimums and Minimum Performance Standard provisions in Item 6.
Manager labor benchmark
May 2024 U.S. median wage for general and operations managers; payroll taxes and benefits are additional.
What does Comfort Keepers Item 19 actually measure?
Item 19 officially reports Net Revenue and an Owners' Discretionary Profit percentage; it does not report a clean annual owner salary, after-tax take-home pay, or per-unit net income. The broad revenue table covers the September 1, 2024-August 31, 2025 reporting period. The profit-ratio table covers PMG participants for January 1, 2023-December 31, 2024 and is presented as unaudited.
- Net Revenue
- The FDD's label for royalty-report revenue, called Gross Revenue in the Franchise Agreement. It includes money received from approved services and related business activity, excluding sales taxes and client refunds.
- Owners' Discretionary Profit
- An official Item 19 percentage reported for the PMG cohort. The FDD does not provide a detailed reconciliation showing whether owner salary, manager compensation, interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, or other discretionary add-backs are included.
- Estimated pre-tax owner benefit in this article
- Scenario revenue multiplied by the disclosed 11.0% median Owners' Discretionary Profit ratio, before personal income taxes and financing principal. It may include compensation for owner labor and should not be read as passive business profit.
| Measure | Value | Population | Period and status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Median Net Revenue | $2,398,016 | 199 franchisees operating 600 qualifying Franchised Businesses | September 1, 2024-August 31, 2025; official |
| Average Owners' Discretionary Profit | 10.8% | 51 PMG reporting franchisees | January 1, 2023-December 31, 2024; official, unaudited |
| Median Owners' Discretionary Profit | 11.0% | 51 PMG reporting franchisees | January 1, 2023-December 31, 2024; official, unaudited |
| Annualized PMG paired calculation | $268,875-$294,474 | Median and average revenue statistics paired with their respective profit ratios | Derived by dividing the stated 24-month revenue figures by two; not an official dollar result |
FDD source: 2025 Comfort Keepers Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pages 69-73. The annualized PMG pairing is: ($4,888,628 ÷ 2) × 11.0% = $268,875 and ($5,453,226 ÷ 2) × 10.8% = $294,474. Because the table's wording should be confirmed in written substantiation, these are derived analytical results rather than reported annual dollar earnings.
Item 20 reports 619 franchised outlets and 5 SDX affiliate-owned outlets at August 31, 2025. The Item 19 revenue cohort is narrower: 600 non-SDX Franchised Businesses open at least 12 months and reporting every month. It excludes 7 businesses that closed during the reporting period, 1 with missing or no reported revenue, younger businesses, and the SDX-managed population.
How was the $198,000-$336,000 annual range built?
The range uses the middle half of the FDD's owner-level revenue distribution and applies the official 11.0% median Owners' Discretionary Profit ratio. Conservative uses the Quadrant 3 median, Base uses the all-franchisee median, and Upside uses the Quadrant 2 median. These are derived scenarios for a franchisee portfolio, not probabilities, forecasts, or franchisor-reported dollar profits.
- Conservative: $1,800,147 Quadrant 3 median Net Revenue × 11.0% = $198,016.
- Base: $2,398,016 all-franchisee median Net Revenue × 11.0% = $263,782.
- Upside: $3,051,406 Quadrant 2 median Net Revenue × 11.0% = $335,655.
- Results are rounded to the nearest $1,000 only after calculation.
- No personal income tax, debt principal, owner-specific capital expenditure, or acquisition financing is deducted.
Middle-quartile FDD revenue anchors multiplied by the official 11.0% median Owners' Discretionary Profit ratio.
Interpretation: The central scenario is approximately $264,000 per year before personal taxes and financing principal. The range is driven by observed FDD revenue differences, not by an assumed change in the 11.0% profit ratio.
Source: 2025 Comfort Keepers FDD, Item 19, Table No. 2 on page 70 and Table No. 4 on page 72. All plotted earnings values are derived calculations.
How wide is the owner-level revenue spread?
The official owner-level revenue distribution is wide enough that a single earnings number is misleading. The four revenue-quadrant medians range from $811,481 to $7,969,517 per franchisee, and applying the same 11.0% ratio produces an analytical sensitivity of about $89,000 to $877,000. The top figure should not be treated as a typical one-unit result.
Official median Net Revenue by owner quadrant, with a separate derived owner-benefit calculation shown at right.
Interpretation: Revenue scale is the dominant earnings driver in the disclosed data. The middle two quadrants support the $198,000-$336,000 planning band; the outer quadrants show why actual owner results may be materially lower or higher.
Source: 2025 Comfort Keepers FDD, Item 19, Table No. 2, page 70. Revenue bars are official. Right-side earnings values are derived at a constant 11.0% margin and are not Item 19 dollar-profit figures.
How does owner involvement change the economics?
An active owner may preserve more cash by performing the supervisory role, but the added amount is compensation for labor, not passive business profit. Item 15 permits the owner or a trained Designated Manager to supervise the business, requires at least two full-time employees or equivalent to open, and requires an owner to provide overall supervision across all Franchised Businesses owned.
