A defensible annual range for a full-time, single-territory Garage Force owner-operator after the business has completed at least one full calendar year is approximately $31,700 to $132,500 in estimated pre-tax owner-operator benefit, with a base scenario of about $61,400. This is not franchisor-reported owner earnings. It is a Mode C estimate anchored to 2025 Item 19 revenue and product-cost data, the expense profile of one company-operated outlet, and explicit assumptions for costs the FDD does not quantify.
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Ilfrich Integrated Solutions, Inc. It combines identified FDD facts with separately identified benchmark and editorial assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by territory, local demand, project mix, sales conversion, labor, storage or occupancy, supplier pricing, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Publication definition: estimated pre-tax owner earnings means cash available after modeled unit-level operating expenses, current recurring franchise fees, and an equipment-replacement reserve, but before personal income taxes and before financing interest or principal. Accounting depreciation and amortization are not separately deducted. In an owner-operated case, the amount is labeled owner-operator benefit because it includes both residual business profit and compensation for the owner's work.
- Legal franchisor
- Ilfrich Integrated Solutions, Inc., formerly Garage Force International, Inc.
- FDD issuance
- May 20, 2026. Item 19 is on FDD pages 22–27; Item 20 is on pages 27–32. No matching public FDD copy was verified on a franchise-controlled domain, so FDD references are unlinked plain-text citations.
- Item 19 population
- 69 U.S. franchised businesses that were full-time, single-unit, single-territory, continuously operating, and open for at least one full calendar year through December 31, 2025.
- What Item 19 reports
- Gross Revenue, Product Costs, invoices, Average Invoice, and a narrowly defined Average Profit Per Invoice. It does not report full operating profit, EBITDA, net income, owner compensation, or cash flow.
- External benchmark
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics wage data are used only to frame General Manager compensation sensitivity, not to estimate Garage Force revenue or margin.
- Date checked
- July 15, 2026. The official Garage Force U.S. franchise information page was active when checked.
The central Item 19 sales observation for the 69 qualifying franchised businesses.
Only 26 of 69 qualifying businesses exceeded the average, showing that the mean is pulled upward by higher-volume units.
The Item 19 cohort is materially narrower than the full system population reported in Item 20.
Calculated from the 69 Item 19 rows; close to the 29% product-cost ratio shown for the one company-operated outlet.
The nine listed expense categories are incomplete and exclude owner salary and several overhead items.
A 5% Continuing Fee, 1% Branding Fee, and at least 5% local advertising; the current digital marketing fee is credited toward local advertising.
What does the 2026 Garage Force FDD actually measure?
The official evidence measures sales, a limited supplier-product cost, invoice activity, and a contribution-style amount per invoice; it does not measure annual owner earnings. The applicable period is calendar 2025, and the relevant population is 69 full-time, single-unit, single-territory franchised businesses that had completed at least one full calendar year. The average Gross Revenue was $422,998, while the median was $318,744. The disclosed range was $125,096 to $1,301,965. Source: 2026 Garage Force FDD, Item 19, Chart I(A), pp. 23–25.
The FDD's Average Profit Per Invoice is not net profit. Its definition subtracts only Continuing Fees, Branding Fees, and products purchased from Garage Force. It excludes salaries, utilities, taxes, equipment from other suppliers, office or storage space, advertising, insurance, professional services, depreciation or amortization, and miscellaneous operating costs. The reported average was $3,152 per invoice and the median was $3,066, but neither figure is owner take-home pay. Source: 2026 Garage Force FDD, Item 19, Notes 2 and 5, pp. 25–26.
Why is the median a better central anchor than the average?
The median is the more conservative central anchor because the sales distribution is right-skewed. The official average is about $104,000 above the official median, and fewer than 38% of qualifying businesses exceeded the average. For the scenario model, the conservative and upside revenue anchors are derived by sorting all 69 disclosed Gross Revenue observations: the lower-quartile observation is $222,365 and the upper-quartile observation is $546,190. Those quartile labels are calculations from the disclosed unit list, not labels supplied by the franchisor.
What annual owner earnings do the scenarios produce?
