How Much Does a HoneyBaked Ham Franchise Owner Make?

The FDD reports EBITDA, not an owner's salary or personal take-home pay. For 203 franchised, year-round HoneyBaked Stores, average calendar-year 2024 Net Sales were $961,627 and average EBITDA was $106,752, or 11.1% of Net Sales. The FDD defines EBITDA as earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.

The disclosure is unusually useful because its Other Operating Expenses line includes rent, management salaries, utilities, insurance, royalty fees, Advertising Fund contributions, technology fees, and similar costs. That makes EBITDA a stronger owner-earnings proxy than sales or gross profit, but it still excludes financing interest, debt principal, personal taxes, depreciation, amortization, capital expenditures, and cash reserves for equipment or remodels.

• Net Sales: store revenue after the FDD-defined exclusions. It is not owner income.
• Gross Profit: Net Sales minus Cost of Goods Sold. It remains before hourly labor and Other Operating Expenses.
• EBITDA: residual store-level earnings after the disclosed operating expense categories, but before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization.
• Estimated pre-tax owner earnings: this article treats EBITDA as the closest official business-earnings proxy, then discusses debt service, capital needs, and owner labor separately.

The strongest defensible manager-run benchmark is the official cohort-average EBITDA span of $31,521 to $198,409, with $106,752 as the all-store average. These are historical averages for defined groups, not a forecast, guarantee, minimum, maximum, or probability distribution.

An active owner may capture both residual EBITDA and the economic value of a Store Operator role, but the second component is payment for labor. Item 15 does not require personal day-to-day operation; it strongly encourages owner participation and allows either an owner or a non-owner to serve as Store Operator.

Using the BLS food-service-industry median manager wage of $63,040, the analytical owner-operator benefit is:

• Conservative: $31,521 official EBITDA + $63,040 manager-labor value = $94,561 estimated owner-operator benefit.
• Base: $106,752 official EBITDA + $63,040 manager-labor value = $169,792 estimated owner-operator benefit.
• Upside: $198,409 official EBITDA + $63,040 manager-labor value = $261,449 estimated owner-operator benefit.

The BLS Food Service Managers profile describes the occupation as directing daily operations, staff, budgets, payroll records, food safety, and customer service. The national occupational median was $65,310; the more specific food-services-and-drinking-places median used here was $63,040.

At the all-store average, 88.9% of Net Sales was absorbed by Cost of Goods Sold, hourly labor, and Other Operating Expenses, leaving an 11.1% EBITDA margin. The Other Operating Expenses category already includes management salaries and the material recurring franchise charges identified by the FDD, so those fees must not be subtracted again from the disclosed EBITDA.

The main sales-based obligations are a 6% royalty and a current 4.25% Monthly Marketing Obligation. The marketing obligation currently consists of a 3.25% Advertising Fund contribution and 1% local advertising expenditure, and the FDD permits the total obligation to rise to 5% of Net Sales. The FDD also lists a $2,400 annual CMS Point-of-Sale support and licensing fee for up to four registers and a $152 monthly Technology Fee.

These obligations matter when reviewing a proposed store budget, but they are not additional deductions from the official Table 4 EBITDA because the FDD says royalty, Advertising Fund, technology, and similar expenses are already included in Other Operating Expenses.

The direct EBITDA evidence is strong for a franchise disclosure because it covers 203 franchised stores and uses standardized full-year profit-and-loss statements. The overall confidence rating is HIGH for the historical EBITDA benchmark. It is not HIGH for a particular buyer's forecast because the disclosure does not isolate geography, store age beyond the full-year requirement, owner involvement, occupancy structure, debt load, or local wage conditions.

The FDD excluded four full-year franchised stores that did not provide a year-end statement or did not use the correct format, eight stores that opened during 2024, six that closed during 2024, and four that were acquired by the franchisor's affiliate during 2024. Closed and newly opened stores therefore are not represented in the EBITDA table.

Item 20 shows 212 franchised year-round Stores at the end of fiscal 2025, up from 208 at the start, with eight transfers to new owners during 2025. Those system counts help frame the population but do not prove that an outlet is profitable or that transferred stores performed well.

No. The EBITDA answer applies to year-round franchised HoneyBaked Stores, not Seasonal Stores. Item 19 reports sales for two franchised Seasonal Stores open at least three years, with average and median fiscal-year 2025 Net Sales of $251,827, but it does not disclose Seasonal Store expenses, EBITDA, owner compensation, or cash flow.

A Seasonal Store also depends on a Primary Store for product supply and operates around required holiday seasons, so its economics should not be merged with the year-round Store cohort. A buyer evaluating a Seasonal Store needs separate written substantiation and actual operating records where available.

Debt service, capital spending, taxes, and working-capital needs can reduce cash available for owner draws below EBITDA. The FDD states that the franchisor offers no direct or indirect financing and does not guarantee a note, lease, or obligation, so there is no single FDD-supported financing structure to model.

• Interest: excluded from EBITDA, so financed owners will have lower cash after interest expense.
• Debt principal: not an operating expense and not deducted in EBITDA, but it is a real cash outflow.
• Depreciation and amortization: excluded from EBITDA; they are accounting charges, but the assets they represent eventually require replacement.
• Capital expenditures and reserves: equipment, technology, repairs, and remodel obligations can consume cash even when EBITDA is positive.
• Personal income taxes: not estimated here because outcomes depend on entity structure, jurisdiction, deductions, and owner circumstances.

A buyer should reconcile the Item 19 averages to location-specific rent, labor, holiday sales concentration, management structure, and financing. The FTC requires Item 19 financial performance representations to have a reasonable basis and written substantiation, and the HoneyBaked FDD states that substantiation is available on reasonable request.

• Request written substantiation for Item 19 Table 4 and ask how standardized P&L categories were reviewed for consistency.
• Ask for the proposed location's sales assumptions by month, especially Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Easter, rather than relying only on an annual average.
• Interview franchisees in the below-$700,000, $700,001-$1 million, and above-$1 million sales bands about manager payroll, owner hours, rent, waste, and local advertising.
• Determine whether the seller's forecast includes a paid Store Operator, owner salary, assistant managers, payroll taxes, bonuses, and benefits.
• Build a cash-flow schedule that deducts interest, principal, maintenance capital expenditures, and a working-capital reserve from EBITDA.
• For an existing outlet, obtain actual records for that outlet and compare them with the Item 19 definitions before accepting an earnings claim.

The FTC Franchise Rule describes the required 23-item disclosure framework. The FTC Franchise Rule Compliance Guide explains that Item 19 claims need a reasonable basis, written substantiation, disclosed assumptions, and an actual-results warning.