Owner-operated supervision
The owner may perform the trained supervisory function and business development work. The economic benefit can include both residual operating return and the market value of the owner's management labor. That combined amount is best labeled owner-operator benefit, not pure profit.
Designated-manager operation
A paid manager shifts day-to-day labor away from the owner but generally reduces residual cash available to ownership. The owner still must provide overall supervision. Manager-run language does not establish passive ownership.
The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics' May 2024 wage benchmark for general and operations managers was $102,950 at the median. That number is useful as a labor-value sensitivity, but it should not be added to or subtracted from the Item 19 ratio mechanically: the FDD does not define Owners' Discretionary Profit well enough to know whether manager pay or owner compensation has already been reflected. Employer payroll taxes, benefits, recruiting costs, and local wage levels would also change the manager-run cost.
Which disclosed fees materially affect owner benefit?
The 5% royalty and required advertising obligations are the most visible recurring FDD charges, but they must not be deducted a second time from the 11.0% scenario unless CK Franchising confirms that the Item 19 profit ratio excludes them. The table below shows their standalone magnitude at the $2,398,016 base revenue anchor.
| Recurring item | FDD formula | Base-case annual amount | Interpretation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Royalty Fee | 5% of Gross Revenue, subject to minimum and MPS rules | $119,901 | Paid to CKFI. After the stated ramp period, an owner below Minimum Performance Standards may owe royalty on the greater of actual or MPS Gross Revenue. |
| National Brand Fund | Lesser of $802.89 per month or 2% of monthly Gross Revenue | $9,635 | The monthly cap controls at the base revenue level; the amount can change with CPI and fund rules. |
| Local Advertising | Greater of $1,000 per month or 2% of Gross Revenue | $47,960 | Local spending rather than a franchisor payment; the 2% formula controls at the base revenue level. |
| POSH subscription | Current ongoing annual fee of $1,250 | $1,250 | Excludes the stated initial $2,000 fee and possible future variation. |
| Modeled subtotal | Royalty + brand fund + local advertising + ongoing POSH | $178,746 | Approximately 7.45% of base revenue; excludes variable insurance, technology, optional products, meetings, and operating costs. |
FDD source: 2025 Comfort Keepers FDD, Item 6, pages 10-19. The National Brand Fund and local-advertising calculations assume revenue is earned evenly enough that the same monthly formula controls throughout the year; monthly volatility can change the actual annual total. Item 6 states that the Technology Support Fee is currently none but may change, and other fees can vary. This fee table is a visibility exercise, not an additional deduction from the scenario earnings.
What should a buyer verify before relying on the range?
The largest unresolved issue is whether the 10.8%-11.0% PMG profit ratio transfers to a typical buyer and exactly which costs and owner add-backs sit inside that measure. The current FDD provides stronger evidence than a generic industry margin, but its cohort selection and internal presentation issues require written clarification and franchisee validation.
- Request the written Item 19 substantiation and a complete line-item definition of Owners' Discretionary Profit, including owner salary, family payroll, manager compensation, interest, depreciation, taxes, capital expenditures, and nonrecurring add-backs.
- Confirm whether Table No. 4's January 1, 2023-December 31, 2024 revenue figures are cumulative for 24 months and whether annualizing by one-half is the intended interpretation.
- Reconcile the Table No. 2 population language: the table and most notes show 199 franchisees, while one sentence refers to 200.
- Clarify why the all-business rows in Tables No. 1 and No. 3 are labeled as ending August 31, 2024 even though the surrounding reporting-period language identifies August 31, 2025.
- Interview current franchisees with similar territory count, office structure, owner role, caregiver wage market, licensing regime, private duty nursing mix, and business maturity.
- Ask owner-operators and manager-run owners separately about normalized manager payroll, owner draws, retained cash, insurance, workers' compensation, recruiting costs, bad debt, and local client-acquisition expense.
- Model debt service and personal taxes separately. Item 10 states that CKFI does not offer direct or indirect financing and does not guarantee notes, leases, or obligations.
The Federal Trade Commission's Consumer's Guide to Buying a Franchise recommends evaluating the source, limitations, geography, assumptions, and typicality of Item 19 claims and asking for written substantiation. The FTC's Franchise Disclosure Document guidance also explains why sales or earnings claims must be evaluated through Item 19 rather than informal projections.
What is the defensible owner-earnings takeaway?
A reasonable evidence-led planning range is approximately $198,000-$336,000 in annual pre-tax owner benefit per franchisee portfolio, with a central estimate near $264,000 and a PMG-based annualized pairing near $269,000-$294,000. The official evidence is the 10.8% average and 11.0% median Owners' Discretionary Profit ratio, not those dollar amounts. Revenue scale is the largest earnings driver; the biggest uncertainty is whether the selected PMG margin applies to the buyer's territory mix and whether it includes owner labor or omitted expenses. A buyer should verify the Item 19 substantiation, reconcile the stated table inconsistencies, and compare owner-operated and manager-run franchisees with similar unit counts before treating any figure as a budgeting input.