How Much Does a Garage Experts Franchise Owner Make?

Item 19 officially measures Annual Gross Sales and Gross Profit after Labor and Costs of Goods Sold, not owner earnings. The relevant period is calendar year 2025, and the single-territory population combines the two territory formats without a Standard Territory versus Micro-Territory breakdown.

The 2026 FDD reports median Annual Gross Sales of $624,466 and average Annual Gross Sales of $686,909. It also reports average Gross Profit after Labor and Costs of Goods Sold of $330,195. Dividing that compatible average gross-profit figure by average sales produces a derived gross margin of 48.1%.

No. The official 2025 multi-territory disclosure is a per-owner portfolio result, not a per-territory result and not owner earnings. Item 19 covers 21 owners operating two or more territories for the full year; the individual table shows portfolios of two to four territories. Dividing portfolio revenue by territory count would ignore market overlap, shared crews, management structure, territory maturity, and common overhead.

Source: Garage Experts International LLC, 2026 FDD, Item 19, pp. 46-51. Multi-territory figures are owner-portfolio results and should not be multiplied from, or divided into, the single-territory owner-earnings scenarios.

The FDD says 18 outlets, or 39%, met or exceeded average Annual Gross Sales, while 23 outlets, or 50%, met or exceeded median Annual Gross Sales. It reports a single-territory sales range from $160,409 to $1,538,069, which shows substantial dispersion. Those endpoints are historical observations, not scenario probabilities or promised outcomes.

The model produces estimated pre-tax owner-operator benefit of approximately $63,000 in the Conservative scenario, $98,000 in the Base scenario, and $140,000 in the Upside scenario. These figures apply to a single territory and use 2025 Item 19 sales as the brand-specific anchor.

The revenue assumptions are 80%, 100%, and 120% of the FDD median Annual Gross Sales of $624,466. That spread is an editorial sensitivity, not an Item 19 distribution. The margin anchor is the IRS Statistics of Income 2023 net-income-less-deficit margin for nonfarm sole proprietorships classified as specialty trade contractors: approximately 15.7% of business receipts. The Conservative and Upside margins are three percentage points below and above that benchmark, as an explicit sensitivity.

Reproducible formula: $40.481 billion of IRS net income less deficit divided by $257.750 billion of IRS business receipts equals 15.7%. Estimated owner-operator benefit equals scenario revenue multiplied by the scenario margin.

For the 2025 single-territory scenario, the result is an estimated pre-tax owner benefit, not after-tax take-home pay. The IRS net-income benchmark is an all-in Schedule C measure that generally reflects business receipts less deductible business expenses, including depreciation and deductible business interest, while an owner-proprietor's own wage is not deducted as payroll. It is therefore not a pure cash-flow measure. Financing principal payments and personal income taxes are outside the estimate.

• Revenue: 80%, 100%, and 120% of the official 2025 single-territory median Annual Gross Sales.
• Margin: 12.7%, 15.7%, and 18.7%, centered on the IRS specialty trade contractor sole-proprietorship net-income margin.
• Franchise fees: not subtracted a second time because the IRS margin is used as an all-in benchmark; separate fee analysis below shows the known FDD burden.
• Owner labor: included in owner-operator benefit because sole proprietors do not deduct their own salary as an employee wage.
• Taxes and debt: personal income taxes and financing principal are excluded; actual tax treatment depends on entity structure and owner circumstances.

Active ownership can be worth roughly the cost of replacing the owner's full-time General Manager labor, but that labor value is not passive business profit. Item 15 requires an acceptable General Manager to devote full time and best efforts to the business; the General Manager may be an owner or a hired employee. The official Garage Experts franchisee-experience page also describes owners focusing on sales and crew management, with the option to hire a General Manager and salesperson.

For sensitivity only, the manager-run calculation subtracts $105,768, derived from the May 2025 Bureau of Labor Statistics median hourly wage of $50.85 for General and Operations Managers multiplied by 2,080 hours. It excludes employer payroll taxes, benefits, bonuses, and local wage differences.

At the FDD's average Annual Gross Sales of $686,909, the known recurring royalty, advertising, and selected fixed fees total about $105,213 a year before other overhead. This is a compatible calculation from Item 6, not an official owner-earnings figure.

