Estimated annual owner earnings
A defensible planning range for a full-time owner-operator of a U.S. Goosehead Insurance agency is about $73,000 to $130,000 in annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit, with a modeled base case near $100,000. This is not an official Goosehead owner-profit disclosure. It is a Mode C, FDD-anchored scenario built from 2025 same-brand royalty data, the 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, and an official U.S. insurance-agency margin benchmark.
Independent estimate
This range is an independent analytical scenario, not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Goosehead Insurance Agency, LLC. It combines identified FDD facts with separately identified government benchmarks and editorial sensitivity assumptions. Actual results can differ materially by location, sales production, renewal mix, staffing, office costs, financing, owner involvement, and execution.
Data basis and evidence status
The legal franchisor is Goosehead Insurance Agency, LLC. The current U.S. Franchise Disclosure Document was issued March 16, 2026. Item 19 reports franchise-producer gross-revenue and premium measures for activity from January 1, 2023 through December 31, 2025; it does not report agency operating profit, net income, owner compensation, or cash flow. The scenario also uses Goosehead Insurance, Inc.’s 2025 Form 10-K, IRS 2023 nonfarm sole-proprietorship statistics, and BLS 2025 insurance-industry wage data. Checked July 17, 2026.
Owner-operator benefit
SCENARIO. Pre-tax range before debt principal and personal income taxes.
Gross revenue per location
DERIVED. Approximate 2025 system average before royalty fees.
After royalty fees
DERIVED. Before technology, marketing, payroll, occupancy, and other costs.
Industry owner-benefit margin
BENCHMARK. IRS 2023 net income less deficit divided by receipts for sole-proprietor insurance agencies and brokerages.
Manager wage proxy
BENCHMARK. BLS 2025 mean wage for first-line office-support supervisors in NAICS 524.
Franchise producers
OFFICIAL FDD. New-business Item 19 population representing 866 franchised businesses.
Item 19 evidence
What does Goosehead’s 2026 Item 19 actually measure?
Officially, Item 19 measures gross revenue and premium per producer—not owner earnings per agency. The applicable population is franchise producers and corporate producers with one, two, or three full years in a full-time production role during the 2023–2025 measurement window. A producer can be an owner or an employee, and one franchised business can have multiple producers.
For franchise producers, the FDD separates New Business Gross Revenues from Renewal Gross Revenues. These amounts are commissions and permitted agency fees received before the franchisee’s royalty fees and before payroll, occupancy, technology, insurance, marketing, financing, and other operating expenses. Premium is the customer’s insurance premium owed to carriers; it is not agency revenue.
Median gross revenue per franchise producer rises with tenure
Official FDD medians for separate new-business and renewal-producer populations, 2023–2025.
Interpretation: producer tenure is associated with higher disclosed medians, especially renewal revenue. The two series use separate eligible populations, so the medians should not be added and described as an official total.
Source: Goosehead Insurance Agency, LLC 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Item 19, pp. 48–50.
Revenue is not earnings
The Year 3 median of $68,541 in New Business Gross Revenues and $33,020 in Renewal Gross Revenues does not show what an agency owner kept. Item 19 expressly says its figures exclude royalty fees and every other operating cost needed to reach net income or profit.
How broad is the Item 19 sample?
The official sample is broad at the producer level but not directly representative of one owner’s agency-level economics. New-business tables included 1,427 franchise producers representing 866 franchised businesses. Renewal tables included 888 franchise producers. Item 19 then separates tenure groups, regions, top-quarter averages, bottom-quarter averages, medians, highs, and lows.
| Official Item 19 measure | Year 1 median | Year 2 median | Year 3 median |
|---|---|---|---|
| New Business Gross Revenues per franchise producer | $48,841 | $65,663 | $68,541 |
| Renewal Gross Revenues per franchise producer | $5,647 | $16,830 | $33,020 |
| Producers meeting or exceeding new-business average | 37% | 39% | 37% |
| Producers meeting or exceeding renewal average | 28% | 37% | 38% |
Scenario model
How was the $73,000–$130,000 owner-operator range calculated?
