How Much Does a Gold's Gym Franchise Owner Make?

The official disclosure reports Gross Revenue, not owner profit. The 2026 FDD Item 19 covers calendar years 2024 and 2025 and includes only full-amenity Gold’s Gym Facilities that met its maturity and reporting rules. For 2025, 126 franchised facilities reported a median Gross Revenue of $1.759 million and an average of $1.797 million.

Gross Revenue is the top line used to calculate percentage-based fees. Item 19 expressly says the figures do not deduct payroll, real-estate occupancy, operating expenses, or other costs required to calculate net income or profit. Calling the $1.759 million median “owner income” would therefore be incorrect. The brand’s official U.S. franchise page also directs earnings questions to Item 19, but the current FDD’s actual disclosure remains a revenue representation.

Source: Gold’s Gym Franchise LLC 2026 FDD, Item 19, pages 51–55. Quartiles are historical facility groups, not probabilities or promised performance bands. Franchised data were supplied by franchisees; affiliate-owned data came from internal unaudited financial statements.

Which facilities were included?

The 2025 population is broad but not all-inclusive. Item 19 included 126 of 132 franchised facilities open at year-end. Four were excluded for operating fewer than 12 months and two for not supplying full-year Gross Revenue statements. The FDD calls a facility “mature” once it has operated at least 12 months, while also stating that ramp-up commonly lasts 18 to 24 months.

That definition matters: a 12-to-17-month facility may still be ramping even though it qualifies for Item 19. The model therefore applies to a mature full-amenity facility as defined by the disclosure, not to a new opening’s first year.

Average

$1.797 million for 126 franchised facilities. High-performing facilities can pull this measure upward.

Median

$1.759 million. Half of the reporting franchised facilities were above and half below this central observation.

Population coverage

126 of 132 year-end franchised facilities, or 95.5%, after the stated maturity and reporting exclusions.

Owner count

Not disclosed. Item 19 is per facility, so it cannot be converted into per-owner or portfolio income without ownership assumptions.

The range multiplies official franchised-facility revenue anchors by explicit 10%, 15%, and 20% all-in operating-margin assumptions. Conservative revenue uses the lower-quartile median, the base uses the overall franchised median, and the upside uses the top-quartile median. The quartiles are historical observations; the margin rates are independent sensitivities, not FDD results.

Why use 10% to 20% rather than a published Gold’s Gym margin?

No same-brand operating margin is disclosed, so the margin band is deliberately conservative and visibly editorial. An official comparable-company reference is Planet Fitness, whose 2024 Form 10-K reported approximately 35.1% royalty-adjusted four-wall Adjusted EBITDA for mature corporate-owned clubs after applying its 7% royalty. That metric includes local and national advertising, but Planet Fitness operates a materially different, lower-amenity model. It is an upper-bound context—not a Gold’s Gym margin and not an input copied into the scenarios.

The model places Gold’s Gym at 10% to 20%, well below that proxy, because the FDD describes a full-amenity facility, typically modeled around 25,000 square feet, with potentially greater labor, occupancy, maintenance, utilities, and amenity complexity. The Planet Fitness 2024 Form 10-K should therefore be read only as evidence that gym-level margins can be substantial in a different operating system.

• Conservative margin: 10%. Allows relatively little room after payroll, occupancy, franchise fees, marketing, utilities, cleaning, repairs, insurance, supplies, and administration.
• Base margin: 15%. A neutral analytical midpoint, not a claim that 15% is typical or most likely.
• Upside margin: 20%. Requires stronger revenue conversion and cost control; it remains below the cited comparable-system margin.
• No double charge for marketing. The all-in margins already assume the 2% Marketing Fund contribution and ordinary local marketing. The model does not subtract those costs again.

An active owner who fully replaces a paid facility manager could have an estimated owner-operator benefit of about $189,000 to $675,000, including labor value. This is not pure business profit. It combines the manager-run residual operating cash earnings with $102,950, the U.S. May 2024 median wage for General and Operations Managers reported by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Item 15 does not require the owner or managing owner to work on site, but recommends personal participation. The franchisee must retain direct management control, and the person managing the facility must devote full working time and best efforts to day-to-day, on-premises operation, complete required training, and avoid other active business endeavors. A non-owner employee may serve as manager.

The scenarios include normal unit-level operating expenses and recurring franchise charges, but they are not after-tax take-home pay. The modeled margin is EBITDA-style operating cash earnings: interest, personal income taxes, depreciation, amortization, capital expenditures, and financing principal are outside the figure.

Royalty

Greater of 5% of monthly Gross Revenue or $2,000 per month. At all three scenario revenue levels, the percentage calculation exceeds the stated minimum.

Marketing Fund

Greater of 2% of monthly Gross Revenue or $1,350 per month. The percentage calculation exceeds the minimum in all three scenarios.

