For one mature U.S. brick-and-mortar Huntington Learning Center, the strongest defensible model produces a base estimate near $20,000 per year. This is an independent pre-tax owner-operator benefit estimate, not a franchisor-reported profit figure, and it includes the economic return to work performed by the owner.
This range is an independent analytical scenario. It is not an Item 19 financial performance representation by Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. The model combines 2026 FDD facts with separately identified IRS and BLS benchmarks. Actual results can differ materially because of location, sales volume, tutoring labor, occupancy, financing, owner involvement, variable system fees, and execution.
Legal franchisor: Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. FDD: issued April 16, 2026. Item 19: 2025 Gross Revenue for 232 franchised centers open the entire year; company-owned centers and 21 franchised centers not open all year were excluded. Benchmark sources: IRS 2023 Educational Services sole-proprietorship income statements and BLS May 2025 General and Operations Manager wages for NAICS 611600. The FDD is cited by Item and page because no matching public FDD on an official franchise-controlled domain was verified.
2025 median for all 232 Mature Centers; revenue is not owner earnings.
Centers open for all of 2025 and included in Item 19.
Detailed 2023 Educational Services sole-proprietor expense ratio after removing advertising.
9.5% royalty and 2% advertising fund; required local advertising is separate.
A fixed floor that weighs more heavily on lower-revenue centers.
May 2025 median employee wage for General and Operations Managers in NAICS 611600.
How much may a Huntington Learning Center owner earn annually?
The modeled answer is approximately −$20,000 to $65,000 of annual owner-operator benefit, with a base scenario of about $20,000. These are estimates for a mature franchised center using 2025 FDD revenue anchors, not official profit or salary disclosures.
The negative conservative case means the selected revenue level may not cover the modeled operating burden after the required royalty, advertising fund, local advertising floor, and specified fixed service fees. The positive cases remain before personal income taxes, financing principal payments, and capital expenditures.
Item 19 reports Gross Revenue. It does not report Operating Profit, EBITDA, Net Income, owner salary, distributions, or cash flow. A center with $533,106 of revenue does not give its owner $533,106 of income.
- Owner compensation: The primary estimate does not deduct a wage for the owner. It is therefore labeled owner-operator benefit rather than passive business profit.
- Manager compensation: Excluded from the primary range and shown separately using a BLS wage proxy.
- Interest and depreciation: Reflected only to the extent embedded in the broad IRS benchmark; no Huntington-specific financing assumption is added.
- Debt principal, capital expenditures, and personal taxes: Excluded. The result is not after-tax take-home pay.
What does the 2026 FDD actually measure?
The official disclosure measures 2025 Gross Revenue for 232 franchised Mature Centers, meaning centers open for the entire year. It reports an average of $609,454, a median of $533,106, and a range from $136,567 to $3,093,560, but it does not disclose owner earnings.
The median is the better central anchor for this analysis because the $3.1 million high result pulls the average upward. Only 94 of 232 centers, or 41%, exceeded the average, while 116, or 50%, exceeded the median. Source: 2026 Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. FDD, Item 19, pp. 44–47.
Median Gross Revenue varies sharply by quartile
Official 2025 Item 19 results for four equal groups of 58 Mature Centers.
Interpretation: The quartile medians span more than fourfold. Location-level demand, enrollment conversion, length of stay, pricing, and execution can materially change revenue before costs are considered.
Source: 2026 Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. FDD, Item 19, Tables 19-1 and 19-2, pp. 45–46.
Item 19 excludes 21 franchised centers that were not open for all of 2025 and all company-owned centers. Item 20 separately reports 4 franchised openings, 17 terminations or nonrenewals, 3 franchisor reacquisitions, and 1 other cessation during 2025. The mature-center results therefore should not be treated as a complete picture of startup, closure, or transition-year economics.
How was the owner-earnings range estimated?
The estimate applies an official IRS Educational Services non-advertising expense ratio to three official FDD revenue anchors, then adds Huntington-specific royalty, advertising, and fixed service obligations. The method is reproducible but remains a limited-confidence proxy because the IRS population is broader than staffed, brick-and-mortar tutoring franchises.
The $26,460 fixed-fee amount consists of Training and Technology Services ($16,500), Marketing Communication Program ($1,200), Call Center base fees ($4,980), and Conference Services base fees ($3,780). The model excludes variable Call Center charges, the $5-per-student-hour Platform Fee, future or usage-sensitive Virtual Testing charges, added software, extra licenses, and other center-specific costs. Source: 2026 Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. FDD, Item 6, pp. 9–13.
| Calculation component | Conservative | Base | Upside |
|---|---|---|---|
| FDD revenue anchor | $327,834 | $533,106 | $761,800 |
| IRS non-ad operating expenses at 69.021% | ($226,275) | ($367,956) | ($525,804) |
| Royalty at 9.5% | ($31,144) | ($50,645) | ($72,371) |
| Advertising fund at 2% | ($6,557) | ($10,662) | ($15,236) |
| Required local advertising minimum | ($57,000) | ($57,000) | ($57,000) |
| Annualized fixed FDD service fees | ($26,460) | ($26,460) | ($26,460) |
| Estimated owner-operator benefit | ($19,602) | $20,382 | $64,929 |
- Revenue anchors: Conservative uses the FDD bottom-half median of $327,834; Base uses the all-center median of $533,106; Upside uses the top-half median of $761,800. They are disclosed observations, not probabilities.
