A manager-run Elements Massage studio may produce roughly $29,000 to $321,000 in estimated pre-tax owner earnings, with a modeled base case near $146,000. An owner who personally replaces the full-time Designated Manager may receive an estimated owner-operator benefit of about $89,000 to $381,000, but $60,000 of that amount represents labor performed by the owner rather than passive business profit.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Elements Therapeutic Massage, LLC. It combines identified facts from the April 1, 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document with a U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage benchmark and clearly labeled operating assumptions. Actual results can differ materially because of location, Studio format, sales, client visits, therapist compensation, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
- Legal franchisor and document
- Elements Therapeutic Massage, LLC; U.S. Franchise Disclosure Document issued April 1, 2026.
- What Item 19 provides
- 2025 Gross Revenue, Studio Visits, Total Membership Conversion, and Ending Memberships for defined franchised-Studio cohorts. It does not disclose Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, cash flow, owner compensation, or owner distributions.
- Applicable population and formats
- 234 U.S. franchised Studios open on January 1, 2025 and operating throughout 2025. The offer includes Traditional and Value-Engineering Studios, but Item 19 does not separate their operating results.
- Supplemental benchmark
- The model uses the BLS Massage Therapists occupational profile, including the 2024 median wage of $55,630 in personal care services. Research and links were checked July 14, 2026.
What does the 2026 Elements Massage Item 19 actually measure?
Officially, Item 19 measures 2025 Gross Revenue and operating-volume indicators—not owner earnings—for 234 U.S. franchised Studios that operated for the full calendar year. The all-Studio median Gross Revenue was $897,288 and the average was $981,430. Because only 42.3% of the cohort met or exceeded the average, the median is the more conservative central revenue anchor for this analysis.
Gross Revenue is revenue before labor, rent, royalty, advertising, technology, supplies, insurance, debt service, and taxes. The FDD definition includes membership revenue, merchandise and services, gift-card activity, and certain insurance proceeds; it excludes remitted sales taxes, qualifying refunds, and tips paid to employees. The franchisor states that the data came from monthly franchisee submissions and was not audited or otherwise verified. See 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 41–43.
Median Gross Revenue for the bottom third, all eligible Studios, and the top third.
Interpretation: the official revenue spread is large enough that a single “average owner income” figure would conceal substantial unit-level variation.
Source: Elements Therapeutic Massage, LLC 2026 FDD, Item 19, Table 1, p. 42. Each third contains 77 Studios; the all-Studio cohort contains 234 Studios. These are revenue figures, not earnings.
A Studio at the $897,288 median still must fund therapist compensation, front-desk and management labor, occupancy, the 6% Royalty, required marketing, technology, supplies, insurance, merchant processing, maintenance, and other operating costs. Item 19 does not reveal the residual after those expenses.
What annual owner earnings do the scenarios produce?
The independent model estimates manager-run pre-tax owner earnings of approximately $29,000 in the Conservative scenario, $146,000 in the Base scenario, and $321,000 in the Upside scenario. These are 2025 per-Studio estimates for the full-year U.S. franchised cohort, not official Elements Massage profit results and not probabilities.
| Scenario | Official revenue anchor | Official visit anchor | Estimated manager-run earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Conservative Bottom-third median |
$641,759 | 5,224 | $29,000 |
|
Base All-Studio median |
$897,288 | 7,461 | $146,000 |
|
Upside Top-third median |
$1,261,203 | 10,346 | $321,000 |
The calculation uses full-precision inputs and rounds displayed earnings to the nearest $1,000. The revenue and visit anchors are official Item 19 medians. The cost model is analytical:
- Therapist capacity: 1,200 visits per full-time-equivalent therapist per year, an editorial scheduling assumption rather than an FDD fact.
- Therapist compensation: $55,630 per FTE, the BLS 2024 personal-care-services median, plus a 12% payroll-burden assumption. The BLS figure is not brand-specific and does not cover self-employed therapists.