Local/cooperative marketing

The FDD permits required cooperative contributions and approved local marketing up to a combined 3% of quarterly Gross Revenue, separate from the Marketing Fund. The scenario margin treats ordinary local marketing as an operating expense.

Manager compensation

Included in manager-run earnings. Added back only as labor value in the owner-operator benefit analysis.

Interest and debt service

Excluded. Item 10 does not provide a standardized financing package, so debt terms cannot be modeled as though every buyer borrows the same amount.

Capital expenditures

Excluded. Equipment replacement, remodels, leasehold work, and other reinvestment can reduce distributable cash even when EBITDA-style earnings are positive.

Personal taxes

Excluded. Entity structure, state, deductions, other income, and owner circumstances determine after-tax outcomes.

Why can financing change the owner’s cash result so much?

The initial capital requirement is large relative to the modeled operating cash range. Item 7 estimates $2.356 million to $5.162 million to open a Gold’s Gym Facility, excluding real-estate purchase costs. That investment is not an annual expense and is not subtracted from one year of revenue, but financing it can create significant interest and principal obligations.

For that reason, $264,000 of base operating cash earnings does not mean the owner can draw $264,000. The facility may need cash for loan payments, equipment replacement, deferred maintenance, working capital, and reserves. Gold’s Gym Franchise LLC states in Item 7 that its estimate excludes finance charges, interest, and debt service.

The largest unresolved variable is the true cost structure of a comparable full-amenity franchised facility. Item 19 provides a strong revenue distribution but no payroll, rent, utilities, manager compensation, maintenance, or profit data. A few percentage points of margin variance can therefore move annual owner earnings by tens of thousands of dollars.

• Occupancy: A 25,000-square-foot facility in an expensive metropolitan market can have materially different rent, common-area charges, property taxes, and utilities than a warehouse-style suburban site.
• Labor model: Staffing levels, wage rates, benefits, personal-training economics, cleaning, front-desk coverage, and management depth can change operating margin substantially.
• Sales mix and retention: Membership dues, personal training, retail, studio programs, pricing, churn, collections, and presale execution affect Gross Revenue quality.
• Amenity burden: Pools, childcare, group exercise, locker rooms, recovery services, and other local offerings can add revenue but also increase labor, maintenance, insurance, and utility costs.
• Facility age: Item 19 accepts facilities after 12 months even though the FDD says ramp-up commonly lasts 18 to 24 months. Remodel and equipment needs may also rise as a location ages.
• Owner capability: An owner-operator can preserve manager payroll only by delivering the required full-time management work. Weak execution can cost more than the wage saved.

Does Item 20 change the confidence level?

Item 20 does not measure earnings, but it adds a material diligence question. The number of franchised outlets fell from 159 at the end of 2024 to 132 at the end of 2025, a net decline of 27. The disclosure also notes post-year-end terminations, a cessation, and a non-renewal closure. These movements do not prove why any individual facility left or whether it was profitable, but they make exit reasons, transfers, territory changes, and cohort comparability important interview topics.

The confidence rating remains Limited: the revenue sample is broad and current, but the earnings conversion relies materially on an external comparable-system reference and editorial margin assumptions. The U.S. Census Bureau’s NAICS 713940 classification confirms the relevant industry as Fitness and Recreational Sports Centers, while the BLS OEWS tables provide official occupation-wage context; neither source supplies Gold’s Gym franchise profit.

A buyer should replace the 10% to 20% sensitivity with actual comparable-facility economics before making an investment decision. Item 19 says written substantiation is available on reasonable request, and Item 20 supplies current and former franchisee contacts. The Federal Trade Commission’s Franchise Rule governs financial performance representations, so undocumented verbal projections should not be treated as evidence.

• Request Item 19 substantiation. Confirm the source files, treatment of refunds, presale revenue, facility age, ownership status, missing reports, and whether the 2025 quartile assignments can be reproduced.
• Interview comparable franchisees. Prioritize full-amenity facilities with similar square footage, rent, wage market, amenities, age, membership pricing, and owner involvement.
• Ask for a normalized profit-and-loss bridge. Separate payroll, manager compensation, occupancy, utilities, repairs, insurance, local marketing, royalty, Marketing Fund, technology/vendor charges, and owner-related expenses.
• Reconcile EBITDA to cash available. Subtract actual interest, principal, equipment replacement, remodel reserves, working-capital needs, and any portfolio overhead.
• Test the owner role honestly. Decide whether the owner will perform the full-time manager function described in Item 15 or whether a trained employee manager must remain in the cost structure.
• Investigate Item 20 changes. Ask current and former franchisees about closures, terminations, non-renewals, transfers, territory changes, and the economics of facilities that left the system.