The estimate starts with a same-brand 2025 revenue bridge and then applies an official industry owner-benefit margin. It does not convert Item 19 producer medians into agency profit. The base revenue anchor comes from Goosehead’s audited public-company disclosures and the FDD’s contractual royalty rates.
What is the same-brand revenue bridge?
The derived 2025 system average is approximately $466,000 of franchise gross revenue per operating location, before royalties. Goosehead’s 2025 Form 10-K reports $30.153 million of New Business Royalty Fees and $170.767 million of Renewal Royalty Fees. Applying the FDD rates—20% on new business and 50% on renewals—implies approximately $150.765 million of new-business gross revenue and $341.534 million of renewal gross revenue across the franchise system.
Dividing the resulting $492.299 million by the simple average of 1,103 operating franchise locations at December 31, 2024 and 1,009 at December 31, 2025 gives about $466,000 per location. After the $200.920 million of royalty fees, the corresponding amount is about $276,000 per location before technology fees, any marketing contribution, payroll, occupancy, insurance, professional fees, debt costs, and other operating expenses. This denominator is an endpoint average, not a monthly weighted outlet count, so it is approximate.
What margin converts revenue into owner-operator benefit?
The base scenario uses a 36.1% owner-benefit margin applied to revenue after royalty fees. IRS Statistics of Income for tax year 2023 report $33.141 billion of business receipts and $11.977 billion of net income less deficit for sole proprietorships classified as Insurance Agencies and Brokerages. Because a sole proprietor’s own salary is not deducted as employee payroll, this is best interpreted as an owner-operator benefit benchmark rather than passive business profit.
- Revenue spread: Conservative, Base, and Upside use 80%, 100%, and 120% of the derived $466,000 location average. This spread is editorial, not FDD-reported.
- Margin spread: 33.1%, 36.1%, and 39.1%, or three percentage points below and above the IRS benchmark. This sensitivity is editorial.
- Expense treatment: The scenario margin is assumed to absorb ordinary payroll, occupancy, technology, insurance, marketing, professional, and administrative costs. Royalty fees are removed before the margin is applied.
- Excluded: Personal income taxes, financing principal, owner-specific retirement contributions, major capital expenditures, and changes in working capital.
| Scenario | Gross revenue | After royalty fees | Owner-benefit margin | Owner-operator benefit |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Conservative | $373,000 | $221,000 | 33.1% | $73,000 |
| Base | $466,000 | $276,000 | 36.1% | $100,000 |
| Upside | $559,000 | $331,000 | 39.1% | $130,000 |
Model limitation
The IRS benchmark covers U.S. sole-proprietor insurance agencies and brokerages under NAICS 524210, not Goosehead franchisees. Goosehead’s outsourced client-service model, royalty structure, technology requirements, producer mix, and office economics can produce a materially different expense profile. That is the principal reason the evidence-confidence rating is Limited.
Owner role
How much does owner involvement change the result?
Owner involvement can change annual economics by roughly the cost of a qualified full-time manager. The 2026 FDD recommends personal participation but permits manager-run operation when the Manager completes required training and meets licensing and experience requirements. Either the owner or Manager must devote full time and best efforts to the business.
For comparison, the manager-run scenario subtracts the $83,880 BLS 2025 mean annual wage for first-line supervisors or managers of office and administrative support workers in Insurance Carriers and Related Activities. It does not add employer payroll taxes or benefits, so the manager-run residual is likely optimistic.
Owner-operator benefit versus manager-run residual
Annual pre-tax scenario values; manager-run figures subtract the BLS wage proxy only.
Interpretation: at this scale, replacing the owner with a paid Manager can absorb most or all modeled business profit. The active-owner figures include compensation for labor performed and should not be described as passive income.
Sources: Owner-operator scenarios are independent estimates; Manager wage proxy from BLS 2025 NAICS 524 wage data. Goosehead owner-participation rules: 2026 FDD Item 15, pp. 38–39.
- Estimated pre-tax owner earnings
- Cash available after normal operating expenses and recurring franchise fees, before personal income taxes and before financing principal payments.
- Estimated owner-operator benefit
- Residual business income plus the economic value of work performed by the owner. It is not pure passive profit.