- Occupancy: $90,000, $75,000, and $60,000. These values use the FDD’s disclosed typical lease range of $5,000 to $7,500 per month including common-area maintenance, with the high cost assigned to the Conservative scenario.
- Other operating expenses: 15%, 12%, and 10% of revenue for front-desk labor, insurance, supplies, laundry, merchant processing, utilities, repairs, and non-FDD systems. These are editorial assumptions because Item 19 provides no expense statement.
- Designated Manager labor: $60,000 in every manager-run scenario. This is a transparent modeling assumption that must be replaced with an actual local compensation package during diligence.
The model includes normal unit-level cash operating expenses and disclosed core recurring franchise fees. It excludes owner salary or draw, personal income taxes, financing principal and interest, depreciation, capital expenditures, remodel reserves, and extraordinary legal or default charges. It therefore estimates pre-tax operating cash available to the owner before financing, not after-tax take-home pay.
How does active owner operation change the result?
Estimated owner-operator benefit is about $60,000 higher than manager-run owner earnings in each scenario because the model assumes the owner replaces the paid Designated Manager. For the 2025 U.S. Studio format, this produces a range of roughly $89,000 to $381,000, but the added $60,000 is compensation for full-time management work, not passive profit.
Item 15 permits an owner or approved Operating Partner to supervise the Studio full time. An owner who does not provide full-time supervision must appoint an approved, trained, full-time Designated Manager. That contractual structure makes owner involvement economically material rather than merely optional oversight. See 2026 FDD, Item 15, pp. 32–33.
The distance between markers is the modeled $60,000 value of full-time management labor.
Interpretation: active ownership can improve cash retained by the owner only by substituting unpaid or owner-paid labor for a market management cost; it does not increase the underlying Studio’s modeled operating profit.
Source: independent calculations using 2026 FDD Item 19 revenue and visit medians, Item 15 owner-role requirements, BLS massage-therapist wage evidence, and the stated assumptions. Rounded to the nearest $1,000.
- Manager-run pre-tax owner earnings
- Residual cash after the modeled Studio pays a full-time Designated Manager and normal unit-level expenses, but before owner taxes, financing, depreciation, and capital expenditures.
- Estimated owner-operator benefit
- Manager-run residual plus the assumed $60,000 value of management labor performed by the owner. It combines business profit and compensation for work.
- Owner draw or distribution
- A method of taking money from the entity, not a measure of economic profit. Draws can exceed or fall below current-period earnings.
Which FDD fees materially reduce the owner-earnings pool?
Officially disclosed core recurring obligations equal 10% of Gross Receipts plus $31,200 per year at current fee levels. For a 2025 U.S. Studio at the $897,288 median revenue, that produces a derived annual burden of approximately $120,929 before conference costs, cooperative contributions above the Local Spend Amount, supplier costs, or exceptional fees.
| Recurring obligation | FDD rate or amount | Model treatment |
|---|---|---|
| Royalty | 6% of Gross Receipts | Included in the 10% variable burden. |
| Brand Marketing Fund | 2% of Gross Receipts | Included at the current rate; the FDD permits an increase up to 4%. |
| Local Spend Amount | 2% of Gross Receipts | Included in the 10% variable burden. |
| Local Advertising Fee | $2,000 monthly | Annualized at $24,000. |
| Technology Fee | $600 monthly | Annualized at $7,200. |
| Marketing Cooperative | Currently $0–$4,300 yearly | Not added separately because qualifying cooperative contributions count toward the Local Spend Amount; double counting would overstate cost. |
At the official revenue anchors, the model’s core recurring burden is about $95,376 in the Conservative scenario, $120,929 in the Base scenario, and $157,320 in the Upside scenario. These calculations use 2026 FDD Item 6 rates and do not treat the one-time Initial Franchise Fee or Item 7 startup investment as annual expenses.