- IRS baseline: 2023 Educational Services sole proprietorships reported $16.808 billion of business receipts, $11.896 billion of total deductions, and $294.992 million of advertising expense. Removing advertising from deductions produces the 69.021% non-advertising expense ratio.
- No separate charge for ordinary costs: Rent, wages, supplies, insurance, utilities, interest, and depreciation are not deducted again because they are embedded in the IRS non-advertising expense ratio.
- Compatibility assumption: The model treats the IRS non-advertising ratio as ordinary non-franchisor operating costs, removes the IRS advertising line, then inserts the FDD's $57,000 local minimum, 2% advertising fund, 9.5% royalty, and specified fixed system-service fees. The IRS table does not isolate franchise fees, which is a material limitation.
How does owner involvement change the result?
Owner involvement changes the meaning of the earnings figure because the 2026 FDD requires the Primary Owner to work full-time, year-round, during all open hours for the first two full years after opening the first center. The owner-operator estimate therefore combines residual economics with compensation for substantial management labor.
Item 15 also says the Primary Owner must remain responsible for managing the business and be personally involved in marketing, sales, operations, personnel, and maintenance. Hiring an additional manager does not erase the first-two-year participation requirement. Source: 2026 Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. FDD, Item 15, pp. 36–37.
A separate manager can absorb the modeled owner benefit
Owner-operator benefit compared with residual after subtracting the $72,030 BLS median wage proxy. Values are rounded to the nearest $1,000.
Interpretation: At the three primary revenue anchors, subtracting one median manager wage leaves a negative residual before employer payroll taxes or benefits. At the FDD top-quartile median revenue of $1,016,562, the same model produces about $115,000 of owner-operator benefit and roughly $43,000 after the wage proxy.
Sources: scenario calculation above; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, May 2025 OEWS, General and Operations Managers in NAICS 611600. BLS employee wages exclude self-employed owners and do not represent fully loaded employer cost.
The labor component is not passive profit. If an owner performs the Center Manager role, part of the apparent benefit compensates for full-time work. If the owner hires management, the center must generate enough additional contribution to pay that employee while the Primary Owner still satisfies the franchise agreement.
Which variables can move the earnings range most?
The largest drivers are Gross Revenue, instructional and management labor, the fixed $57,000 advertising floor, occupancy, and variable system charges. The estimate is especially sensitive at lower sales because fixed obligations consume a larger percentage of revenue.
| Variable | Why it matters | Evidence status |
|---|---|---|
| Gross Revenue | Item 19 quartile medians range from $242,341 to $1,016,562. | Official FDD |
| Local advertising | The $57,000 annual minimum is 17.4% of the bottom-half median but 7.5% of the top-half median. | Derived from FDD |
| Labor model | Owner labor is not deducted as a wage in the IRS sole-proprietor baseline; paid management can materially reduce residual profit. | Benchmark limitation |
| Occupancy and local payroll | The FDD does not disclose mature-center rent, teacher payroll, payroll burden, or other operating-expense distributions. | Unresolved |
| Variable required services | Call Center, Platform, Virtual Testing, software, licenses, and usage charges can exceed the fixed amounts modeled. | Official FDD; amount uncertain |
| Financing | Item 10 states the franchisor does not offer or guarantee financing; buyer-specific interest and principal are separate. | Official FDD |
Evidence confidence: LIMITED. The revenue anchors and recurring franchise fees are current same-brand FDD facts, but the earnings conversion relies materially on broad IRS Educational Services sole-proprietor data rather than audited Huntington center expense statements.
What should a buyer verify before relying on this estimate?
A buyer should treat the range as a screening model and replace its assumptions with center-level evidence. The highest-value checks are actual mature-center profit-and-loss statements, owner work hours, staffing structure, occupancy, advertising deployment, and every variable system charge.
- Request the written substantiation supporting 2026 FDD Item 19 and confirm how Gross Revenue was extracted, corrected, and reviewed.
- Ask several current franchisees for 2025 revenue, teacher payroll, manager payroll, rent, local advertising, royalty, advertising fund, technology, Call Center, Conference Services, and owner compensation.
- Separate the owner's market-rate labor value from residual business profit, distributions, retained cash, and tax reporting.
- Interview former franchisees and owners of centers that opened, transferred, closed, were not renewed, or were reacquired; those populations are not represented by the mature-center Item 19 results.
- Model the actual proposed lease, local wage rates, workers' compensation, payroll taxes, benefits, variable Platform and service fees, and financing terms.
- Confirm that any income statement uses the same center format, maturity, period, ownership role, and accounting definitions as the number being compared.
The FTC Franchise Rule Compliance Guide explains the formal role of Item 19 financial performance representations. The official Huntington Learning Center franchise website provides current U.S. franchise-format information, but its marketing statements should not replace the FDD or center-level records.
What is the most defensible takeaway?
The strongest defensible range is approximately −$20,000 to $65,000 per year of estimated owner-operator benefit, with a base case near $20,000 for one mature franchised center. It is scenario-based, not an official Huntington earnings disclosure.
The most important earnings driver is revenue relative to the fixed advertising floor and labor structure. The largest unresolved uncertainty is whether broad IRS sole-proprietor Educational Services expense patterns resemble a staffed Huntington Learning Center in the buyer's market. Before making a decision, verify Item 19 substantiation, center-level P&Ls, owner labor, management payroll, occupancy, variable system fees, and debt service through written records and current and former franchisee interviews.
Primary FDD references: 2026 Huntington Learning Centers, Inc. FDD, Items 5–7, 10, 15, 19, and 20. All monetary figures are U.S. dollars. No after-tax estimate is presented.
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