The three scenarios produce estimated owner-operator benefit of approximately $31,700, $61,400, and $132,500 a year. These are independent estimates for a full-time single-territory business after at least one full calendar year, not outcomes reported by Garage Force. Each scenario starts with an Item 19 revenue observation and the 39.25% residual left after the one company-operated outlet's nine listed expense categories. The model then deducts an explicit allowance for overhead and equipment replacement that the company-outlet table omits.
| Scenario | Revenue anchor | Modeled benefit margin | Owner-operator benefit |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Conservative Derived lower-quartile Gross Revenue observation |
$222,365 | 14.25% | $31,700 |
|
Base Official FDD median Gross Revenue |
$318,744 | 19.25% | $61,400 |
|
Upside Derived upper-quartile Gross Revenue observation |
$546,190 | 24.25% | $132,500 |
Formula: Revenue × [39.25% residual after the FDD's listed company-outlet expenses − 25, 20, or 15 percentage points for unlisted overhead and capital replacement]. Calculations use full precision and are rounded to the nearest $100 only at publication.
- Official FDD input: Chart II lists Product Cost 29%, labor 14%, Continuing Fee 5%, local advertising 5%, fuel 3%, consumables 0.5%, equipment maintenance 0.25%, Branding Fee 1%, and insurance 3%, totaling 60.75% of Gross Revenue for one company-operated business.
- Editorial scenario assumption: unlisted overhead and capital replacement equal 25 percentage points in the conservative case, 20 points in the base case, and 15 points in the upside case. The declining rate reflects better fixed-cost absorption at higher revenue; it is not an FDD forecast.
- Included through the assumption: office or storage cost, utilities, licensing, professional services, miscellaneous operating cost, the annual Technology Fee, any advertising above the 5% proxy, and an economic equipment-replacement reserve.
- Excluded: personal income taxes, financing interest and principal, owner retirement contributions, discretionary distributions, and accounting depreciation or amortization. Item 10 states that the franchisor does not provide or guarantee financing.
The scenario spread is driven by both the disclosed sales distribution and explicit overhead sensitivity.
Interpretation: this is a range of analytical cases, not a probability distribution. The base case is not presented as the most likely result.
Source and calculation: 2026 Garage Force FDD, Item 19, Charts I(A) and II, pp. 23–27; independent calculations and stated scenario assumptions.
How does active owner involvement change the result?
Active owner operation can convert a large portion of the apparent benefit into compensation for labor rather than passive business profit. Item 15 does not require the owner to work in the business, but it strongly recommends active participation and requires a trained General Manager. Chart II includes 14% labor for a part-time assistant but explicitly excludes owner salary. Therefore, an absentee or manager-run model needs an additional General Manager cost that the official expense proxy does not contain.
The manager-run illustration deducts a $60,000 salary-only General Manager assumption from each owner-operator scenario.
Interpretation: under the $60,000 salary-only assumption, the base manager-run residual is about $1,400 before employer payroll taxes, benefits, debt service, and personal taxes. The business therefore may need materially higher revenue or margin to support non-owner management.
Benchmark context: the BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook for general and operations managers reports a May 2024 national median of $102,950 and a construction-industry median of $105,260. The $60,000 model input is a deliberately lower editorial sensitivity assumption, not a BLS estimate for Garage Force, and excludes employer payroll burden.
Using the broader BLS construction median of $105,260 instead of $60,000 would reduce the modeled manager-run residual to approximately -$73,600, -$43,900, and $27,200 across the conservative, base, and upside cases. Because the BLS occupation covers many employer sizes and management scopes, those values are sensitivity tests rather than franchise-specific hiring forecasts.
Which recurring fees and missing expenses matter most?