- Manager-run residual
- Owner-operator benefit less a market wage proxy for a full-time Manager. Employer payroll taxes and benefits are not included in the chart.
- After-tax take-home pay
- Not estimated. It depends on entity structure, state and local tax rules, deductions, retirement contributions, and the owner’s personal circumstances.
Recurring obligations
Which recurring fees move Goosehead owner earnings most?
Royalty mix is the largest disclosed franchise-specific driver. The 2026 FDD requires the greater of 20% of New Business Gross Revenues or a scheduled Minimum Royalty, plus 50% of Renewal Gross Revenues. As the book matures, renewal revenue can rise while the franchisee keeps only half of renewal commissions.
| Recurring obligation | 2026 FDD term | Scenario treatment |
|---|---|---|
| New Business Royalty Fee | 20% of New Business Gross Revenues, subject to Minimum Royalty | Removed in the same-brand revenue bridge |
| Renewal Royalty Fee | 50% of Renewal Gross Revenues and qualifying rewrites | Removed in the same-brand revenue bridge |
| Technology Fee | $590 monthly for first user; $420 for each additional user | Assumed inside the operating-margin envelope; first-user annual amount is $7,080 |
| Marketing Contribution | Up to 2% of Gross Revenues; not currently required as of the FDD issue date | Not separately charged in the base bridge; a full 2% would equal about $9,300 at base gross revenue |
| Required insurance | FDD estimate of $2,000–$5,000 for the first year | Assumed inside the operating-margin envelope |
Source: Goosehead Insurance Agency, LLC 2026 Franchise Disclosure Document, Items 5–7, pp. 6–18. The initial franchise fee and other startup investment amounts are not treated as annual operating expenses.
Uncertainty
Why should a buyer treat the range as uncertain?
The largest unresolved uncertainty is the absence of same-brand agency-level expense and owner-compensation data. Item 19 is detailed about producer production but does not disclose payroll, occupancy, producer commissions, technology burden, operating profit, owner draws, or distributions by franchised business. The IRS margin is therefore a proxy rather than a Goosehead result.
Item 20 also shows meaningful system movement. The systemwide summary declined from 1,413 franchised outlets at the start of 2023 to 1,009 at the end of 2025. The detailed 2025 state table reports 121 openings, 51 terminations, and 165 outlets that ceased operations for other reasons. The summary and detailed table differ by one ending outlet, which a buyer should ask the franchisor to reconcile. These figures do not prove why any individual agency closed, but they make survivorship and cohort selection material to an earnings assessment.
- Request Item 19 written substantiation and ask for agency-level, not only producer-level, records for the cohort closest to the planned market and staffing model.
- Ask how many producers are attached to the typical mature franchised business and whether the 2025 royalty-derived location average is concentrated among multi-producer agencies.
- Verify local producer compensation, office rent, errors-and-omissions coverage, licensing, payroll burden, and required technology for the exact state.
- Interview current and former franchisees listed in Item 20 about owner hours, manager use, producer turnover, renewal mix, cash distributions, and debt service.
- Reconcile the one-outlet difference between the Item 20 systemwide summary and detailed state table, and ask what “ceased operations—other reasons” represented in 2025.
- Confirm whether a Marketing Contribution will be imposed and obtain the current Minimum Royalty schedule applicable to the buyer’s launch path.
Decision synthesis
What is the strongest defensible earnings answer?
For a full-time Goosehead Insurance owner-operator, approximately $73,000 to $130,000 in annual pre-tax owner-operator benefit is the strongest defensible planning range from the available evidence, with a base scenario near $100,000. The range is scenario-based, not an official Item 19 earnings disclosure. The most important earnings driver is the combination of agency production and the new-business versus renewal royalty mix. The largest uncertainty is the lack of same-brand agency-level operating-expense and owner-compensation data.
A manager-run structure is materially different: subtracting only the BLS wage proxy reduces the modeled residual to roughly negative $11,000 to positive $46,000, before employer payroll taxes, benefits, debt principal, and personal taxes. A buyer should therefore verify Item 19 substantiation, agency-level expenses, producer count, owner hours, and cash distributions directly with Goosehead and with current and former franchisees before treating any scenario as applicable to a specific acquisition.