The calculation uses a 6% Continuing Royalty, 1.5% National Advertising Fee, 6% Local Advertising requirement, and midpoint or current annualized amounts for the Technology Fee, Brand Reputation Protection Fee, first-person convention fee, designated bookkeeping, and QuickBooks Online. Because $686,909 is below the first $750,000 royalty threshold, the 6% rate applies to this illustration. The FDD's timing rules can change the effective rate after a threshold is reached.

For the 2025 average single-territory sales level, the fee bridge includes the material recurring amounts that can be reproduced directly from the FDD. At $686,909 of Annual Gross Sales, the 6% Continuing Royalty is about $41,215, the 1.5% National Advertising Fee is about $10,304, and an annualized 6% Local Advertising requirement is about $41,215. The actual local-ad obligation is calculated quarterly from the preceding quarter's Gross Sales and has a first-year minimum, so timing may differ from this annualized illustration. Selected fixed recurring amounts add approximately $12,480.

The fixed figure comprises $5,400 for the first-territory Technology Fee, $480 for the Brand Reputation Protection Fee, $1,500 for one convention attendee, a $4,200 midpoint for designated bookkeeping, and a $900 midpoint for QuickBooks Online. It excludes contingent charges, customer refunds, non-compliance fees, national-account administration, optional training, insurance, vehicle costs, and expenses paid outside the franchisor's fee schedule.

The largest unresolved issue is the absence of a complete, consistently defined operating-expense statement for a clearly separated single-territory format and owner role. Item 19 supplies strong same-brand revenue evidence, but the bridge from gross profit to owner benefit requires external assumptions.

• Format mixing: Standard Territory and Micro-Territory results are not separated, so the revenue benchmark cannot be assigned confidently to either format.
• Owner-role mixing: Item 19 does not identify owner-operated versus manager-run businesses, and owner compensation was excluded from the labor calculation.
• Expense coverage: the gross-profit definition captures reported labor and primary-vendor purchases, but not every possible operating expense or incidental material purchase.
• External benchmark: IRS specialty trade contractors are broader than Garage Experts and include many business sizes, service mixes, maturity levels, and local markets.
• No company-unit proxy: Item 20 reports zero company-owned outlets, so there is no same-brand company-operated operating-margin comparison.
• Financing and taxes: loan structure, interest, depreciation policy, capital expenditures, entity form, and personal tax circumstances can materially change cash retained by the owner.

Item 20 provides useful context but does not resolve profitability. The system ended 2025 with 110 franchised outlets, up from 104 at the start of the year. It recorded 10 openings and four non-renewals in 2025, with no company-owned outlets. Outlet-count movement should be reviewed alongside franchisee interviews, not treated as proof of earnings quality.

The Federal Trade Commission advises buyers to distinguish gross sales from profit, review the basis and scope of Item 19 claims, request written substantiation, and speak with current and former franchisees. See the FTC Consumer's Guide to Buying a Franchise.

A buyer should validate the model against the exact territory format, local staffing plan, and actual franchisee profit-and-loss statements. The $63,000-$140,000 range is decision-useful only as a structured starting point, not as a substitute for written substantiation and comparable franchisee evidence.

• Request the Item 19 written substantiation and reconcile the 52, 58, 46, and 47 single-territory population references.
• Ask for separate performance evidence, if available, for Standard Territory and Micro-Territory owners with comparable years in operation.
• Confirm whether reported labor includes installers, a General Manager, a full-time salesperson, payroll taxes, workers' compensation, and benefits.
• Obtain actual warehouse, vehicle, insurance, fuel, repair, incidental-material, software, bookkeeping, and local-advertising costs in the target market.
• Interview current and former franchisees about owner hours, sales responsibilities, crew management, seasonality, callbacks, warranty work, and cash retained after maintenance capital spending.
• Model debt service separately using the buyer's actual financed amount, interest rate, term, fees, and collateral requirements; do not treat principal repayment as an operating expense.
• Have a qualified tax professional translate pre-tax business benefit into the buyer's entity-specific and jurisdiction-specific tax position without publishing a generic after-tax estimate.