The biggest disclosed recurring claims on revenue are supplier Product Costs, labor, the 5% Continuing Fee, the 1% Branding Fee, and the 5% local advertising requirement. Item 6 also lists a current Digital Marketing Fee of $1,000 per month and a current Technology Fee of $500 per year per contiguous territory area. Digital Marketing Fees count toward the 5% local advertising requirement, so this article does not subtract both amounts in full as separate percentages.
| Recurring obligation | Current amount | Treatment in the estimate |
|---|---|---|
| Continuing Fee | 5% of Gross Revenue | Included in the 60.75% company-outlet expense proxy. |
| Branding Fee | 1% of Gross Revenue | Included in the 60.75% proxy. |
| Local advertising | At least 5% of monthly Gross Revenue | Included in the 60.75% proxy. |
| Digital Marketing Fee | $12,000 per year | Credited toward local advertising; any amount above the 5% proxy is absorbed in the overhead allowance. |
| Technology Fee | $500 per year | Included through the overhead allowance. |
Source: 2026 Garage Force FDD, Item 6, pp. 4–7. The $132,900 to $200,600 Item 7 initial investment is startup capital, not an annual operating expense, and is not subtracted from one year of revenue.
Chart II lists insurance at 3% and includes it in the published 60.75% total, but its first footnote also says the chart excludes insurance. This article uses the table's stated 60.75% total rather than silently rewriting it, and treats the inconsistency as a reason for the Limited confidence label. A buyer should request the written Item 19 substantiation and clarify whether insurance is included in the company-outlet percentages.
How reliable is the earnings range?
The range has Limited confidence because the same-brand FDD provides a strong revenue distribution but no complete franchised-unit profit-and-loss statement. The expense bridge comes from one company-operated business, excludes owner salary and named overhead items, and may not be fully comparable with a franchised operator. The FDD states that the Item 19 information was not audited or independently verified.
Population selection is also material. Item 19 excludes 95 businesses that had not completed a full year, 137 that operated seasonally, part-time, absentee, and/or across multiple or larger territories, 17 that were terminated, not renewed, or ceased operations during 2025, and four reacquired businesses. Item 20 reports 301 franchised outlets at year-end 2025, so the 69-unit qualifying cohort represents 22.9% of that count. The current offer is a full-time model; results from older absentee or part-time operating models should not be mixed into this estimate. Source: 2026 Garage Force FDD, Items 19 and 20, pp. 22–32.
Item 20 reports 95 franchised openings, three terminations, one non-renewal, four reacquisitions, and 13 other ceased operations during 2025. Those system movements do not prove why any individual outlet succeeded or failed, but they mean that a buyer should not rely only on the at-least-one-full-year qualifying cohort. Interviews should include newer, lower-volume, transferred, reacquired, and former operators where contact information is available.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this range?
A buyer should replace each scenario assumption with local, written evidence before treating the range as a budget. The FDD says written substantiation for Item 19 will be available on reasonable request. The most useful diligence is a reconciled franchised-unit income statement for comparable full-time, single-territory operators.
- Item 19 substantiation: request the source records, calculation methods, and confirmation of whether Chart II insurance is included or excluded.
- Comparable franchisee P&Ls: ask full-time, single-territory owners for product costs, installer labor, owner hours, advertising, storage, fuel, insurance, professional fees, warranty work, bad debt, and equipment replacement.
- Owner role: separate residual business profit from the market value of sales, estimating, scheduling, installation oversight, and General Manager work performed by the owner.
- Manager-run staffing: obtain a local salary quote plus employer payroll taxes, workers' compensation, benefits, recruiting, and turnover costs; do not use salary alone as total labor cost.
- Territory and sales mix: compare population, travel distance, commercial versus residential work, invoice count, average invoice, seasonality, and customer-acquisition cost with the 69-unit Item 19 cohort.
- Debt and cash needs: model loan interest and principal separately. The FDD estimate does not establish financing terms, and personal taxes depend on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and owner circumstances.
What is the strongest defensible earnings view?
The strongest defensible annual range is approximately $31,700 to $132,500 in scenario-based pre-tax owner-operator benefit, with a $61,400 base case. It is not an official owner-profit disclosure. The most important driver is the combination of Gross Revenue and whether the owner supplies General Manager labor. The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of a complete, comparable franchised-unit P&L covering owner compensation, occupancy, professional services, equipment replacement, and other overhead. Before committing capital, verify the Item 19 substantiation, reconcile actual statements from comparable franchisees, and interview both current and former operators about the labor hours and costs required to produce the disclosed sales.