If the Brand Marketing Fund rises from 2% to its disclosed 4% ceiling, the Base scenario would lose about $17,946 of annual owner earnings at the same revenue and cost structure. That is a two-percentage-point increase, not a 2% increase in the existing fee.
Why should a buyer treat the range as limited-confidence?
The range is uncertain because the 2026 FDD supplies reliable same-brand revenue and visit data but no same-brand expense statement or owner-profit measure. The largest unresolved issue for the 2025 U.S. franchised population is the actual labor-cost structure by Studio, followed by occupancy and the unreported difference between Traditional and Value-Engineering formats.
- Closed Studios are excluded: Item 19 excludes six Studios that closed during 2025. Their results could be weaker than the continuing-outlet cohort, so the published distribution may not represent every ownership outcome.
- Formats are combined: the FDD offers Traditional and Value-Engineering Studios but does not identify which format generated each Item 19 result or whether operating costs differ materially.
- Labor is modeled: therapist productivity, compensation method, employee-versus-contractor classification, benefits, tips, recruiting pressure, and local wage law can materially change payroll.
- Occupancy is location-specific: Item 7 gives a typical monthly lease range, but actual rent, common-area maintenance, tenant allowances, and usable room count vary by market.
- Revenue groups are not forecasts: bottom-third, all-Studio, and top-third medians describe historical 2025 observations. They are not probabilities or promises about a new Studio.
- Financing remains outside the range: debt interest and principal can substantially reduce cash available to the owner, especially given the substantial Item 7 initial-investment ranges.
Item 20 also provides context: the U.S. franchised system began and ended 2025 with 239 outlets, with six openings and six outlets ceasing through the disclosed categories. Fifteen transfers occurred during 2025. Outlet stability does not establish profitability, but these figures should guide which current, transferred, and former franchisees a buyer interviews. See 2026 FDD, Item 20, pp. 44–51.
What should a prospective owner verify before relying on this estimate?
A buyer should replace every editorial assumption with Studio-level evidence and test the model against Item 19 substantiation and franchisee records. The relevant population is a U.S. franchised Studio under the current 2026 offer, with separate analysis for the intended format, market, owner role, and financing plan.
- Request the franchisor’s written substantiation for the Item 19 Gross Revenue, Studio Visits, membership conversion, and Ending Memberships representations, as the FDD says it will provide on reasonable request.
- Ask multiple owners for trailing 12-month profit-and-loss statements showing therapist payroll, front-desk payroll, Designated Manager compensation, payroll taxes, benefits, merchant fees, supplies, insurance, laundry, utilities, repairs, and all required-system charges.
- Separate Traditional Studio economics from Value-Engineering Studio economics; do not assume the combined Item 19 revenue population proves equal margins.
- Interview current owners near the bottom third, median, and top third rather than relying only on high-performing references.
- Ask transferred and former franchisees about the reason for sale or closure, lease terms, staffing difficulty, deferred maintenance, member liabilities, and owner hours.
- Obtain a local therapist compensation study and a written Designated Manager compensation quote, then rerun the labor bridge using the intended employment model.
- Model debt service separately with actual lender terms; do not call pre-debt operating earnings “take-home pay.”
What is the strongest defensible earnings range?
The strongest defensible range is approximately $29,000 to $321,000 in estimated annual pre-tax owner earnings for a manager-run U.S. franchised Studio, with a modeled base case of about $146,000. This is a Mode C scenario result, not an official Item 19 earnings disclosure. An active owner replacing the Designated Manager may realize approximately $89,000 to $381,000 in owner-operator benefit, but that higher figure includes $60,000 of labor value.
The most important earnings driver is the combination of Gross Revenue and therapist labor productivity. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the actual all-in payroll and operating-expense structure for the intended Studio format and market. Before making a decision, a buyer should reconcile the 2026 Item 19 substantiation with full profit-and-loss statements and interviews across current, transferred, and former franchisees.